Bolivia At The Crossroads: Political Vacuum Or Self-Management
Quilombo Libertario | 21.10.2003 00:56
BOLIVIA AT THE CROSSROADS: POLITICAL VACUUM OR SELF-MANAGEMENT
Date Sun, 19 Oct 2003 21:28:09 +0200 (CEST)
Comrades:
Here you’ll find the position of «Quilombo Libertario» on the people’s
insurrection here in Bolivia.
Date Sun, 19 Oct 2003 21:28:09 +0200 (CEST)
Comrades:
Here you’ll find the position of «Quilombo Libertario» on the people’s
insurrection here in Bolivia.
BOLIVIA AT THE CROSSROADS: POLITICAL VACUUM OR SELF-MANAGEMENT
The recent events in Bolivia have to be viewed in context of the emergence
of new social actors: indigenous uprisings, the small traders many in
running their own business, often in the informal sector of the economy,
the farmers be they coca farmers or not, are the new living forces.
During the Anarchist Meeting in Porto Alegre, 2001, we had analysed and
give examples of, the fact that in the closest years the social conflicts
in Bolivia would somehow have to do with the clash of interests between the
indigenous and peasants interests and those of the gas concessions.
This moment is arrived, although there is not the needed and desired
strength building, there is nonetheless processes that are unfolding.
The events were triggered by a series of local conflicts in different
regions of the country; the spark arose from a hunger strike and protest
from the indigenous from the high lands, who demanded the freedom for a
detained leader, while in other parts of the country, different conflicts
were going on.
The arrogance and criminality from the government was such that – while the
indigenous leader was freed and the indigenous demonstrators from western
Bolivia were about to withdraw- it gave the order to the army to get in the
Warisata community, without mercy, provoking a massacre.
It is noteworthy that the Warisata are a community with an extraordinary
tradition in self-management who had began a self-managed education program
back in the 30ies.
>From this moment on, inevitably, the forms of protest became harsher and
more massive and in geometrical progression.
It’s curious to remark that this arrives while the indigenous leaders from
this high plateau region were having their leadership questioned (both
Mallku and his opponent Loayza), because of negotiations about the payment
of electricity in the communities, and other suspicions of corrupt
behaviour.
Something similar was occurring with the ‘cocalero’ leader, Evo Morales,
who was in real risk to loose the leadership of the hermetic peasants
federations of the Chapare (his ‘Bunker’), that began no longer acknowledge
his leading role from the moment he yielded to the “castro-chavism”, which
launched a political campaign in South America.
One month ago, Morales was able to avoid that his party (MAS) suffers a
split between the indigenous sectors who accepted to enter in it and the
high ranking hierarchy of peasant leaders from the same party, a split
which is still at risk, it is only in waiting.
In fact, the indigenous MAS parliament members had announced the division
of the party and their return to the indigenous bases.
Among this confusion, the Warisata massacre, in the middle of the Aymara
plateau (the coca growing farmers almost didn’t participate in these
uprisings), has given oxygen to the above mentioned leaders and both were
able regain political prestige, to the eyes of public opinion.
The situation has become really uncomfortable to the political parties,
given the fact that the streets were full the whole of social sectors and
not only groups, institutions, etc.
This was used for his own benefit by the leader of the once powerful
COB (Bolivian Workers Confederation) who made an appeal to all the sectors
when those – including the miner workers carrying dynamite batons- had
already decided to mobilise themselves in solidarity with the victims and
demanding the destitution of the president Lozada.
This has shown clearly that the bases had gone beyond their leaders. For
the moment being, they have put an halt to their particular demands and
only put forward two general ones:
THE GAS BELONGS TO BOLIVIAN PEOPLE
DESTITUTION OF THE PRESIDENT AT ONCE
In this instance, the city of El Alto (were our comrades have a militant
and active presence), 1000 metres above La Paz, began a march and uprising,
demanding the destitution and suffered a massacre (Sunday).
>From that point on, the conflict was general, with hunger strikes launched
by sectors of the middle-classes, from the clergy, the employees and the
students, forming strike supporting groups all around the country (at the
moment more than 150), evoking 1978, when miners wives started a hunger
strike which became general and ended with the fall of the dictator Banzer.
To this one must add the 34th anniversary of the second petrol and gas
nationalization which belonged to Gulf Oil (the first one was in July
1937, against the Standard Oil, after the Chaco war), in a fight leaded by
one of the most admired social activists in Bolivia:
Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, murdered during the García Mesa coup.
With 70% of the population demonstrating in the streets, one can only
nonetheless speak of an authentic people’s rebellion with insurrectional
character without having a social project, and not able to build one, in a
true revolution.
>From their side, the political opposition and their re-oxygenated leaders
have regained the offensive, with their holy trinity demands:
Constituent Assembly
Referendum on gas
Changes in the Petrol and Gas Bill
Concerning these points our position as anarchists is the following:
- In spite of our differences with their leaders, we have adopted the
principle of the MAXIMUM CONSENSUS with all the social and political forces
from the people’s and opposition side.
- To accept the Constituent Assembly, but grounded in a model of the COB
from the times of its foundation, horizontal and grass-roots participation,
where all the citizens sectors have their say.
This should be an useful space for strength building from the social
forces; to get political experience; knowledge and learning of the present
day productive processes; for taking sides and for debating in pluralism
within the national, regional and international aims; this with the goal of
developing in practice the self-management procedures upon the economy and
the natural resources.
Nevertheless, it is not the first experience of this kind that the Bolivian
people had, and there is the possibility that this Constituent Assembly
becomes a very conflictive space, like in 1971, when the reactionaries and
bosses blocked all the initiatives, so the Constituent Assembly can become
a frustrating process and yielding totalitarian or dictatorial adventures.
Concerning the referendum on the gas issue, it will have a solely political
character, because:
- One must continue to develop the conscience in various segments of the
population, to avoid that to “nationalise” the gas becomes the same as to
“State property and management” of it.
- Self-management of the Natural Resources: the gas and all other resources
must be self-managed, allowing the participation of all the parts of the
population in the general definition of the policies, and establishing the
priorities from which the indigenous communities will benefit, who have
their ancestral territories where those resources are.
We think it is important to create a communication network from and for the
people (like, in the past, the radios of the miners, which were managed by
our comrade Líber Forti) that is able to inform in useful time, supporting
people’s education initiatives and creating the conditions for public
discussions and debates.
Concerning the Petrol and Gas Bill, there is no doubt it is made to benefit
the petrol corporations (and to give subsidies to the great ranch owners)
and disregards the ownership from the indigenous people and their
territories, and therefore, instead of modified, it should be abolished and
a new one built by consensus which is respectful of the above mentioned
principles.
While we write this report, Lozada is writing his resignation letter, and
meanwhile in La Paz 100.000 people debate how one can go ahead, in a sort
of open assembly.
FOR A FREE AND SELF-MANAGED BOLIVIA
HEALTH AND ANARCHY!!
Quilombo Libertario
From: "Sergio Serrate"
[* translator’s note: the text was written some hours before the former
president Lozada resigned. But the contents are substantially as
interesting now as then]
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
News about and of interest to anarchists
http://ainfos.ca/ http://ainfos.ca/index24.html
________________________________________________
The recent events in Bolivia have to be viewed in context of the emergence
of new social actors: indigenous uprisings, the small traders many in
running their own business, often in the informal sector of the economy,
the farmers be they coca farmers or not, are the new living forces.
During the Anarchist Meeting in Porto Alegre, 2001, we had analysed and
give examples of, the fact that in the closest years the social conflicts
in Bolivia would somehow have to do with the clash of interests between the
indigenous and peasants interests and those of the gas concessions.
This moment is arrived, although there is not the needed and desired
strength building, there is nonetheless processes that are unfolding.
The events were triggered by a series of local conflicts in different
regions of the country; the spark arose from a hunger strike and protest
from the indigenous from the high lands, who demanded the freedom for a
detained leader, while in other parts of the country, different conflicts
were going on.
The arrogance and criminality from the government was such that – while the
indigenous leader was freed and the indigenous demonstrators from western
Bolivia were about to withdraw- it gave the order to the army to get in the
Warisata community, without mercy, provoking a massacre.
It is noteworthy that the Warisata are a community with an extraordinary
tradition in self-management who had began a self-managed education program
back in the 30ies.
>From this moment on, inevitably, the forms of protest became harsher and
more massive and in geometrical progression.
It’s curious to remark that this arrives while the indigenous leaders from
this high plateau region were having their leadership questioned (both
Mallku and his opponent Loayza), because of negotiations about the payment
of electricity in the communities, and other suspicions of corrupt
behaviour.
Something similar was occurring with the ‘cocalero’ leader, Evo Morales,
who was in real risk to loose the leadership of the hermetic peasants
federations of the Chapare (his ‘Bunker’), that began no longer acknowledge
his leading role from the moment he yielded to the “castro-chavism”, which
launched a political campaign in South America.
One month ago, Morales was able to avoid that his party (MAS) suffers a
split between the indigenous sectors who accepted to enter in it and the
high ranking hierarchy of peasant leaders from the same party, a split
which is still at risk, it is only in waiting.
In fact, the indigenous MAS parliament members had announced the division
of the party and their return to the indigenous bases.
Among this confusion, the Warisata massacre, in the middle of the Aymara
plateau (the coca growing farmers almost didn’t participate in these
uprisings), has given oxygen to the above mentioned leaders and both were
able regain political prestige, to the eyes of public opinion.
The situation has become really uncomfortable to the political parties,
given the fact that the streets were full the whole of social sectors and
not only groups, institutions, etc.
This was used for his own benefit by the leader of the once powerful
COB (Bolivian Workers Confederation) who made an appeal to all the sectors
when those – including the miner workers carrying dynamite batons- had
already decided to mobilise themselves in solidarity with the victims and
demanding the destitution of the president Lozada.
This has shown clearly that the bases had gone beyond their leaders. For
the moment being, they have put an halt to their particular demands and
only put forward two general ones:
THE GAS BELONGS TO BOLIVIAN PEOPLE
DESTITUTION OF THE PRESIDENT AT ONCE
In this instance, the city of El Alto (were our comrades have a militant
and active presence), 1000 metres above La Paz, began a march and uprising,
demanding the destitution and suffered a massacre (Sunday).
>From that point on, the conflict was general, with hunger strikes launched
by sectors of the middle-classes, from the clergy, the employees and the
students, forming strike supporting groups all around the country (at the
moment more than 150), evoking 1978, when miners wives started a hunger
strike which became general and ended with the fall of the dictator Banzer.
To this one must add the 34th anniversary of the second petrol and gas
nationalization which belonged to Gulf Oil (the first one was in July
1937, against the Standard Oil, after the Chaco war), in a fight leaded by
one of the most admired social activists in Bolivia:
Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, murdered during the García Mesa coup.
With 70% of the population demonstrating in the streets, one can only
nonetheless speak of an authentic people’s rebellion with insurrectional
character without having a social project, and not able to build one, in a
true revolution.
>From their side, the political opposition and their re-oxygenated leaders
have regained the offensive, with their holy trinity demands:
Constituent Assembly
Referendum on gas
Changes in the Petrol and Gas Bill
Concerning these points our position as anarchists is the following:
- In spite of our differences with their leaders, we have adopted the
principle of the MAXIMUM CONSENSUS with all the social and political forces
from the people’s and opposition side.
- To accept the Constituent Assembly, but grounded in a model of the COB
from the times of its foundation, horizontal and grass-roots participation,
where all the citizens sectors have their say.
This should be an useful space for strength building from the social
forces; to get political experience; knowledge and learning of the present
day productive processes; for taking sides and for debating in pluralism
within the national, regional and international aims; this with the goal of
developing in practice the self-management procedures upon the economy and
the natural resources.
Nevertheless, it is not the first experience of this kind that the Bolivian
people had, and there is the possibility that this Constituent Assembly
becomes a very conflictive space, like in 1971, when the reactionaries and
bosses blocked all the initiatives, so the Constituent Assembly can become
a frustrating process and yielding totalitarian or dictatorial adventures.
Concerning the referendum on the gas issue, it will have a solely political
character, because:
- One must continue to develop the conscience in various segments of the
population, to avoid that to “nationalise” the gas becomes the same as to
“State property and management” of it.
- Self-management of the Natural Resources: the gas and all other resources
must be self-managed, allowing the participation of all the parts of the
population in the general definition of the policies, and establishing the
priorities from which the indigenous communities will benefit, who have
their ancestral territories where those resources are.
We think it is important to create a communication network from and for the
people (like, in the past, the radios of the miners, which were managed by
our comrade Líber Forti) that is able to inform in useful time, supporting
people’s education initiatives and creating the conditions for public
discussions and debates.
Concerning the Petrol and Gas Bill, there is no doubt it is made to benefit
the petrol corporations (and to give subsidies to the great ranch owners)
and disregards the ownership from the indigenous people and their
territories, and therefore, instead of modified, it should be abolished and
a new one built by consensus which is respectful of the above mentioned
principles.
While we write this report, Lozada is writing his resignation letter, and
meanwhile in La Paz 100.000 people debate how one can go ahead, in a sort
of open assembly.
FOR A FREE AND SELF-MANAGED BOLIVIA
HEALTH AND ANARCHY!!
Quilombo Libertario
From: "Sergio Serrate"
[* translator’s note: the text was written some hours before the former
president Lozada resigned. But the contents are substantially as
interesting now as then]
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
News about and of interest to anarchists
http://ainfos.ca/ http://ainfos.ca/index24.html ________________________________________________
Quilombo Libertario
Comments
Hide the following comment
Poular Fronts and stagism or permanent revolution?
21.10.2003 12:11
The position of this group is essentially no different to that of the Stalinist and Maoist outfits that still have much influence in South America and which constitute the left wing of the World Social Forum there. They contrast very sharply with the arguments of the Poder Bolivia Obrero, the Communist Wprkers Group of New Zealand's sister group in Bolivia, and show again, eighty years after the confrontation between Trotsky and Stalin, the crucial significance for the global left of the argument between permanent revolution and stagism - between 'socialist revolution by the workers' vs 'revolution by stages in a cross-class alliance'.
Consider the call for "MAXIMUM CONSENSUS with all the social and political forces from the people’s and opposition side". What this means in practice is a Popular Front, ie a continued alliance of the workers and peasants with 'progressive' Bolivian capitalists who have for reasons of their own - usually inability to compete in the global economy - backed the anti-Lozada protests. 'Maximum consensus' actually means revolutionaries compromising with the reactionary beliefs promoted by these Bolivian capitalists - for instance, the rabid anti-Chilean sentiments that have been a feature of protests in some places. Support for a 'UN solution' to the crisis is another backward idea which has its basis in the Bolivian bourgeoisie and middle classes.
Having a Popular Front and looking for 'consensus' with the bosses means abandoning any hope of making a socialist revolution in Bolivia. After all, the bosses aren't going to agree to occupying their own factories and mines, are they? And they aren't going to agree to solidarity with the workers of Chile and other South America countries, are they, when they see these countries as their rivals?
Socialising the Bolivian economy would mean setting up workers' and peasants' councils - soviets - that ran society on the basis of direct democracy. Poder Obrero argues that it is these bodies which revolutionaries should be trying to organise. Steps were taken during the campaign against Lozada when Neighbourhood Assemblies and strike committees were formed. But you can't set up a workers' council in partnership with your boss. That's why those who argue for a Popular Front ignore the need for soviets and argue instead for a Consituent Assembly:
"To accept the Constituent Assembly, but grounded in a model of the COB from the times of its foundation, horizontal and grass-roots participation,
where all the citizens sectors have their say."
A CA is the highest form of capitalist democracy - it has broad powers to write or rewrite constitutions and it can even have recallable members. But it is still a capitalist parliament, based on capitalist property relations. It has no power to socialise property. A CA has often been used as a ruse by ruling classes desperate to get revolutionary workers off their backs - the anarchists themselves cite the CA which was set up in 1971 in Bolivia, and will noticeably failed to do anything to change the structure of Bolivian society.
Perhaps aware of the bankruptcy of their position, the anarchists try to fudge on the nature of the CA, suggesting that it could have some of the virtues of soviets - that it could be 'horizontal and grass-roots' etc This is an old and extremely dishonest argument - it goes back at least to the German revolution of 1918-19, when social democratic guru Karl Kautsky reacted to the formation of soviets in Germany by suggesting that a capitalist parliament could continue to exist alongside them, as a 'moderating' influence.
Like the Bolivian anarchists, Kautsky wanted to find a consensus between 'progressive' bosses and workers. But revolutions happen because of the incompatibility of the interests of capital and labour. The CWG's sister group Poder Bolivia Obrero argues that if the US invaded Bolivia it would be right for Bolivian workers to make a 'military bloc' with any bosses who wanted to resist, keeping their organisational independence and pointing their guns in the same direction, but that for revolutionary workers to surrender their organisational independence and water down their ideas in a Popular Front with their bosses is suicidal. Here are some excerpts from a statement drafted by the CWG and seven other organisations and distributed in Bolivia by Poder Obrero which show the alternative to the Popular Frontism of the World Social Forum and its anarchist fellow travellers:
"The only way...to stop the
plundering of gas and the natural resources of the
country, and to win bread, work, land, living wages,
and the right to cultivate coca, is to open up a
victorious revolution with the general strike and road
blockages, taking control of the factories, the banks,
the transport...by re-nationalizing without payment and
under workers’ control the gas, the oil, the mines,
and all the privatized enterprises; by expropriating
imperialism in general and breaking with the IMF, the
World Bank and the IDB (International Development
Bank); by imposing the free production and marketing
of the coca, the provision of agricultural machinery,
the cancelling of the debts and the granting of cheap
credit to the ruined small producers of the country,
through expropriating and nationalising the banks
under workers’ control and the creation of a single
official bank; by nationalizing foreign trade; and by
taking every measure to guarantee work, decent wages,
health and education for the people...
To carry this decisive combat forward, the United
National Leadership, the COB and all the workers’ and
peasants’ organizations that take part in it must
fight for the dissolution and disarmament of the
police and the army and the construction and
centralization of workers’ and peasants’ armed
militia. This is the only way to destroy the army – a
key pillar of the military-backed regime and of the
state –at the same time calling upon the rank and file
soldiers and the subordinate officers of the army
–sons of workers and peasants –to rebel against the
West Point caste of sepoy officers, to disarm and
destroy it, and to organize themselves in committees
of armed soldiers, to coordinate with the workers’ and
peasants’ organizations and to join the general
strike, putting their weapons in the service of the
workers’ and peasants’ militia...
It is necessary to stop the unity created in the
struggle of the workers and the peasants from being
broken by the reformist leaderships, and from
allowing the energy, the struggle and the blood of the
workers and the peasants to be abused by these leaders
to establish new truces and pacts with the bosses,
and, in this way, to save the government and its
military backers.
The only way forward for the masses
is to create the widest direct democracy, with a
workers’ and peasants’ national Congress of rank and
file delegates who are democratically elected,
mandated and recallable, in the COB and all the
workers’ and peasants organizations that are part of
the United National Leadership. At the same time, in
every village, every city, in every region, it is
necessary to set up strike committees with elected
delegates of all the organizations in struggle which
become a true workers’ and peasants’ power. This
National Congress, a true workers’ and peasants’
parliament - opposed to the power of the exploiters -
would become an organization respected by all the
masses in struggle, and with an enormous authority to
guarantee the construction of workers’ and peasants’
militias, to advance workers’ and peasants’ control
over production and distribution...
...the road confronting the Bolivian masses
today, the one that Fidel Castro imposes, along with
the union bureaucracies of the continent, the leaders
of the organizations the peasant’ unions, and all the
reformist leaders of the World Social Forum, is one of
deals and class collaboration with pro-imperialistic
popular fronts like that of Lula in Brazil, of colonel
Gutiérrez in Ecuador, and President Lagos in Chile; or
with the supposed "anti-neoliberal" governments like
the one of Kirchner in Argentina, all servile lackeys
of Bush and the IMF; or with the bourgeois nationalist
governments, like the one of Chávez in Venezuela,
which use the masses’ fight to blackmail concessions
from imperialism, only to turn on the workers as soon
as they threaten to erupt into revolution..."
Not talk of 'consensus' or a Constituent Assembly there!
My view is that despite all their self-differentiating rhetoric (we're not like those reds with their authoritarian complexes etc etc), anarchists cannot escape the hoary old choice between stagism and permanent revolution as strategies for revolution in the Third World. As revolutionary situations have opened up across South America anarchists have jumped into either one camp or the other (consider Venezuela, where many are siding with the Stalinists and taking a completely uncritical, stagist approach to Chavez, or Argentina, where the Libertarian Socialist Organisation has a position of revolution without stages very similar to that of the CWG's sister group Workers Democracy).
It should be noted, of course, that a lot of 'Trotskyists' have jumped the wrong way, and some are now helping prop up the governments of Lula and Chavez and using stagist arguments in self-defence. The CWG and similar groups use the label 'left Trotskyist' to distinguish ourselves from these rotten groups (represented in NZ, of course, by the SWO), which we acknowledge give Trotskyism an awful name. In the same way, healthy 'left' anarchist groups should criticise those anarchists who have fallen for Popular Fronts and stagism.
Cheers
Scott
Scott (CWGNZ)
e-mail:
shamresearch@yahoo.co.nz