Federico Fuentes
Tension is rising in Bolivia, South America's poorest country, as a July 18 referendum on the future of the country's natural gas industry approaches. Nationalisation of the gas reserves was the central demand of the mass insurrection last October that led President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to resign and flee to Miami. He was replaced as president by Carlos Mesa, his vice-president.
In the July 18 referendum Bolivians will be asked to vote on five questions, but the option of nationalisation, supported by 81% of the population, has not been included.
Since the beginning of May, Bolivia's main trade union federation, the COB (Central Obrero de Bolivia) and the CSUTCB, the confederation of peasant unions headed by Felipe Quispe, have organised mass demonstrations, road blockades and strikes in opposition to Mesa's refusal to nationalise the country's gas reserves.
The two organisations, which led last October's popular revolt, have called for a combination of strikes and road blockades in the two days before, and on the day of, the referendum, as well as a boycott of the poll.
On June 29, Quispe declared that if Mesa "does not change the questions of the referendum, the peasants of the Altiplano will burn the ballot boxes". Quispe, who is also the leader of the indigenous party MIP, resigned in early June from Mesa's cabinet saying that he could "not be a member of a body that's accomplice with multinationals and the US".
Despite having gas reserves totalling at least 1.4 trillion cubic metres, worth about US$100 billion, at least 80% of Bolivians live on less than US$2 a day. Lozada's government had signed an agreement with the Pacific LNG consortium — dominated by Repsol YPF, Spain's largest oil company, and the giant British-owned BG Group — under which the Bolivian state would have received only 18% of the US$1.5 billion in annual income expected to be generated from gas exports to the United States.
When he took over from Lozada as president, Mesa pledged to put the proposal for the nationalisation of gas to a popular referendum. However, the current referendum, which has been supported by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Pacific LNG, has only offered a choice between Lozada's wholesale privatisation policy and Mesa's policy which involves the Bolivian state recovering "well-head" property rights.
The US embassy, the church hierarchy, the media corporations and other business groups, as well as all the political parties which supported Lozada have also signalled their support for the referendum.
On June 3, Mesa claimed that nationalisation of Bolivia's gas industry would amount to "declaring war on the world". He has promised that all contracts with the oil and gas corporations would be respected, ensuring their continued ownership of gas and oil reserves for the next 36 years.
The referendum is also being backed by Evo Morales, leader of the Movement to Socialism (MAS). In the last presidential election, in 2002, Morales came a close second to Lozada. Having played an ambivalent role in the October uprising, since then Morales has supported Mesa's government.
On July 7, Morales began a campaign to encourage participation in the referendum. "Those who boycott and oppose the referendum are defending the policies of ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada", said Morales.
Morales' drift to the right has caused fractures in the MAS, a party which began as a political organisation of the cocaleros (coca growers). They have been struggling against the US-imposed coca eradication program which threatens to take away their livelihood.
In opposition to Morales, 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the MAS and its supporters have joined in the protests against the referendum. In el Alto, local leaders of the MAS, after initially hesitating, have come out in support of strike actions and road blockades. Similarly, cocaleros in the MAS stronghold of Yungas, north of the capital La Paz, are set to join in the protests by blockading roads from July 15.
"Anyone who intends to boycott the referendum will be detained", interior minister Gregorio Lanza threatened on July 7. The armed forces and police have been deployed through out the Altiplano region in an attempt to intimidate anyone for erecting road blockades and to identify and detain leaders of the referendum boycott campaign.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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