On May 1, President Evo Morales expelled USAID from Bolivia for allegedly fomenting divisions within the country’s social movements in order to destabilize his government. The announcement came just days after Bolivia’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that Morales can run for a third presidential term in 2014. The well-timed decisions could have important implications for Bolivia’s political future.

[Morales expels USAID. Credit: La Razón]

While USAID has funded health, educational, agricultural, and environmental projects in Bolivia for 50 years, its political agenda has long been suspect, especially in relation to  Morales. As Kathryn Ledebur of Bolivia’s Andean Information Network notes, the agency’s alternative development programs in the Chapare region during the 1990s required coca growers to eradicate their crops and abandon their unions before receiving assistance, working to undermine the cocalero movement headed by Morales.  In 2002, USAID funded a political project to counter Morales’s incipient MAS (Movement Toward Socialism) party.

After Morales’s election, USAID funding for “democracy promotion” bolstered pro-autonomy regional governments in the eastern lowlands that formed the core of the conservative opposition, working to destabilize the MAS government. These activities prompted Morales to expel the US ambassador to Bolivia in 2008, followed by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) in 2009. USAID was ousted from the Chapare in 2008.

More recently, MAS government officials have accused USAID of funding popular organizations that oppose Morales’s policies, including the lowlands indigenous federation that has spearheaded resistance to the proposed TIPNIS highway. For indigenous groups, these accusations are a tactic to delegitimize social protest activities. Critics note that a wide range of organizations and programs in Bolivia, including the official Coordinating Unit for the Constituent Assembly (which drafted the 2009 Constitution) have benefitted from USAID funding, while maintaining their political independence. Says ex-Minister of Education Félix Patzi, “Accusing international organizations is a way of avoiding the conflict between the Bolivian government and social and labor organizations, and shows a lack of political clarity.”

While the government has not tied the rupture to any specific recent incident, it has alluded generally to 8 projects, identified in 2011, in which USAID allegedly conspired to divide social sectors against Morales. For its part, USAID has denied all accusations of political interference.

[USAID expelled from Chapare, 2008. Credit: Página Siete]

The lack of transparency and accountability in USAID funding has been a long-standing bone of contention. In November 2011, the United States and Bolivia signed a much-heralded “framework agreement” restoring diplomatic ties between the two countries and purporting to establish a new collaborative direction for assistance based on mutual respect for national sovereignty. The status of this agreement is now uncertain.

Given this legacy of mistrust, recent commentators have suggested that the question is not why Morales expelled USAID, but why he did not do it sooner. The more relevant question for Bolivia is, why did he do it just now?

For one thing, the timing was propitious internationally. Last June, following the coup in Paraguay, the ALBA group of nations signed a declaration advocating the expulsion of USAID by their member governments. In October, Russia ousted USAID for alleged political interference. Secretary of State John Kerry’s infamous reference to Latin America as the US’ “backyard” revived a wave of anti-imperialist outrage throughout the region.

For another, with USAID funding now drastically reduced—from $92 million in 2008 to an estimated $14 million in 2014 (for both political and economic reasons)—the financial  impact of the rupture will be relatively minimal. Morales has promised to absorb the cost of USAID’s social programs. Given the current strength of Bolivia’s economy, which has enjoyed 7 consecutive years of fiscal surplus, this commitment seems feasible.

[Credit: La Razón]

Most important, now that the Constitutional Tribunal has cleared the way for Morales to run for a third term in December 2014, Bolivia is in full presidential campaign mode. Stoking the fires of nationalism against an internationalist threat – real or imagined—is a time-honored electoral strategy in Bolivia (and elsewhere).

Recent charges by a prominent MAS deputy that USAID is promoting and financing a united opposition bloc for the 2014 elections are certainly plausible, though no evidence has been offered. Still, as ex-MAS cabinet minister Alejandro Almaraz argues, expelling an agency that is merely a shadow of its former self may be little more than a show of “symbolic anti-imperialism.” (The Economist reports that USAID was already planning to close its monumental offices in La Paz and operate through a skeleton staff in the US Embassy.)

In any case, the expulsion of USAID also provides a convenient distraction from the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision, which itself has been controversial. The court ruled that Morales could seek a third consecutive term, even though the 2009 Constitution allows only two, on the grounds that his first election (in 2004) took place under a previous constitution. The ruling dismissed a clause in the new Constitution stating that any prior mandate must be taken into account in computing the allowable term. This transitional provision, the court reasoned, does not apply to Morales because his original mandate did not carry over into the new Constitution (instead, Morales cut his first term short by one year and was re-elected in 2009 under the new Constitutional regime).

While the legality of the issue has been settled, questions of legitimacy remain. Critics, including constitutional scholars, journalists, ex-MAS dissidents, former president Carlos Mesa, and recent MAS president of the Chamber of Deputies Rebeca Delgado, question the logic of the court’s ruling (an advisory opinion sought by the MAS-dominated legislature from the MAS-dominated, but popularly elected, judicial body), and argue that Morales should have sought a Constitutional amendment before running for a third term.

[TCP announces ruling. Credit: Yuvert Donasio, La Razón]

They point to the history of the Constitution’s transitional provision, which resulted from a political compromise between the opposition party PODEMOS and the MAS in 2008 to secure the legislative votes needed for a popular referendum on the Constitution. Limiting Morales to a total of two presidential terms was an explicit part of that compromise, as demonstrated by a widely circulated video in which Morales publicly renounced a third term, and his personal ambition, in a grand gesture of generosity “for the unity of the nation.” This view is also supported by international observers of the Constituent Assembly process who were present in Bolivia at the time.

Based on current polls, which give Morales 60% support in the departmental capitals and 76% in rural areas, a referendum in favor of a constitutional amendment would likely have prevailed. In avoiding the constitutional route, critics argue, Morales deceived not only the then-political opposition, but the Bolivian people, who voted to support the consensus Constitution, including its term limits compromises, by a margin of 61%.

For the upcoming election, Morales has publicly announced that he hopes to achieve an ambitious mandate of 74%, topping his previous votes of 54% in 2005 and 64% in 2009. Whether the expulsion of USAID and the court’s favorable ruling will help or hinder this goal remains to be seen.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has promised to eliminate extreme poverty in the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), before taking any further steps to design, fund, and build the controversial highway that would bisect the reserve. The decision is expected to put the highway on hold for three years, until the end of 2015.

The surprise announcement comes as lowlands indigenous groups and their supporters continue to challenge the highway on a variety of fronts, and as Bolivia gears up for the 2014 presidential elections. Morales is again the declared candidate of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, notwithstanding the current controversy over whether a third presidential term is constitutionally permissible.

[Poverty in the TIPNIS. Credit: La Razón]

The Morales government has committed $14 million over the next two years for basic services (water, electricity, health, and education), transportation, telecommunications, natural disaster prevention, and sustainable development projects in the TIPNIS. According to Juan Ramón Quintana, who is overseeing the anti-poverty effort, more than $2 million has already been invested (presumably reflecting the government’s widespread practice of delivering outboard motors, chainsaws, solar panels, electric generators, and similar benefits to communities during the official consultation process on the TIPNIS road, which has been highly controversial).

By October, says Quintana, the TIPNIS will be the first indigenous territory to achieve 100% documentation, through the distribution of birth certificates and identity cards to every inhabitant. An “ecological regiment” has been launched to carry out park security, ecotourism, sustainable development, and training activities for indigenous youth.

While MAS deputies initially announced that the legislature would not seek to initiate or modify any existing laws affecting the TIPNIS during the three-year period, Quintana has suggested that the law protecting the reserve’s “untouchable” status will need to be altered or substituted, in accordance with the ”mandate” of theconsulta. According to official reports, all but one of the TIPNIS communities participating in the consultavoted to overturn the “untouchability” law—which the Morales government interprets as precluding sustainable development activities by native groups as well as major development projects like the highway.

The decision to prioritize anti-poverty efforts, government officials say, is a direct response to community demands articulated during the consulta process. Still, TIPNIS leaders remain skeptical. According to Adolfo Chávez, ending extreme poverty in the TIPNIS will require a deliberate strategy to enhance each community’s particular sustainable development initiatives, with the government guaranteeing prices and markets, and will cost at least three times as much as the amount promised. For Fernando Vargas, the program is little more than a strategy to guarantee eventual construction of the TIPNIS highway.

Alejandro Almaraz, former Minister of Lands in the Morales government who strongly opposes the TIPNIS road, sees the announcement as an admission of defeat by Morales. Despite exhaustive and multi-pronged efforts, he argues, the government has been unable to achieve the necessary social and legal conditions to construct the road. Morales will not be able to deliver the TIPNIS highway “like it or not, in the current adminstration,” as he famously promised in 2011.

The continuing polarization around the TIPNIS highway was evident last month in Washington DC, when TIPNIS leaders denounced the proposed highway and the consulta process before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). A counter-delegation of government officials and pro-government indigenous leaders presented the government’s point of view. Morales (along with Ecuador, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) has threatened to withdraw from the IACHR on the grounds that it reflects the ideology and priorities of its primary donors, the United States and Europe, and has been unduly critical of left-leaning Latin American governments.

[Vargas protests travel restrictions. Credit: La Razón]

The Catholic Church, which recently issued a report critical of the consulta process, has come under attack by pro-MAS groups and government officials. The pro-road CONISUR (an indigenous governing authority in the southern section of the park) has threatened to take over church lands within the TIPNIS and bar church representatives from entering the reserve. TIPNIS leaders also charge that increased militarization of the park has restricted their freedom of movement, forcing delays in a recent territory-wide congress when indigenous authorities could not get fuel, or permission from the Navy, for river travel.

Recent revelations in the Chaparina case—the official judicial investigation into the police repression of TIPNIS marchers in September 2011, which has dragged on for more than a year, with little progress—have also reignited tensions. Vice-President Alvaro García Linera has testified that neither he, Morales, nor then-Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti, had prior knowledge of the police intervention or know who gave the order to intervene—contradicting his earlier press statement that the government knows what happened.

Ex-Defense Minister Cecilia Chacón, who resigned in protest after Chaparina, has testified that Morales and other high-level cabinet officials were monitoring events by telephone immediately following the incident as the marchers were being evacuated—raising questions as to why the police were not ordered to retreat. The official government narrative, which holds that the police broke the “chain of command,” has been challenged by Bolivia’s human rights ombudsman, whose report points a finger at Llorenti. Llorenti has been officially excluded from the investigation and currently serves as Bolivia’s representative to the UN.

[Police repression, Chaparina. Credit: Erbol]

On the political and electoral fronts, the fallout from the TIPNIS crisis to date has been inconclusive. In the special Beni gubernatorial election last January, the conservative coalition candidate prevailed with 52% of the vote, but the MAS candidate gained 44% —a significant increase compared to the party’s 7% support registered in 2005. In the two provinces where the TIPNIS is located, MAS won 56% and 69% of the vote, respectively—further evidencing indigenous support for the road (for Morales), or the effectiveness of the government’s gifting campaign (for Adolfo Chávez).

Indigenous leader and ex-MAS deputy Pedro Nuni, who ran independently for governor, gained only 2.65% of the vote. Nuni is now the Secretary of Indigenous Development in the conservative Beni administration. Miriam Yuvanore, a survivor of the TIPNIS police attack (whose iconic photo, showing her bound and gagged, has become a symbol of the event) is heading the TIPNIS subgovernment unit created by the new Beni governor.

As for the 2014 elections, both the original lowlands indigenous federation CIDOB (now challenged by a rival pro-government organization) and the highland indigenous federation CONAMAQ have announced that they will remain independent of any established political party. This represents the final rupture of the Unity Pact, the broad alliance of peasant and indigenous movements that have supported the MAS and Morales since 2005. TheCOB (Bolivian Workers Central) is in the process of creating its own political party.

Still, recent opinion polls show Morales maintaining a 59% support level in the major cities, apart from rural areas which are his major political base, with no viable challenger in sight. Putting the TIPNIS road on hold and defusing the conflict for a few years may be an insurance policy to guarantee his reelection. But whether the elimination of extreme poverty—if truly achieved—will represent a genuine or a Pyrrhic victory for inhabitants of the TIPNIS, only to be undermined later by construction of the highway, remains to be seen.

Interviews with members of the Union of Child and Adolescent Workers of Bolivia (UNATsBO) reveal some of the reasons why children in Bolivia work and the kinds of conditions they have to work in. These children are fighting for their right to work because they need to contribute to their families buduget or fund their schooling. But this doesn’t mean they want to accept working in dangerous conditions.

“Hundreds of thousands of children work in Bolivia even though the minimum working age is 14. But as most of them have to help support their families, they depend on their jobs. Some have united to improve their lives”…..

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Land reform in Bolivia, and the promise of land redistribution from wealthy latifundistas and agrobusiness elites to poor farmers and indigenous communities, has been a hallmark of President Evo Morales’s administration. Recent data from the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) provide a useful picture of what the Morales government has accomplished to date, as well as the unfinished business that lies ahead.

[Credit: anbolivia.blogspot.com]

According to INRA, 157 million acres of land have been surveyed and titled since 1996 under Bolivia’s land regularization laws, benefiting more than 1 million people. Some 134 million acres, or 85%, have been titled during the last seven years under Morales, compared to just 23 million between 1996 and 2005 under past neoliberal governments.

One-third of all regularized land is now held collectively by indigenous and peasant organizations in the form of self-governing Native Community Lands (TCOs or TIOCs)—primarily, but by no means exclusively, in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands. Another 22% is owned in the form of individual or family plots by small farmers and “colonizers” (western highland farmers who have resettled in the lowlands). Together, peasants and indigenous communities hold 88 million acres of titled land (55%), more than double the amount they controlled in 1992, according to INRA.

Another 57 million acres (37%) of regularized land is now titled to the Bolivian government—a virtually non-existent category pre-INRA. Of this total, some 3.5 million acres has been redistributed to peasant and indigenous groups, benefiting 11,373 families and 271 communities—virtually all under Morales. Another 11.6 million acres is potentially available for redistribution (most state lands, protected as forests and national parks, are not available). The remaining 7% of titled land is owned by large and medium-sized owners.

Of the 290,000 land titles issued, more than 90% have been issued under Morales. Almost one-quarter have been granted to women, and another 37% to men and women jointly. This marks an historic shift for Bolivia, where women have long been excluded from land ownership.

[Land titling, Pucarani, La Paz. Credit: inra.gob.bo]

Still, the pace of land titling has fallen short of legal requirements and popular expectations. The amount of land regularized to date represents only 60% of the total 262 million acres in Bolivia that is legally required to be titled by October 2013. INRA officials say they will need another five years to complete the process, with the most complicated and conflicted ownership situations yet to be addressed.

Critics, including Juan Carlos Rojas, former director of INRA under Morales, charge that the land titling and redistribution process has slowed considerably in the last couple of years. The data shows between June 2011 and October 2012, only 11 million acres were titled—less than half the average annual rate achieved under the first five years of the Morales government (based on Rojas’s statistics). Additionally, in 2012 only 136,000 acres of government land were redistributed (to peasant and indigenous communities), compared to an annual average of 222,000 acres over the previous 6 years.

Growing pressures for land redistribution and conflicts between social sectors over land have posed major challenges for the Morales government. Western highlands campesinos, representing 70% of Bolivia’s rural population, are increasingly land-poor, as their “minifundios” (small parcels) secured in the 1952 Revolution have been compromised by subdivision over successive generations—and more recently, by climate change. Many have migrated to the eastern lowlands and settled on the fringes of protected areas, clashing with indigenous groups who regard these territories as their ancestral lands. A case in point is the ongoing TIPNIS highway controversy, fueled in large part by a conflict over land.

[Rural Cochabamba. Credit: inra.gob.bo]

Increasingly, peasant and settler organizations view lowland indigenous groups as the “new latifundistas,” controlling vast tracts of seemingly idle land (through their TCOs and TIOCs) while they themselves have little. In part, this reflects a contrast in worldviews and economies between nomadic lowland peoples, who regard their territory as a collective resource to support fishing, hunting, and other subsistence activities, and highlandcampesinos, who see land as belonging to those who use it productively.Campesino groups also resent the current legal prohibition against redistributing state lands through individual and family titles, their traditional form of ownership.

According to the NGO Fundación Tierra, much of the 11.6 million acres of state land that could be made available for redistribution is compromised and not suitable for productive use. Still, vast tracts of desirable agricultural land in the eastern lowlands continue to be held by agrobusiness and ranching elites (including many foreigners)—dating back to the 1970s, when military dictators awarded patronage land grants to their political cronies to promote export agriculture. While holdings that predate the 2009 Constitution are exempt from the legal limit of 12,350 acres, critics argue that much of this land is speculatively held, not serving a socioeconomic purpose as required by law, and could be reclaimed by the government through an aggressive land titling process.

By some estimates, the Morales government has seized around 25 million acres from owners who have failed to demonstrate a productive or legal use of their land, including several high profile cases involving debt servitude, fraudulent deeds, or obvious lack of investment by conservative political opponents. Still, there is growing concern that the government’s new focus on agroindustrial productivity has compromised its willingness to confront large estate holders, and its commitment to land redistribution in general.

[Land titling, Oruro. Credit: inra.gob.bo]

In an effort to promote food security and expand the agricultural frontier, Morales has recently sought to forge alliances with the agro-business sector. A new law could exempt more than 12 million acres of illegally deforested land (outside the national parks) from reverting to the state, if owners pay a small fine and commit to agricultural reuse.  To facilitate owners’ access to credit, the government has also agreed to suspend until 2018 the verification process required to determine whether land holdings are serving a socioeconomic purpose (it’s currently unclear whether this controversial proposal has been modified to exclude the largest estate holders).

For Rojas, such measures suggest “not only [that] the process of agricultural transformation [has] stalled, but that there is the risk of it being reversed.” In any case, they will serve to intensify the current conflict between highland  campesinosand lowland indigenous groups over Bolivia’s land policy. A law proposed by the national peasant organizations would legitimize illegal settlements in protected areas such as the TIPNIS, allow the reversion of indigenous lands, and permit private ownership of redistributed state lands—confirming the worst fears of lowland indigenous groups.

Unless the Morales government is willing to confront the twin challenges of the minifundio and the latifiundiothrough a more aggressive and strategic land redistribution policy, the growing controversy over land could shape up to be even more powerful than the TIPNIS conflict.

Emily Achtenberg is an urban planner and the author of NACLA’s weekly blog Rebel Currents, covering Latin American social movements and progressive governments (nacla.org/blog/rebel-currents).

Abstract: 

Coca Leaf Bolivia (credit: Sara Shahriari)

The Morales administration has also made significant progress facing the ongoing challenges of drug production and trafficking. Seizures of coca paste and cocaine and destruction of drug laboratories have steadily increased since President Morales took office. Despite continued tensions in bilateral relations, U.S.-Bolivian counter-drug cooperation continues and the signing of a new framework agreement in 2011 should lead to an exchange of ambassadors.

On March 9th 2013 the Bolivian government passed a new comprehensive and progressive law to combat violence against women.  The law includes preventative measures, wide-ranging services to survivors of abuse, and severe penalties for violence against women.  The law represents a great advance from previous legislation, which did not consider spousal rape a crime and dictated sentences of only 4-10 years.  The impetus for the new law was in large part from several high-profile, brutal attacks over the past few months.  While the law is a victory for women’s rights advocates, it real impact remains to be seen.  Sources of funding for the ambitious new programs and services have yet to be defined, and compliance and enforcement of the new law will be an uphill battle.

Recent High-Profile Cases

On Monday, February 11th, a police lieutenant stabbed his ex-wife, journalist Hanalí Huaycho, 15 times.  On the same night as Huaycho’s attack, a woman from Santa Cruz was stabbed 17 times by her husband.   Just two days later, another female journalist was brutally assaulted by her boyfriend, also a police officer.

These attacks come in the wake of a December 2012 scandal that captured two members of the Chuquisaca Departmental Assembly on a security camera raping an employee who had passed out during an office Christmas party.  The footage was widely broadcast by Bolivian television stations.

Protests against violence against women in Bolivia (credit: Stephanie Weiss)

These incidents reveal the deep flaws in the legal system and its failure to protect Bolivian women against violence.  Huaycho had denounced her ex-husband, Jorge Clavijo, 14 times since 2008. Huaycho reported that Clavijo beat her, cut the breaks of her car, and locked Huaycho and their six-month old son inside a vehicle and threw tear gas inside.  However, her attempts to obtain protection from Clavijo only resulted in death threats to her and her lawyer.  Minister of the Government Carlos Romero affirmed that Clavijo enjoyed police protection.

There was immediate public outrage over Huaycho’s death, including a demonstration in La Paz.  Police tear-gassed protesters, among which were the wife of the vice-president, the president of the Chamber of Senators, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, the president of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly, and the Autonomy, Justice and Communications Ministers.

The attacks provided impetus for the government to pass a new, comprehensive law with preventative measures as well as harsh sanctions against offenders.  It is important to note, however, that in Bolivia and around the world, countless cases of violence against women are invisible to the media.

Scope of Violence Against Women in Bolivia

[Source: Los Tiempos]

The Comprehensive Law to Guarantee Women a Life Free of Violence

President Morales passed the “Comprehensive Law to Guarantee Women a Life Free of Violence,” on March 9th, 2013.  The law is extremely ambitious and comprehensive, with provisions for educational and awareness programs, practical measures to prevent reoccurring violence, plans to rehabilitate offenders, detailed descriptions of 15 different types of violence against women, and strict sanctions against offenders.

Highlights of the new law include:

• Increased and harsher sentences for violence against women
  • Sentences increased from 4-10 years to 20-30 years.
  • Spousal rape is now a crime, and adds five years to the standard rape sentence.
• Comprehensive sanctions against a wide range of types of violence against women
  • The law defines 15 categories of violence against women, including violence in the media; violence against the honor, dignity, and name of women; patrimonial and economic violence; and institutional violence, which includes purposely delaying or denying access to services.
• Culturally sensitive and inclusive language, including:
  • A guarantee of equal opportunities regardless of ethnic origin or sexual orientation
  • An intercultural perspective
• Priority of service to rural areas, where incidents of violence are greater
• Training programs about violence against women in all public institutions and health institutions
• Media campaigns to inform and sensitize the population about the causes, types, and consequences of violence against women
  • The media must provide a minimum, free broadcast space to the government.
• A sanction against holding public office for those with convictions related to violence against women
• New requirements for people in public posts or services related to women to have training and experience in either themes of gender, women’s rights, or human rights
• Participation of social organizations and civil society organizations dedicated to women’s rights in the design, evaluation, and management of public policies against violence
• Compliance and the adoption of prevention strategies for indigenous, Afro-Bolivian communities, and autonomous territories
• Curriculum about peaceful conflict resolution, human rights, and violence against women in the education system, including at the university level
• Sanctions for people in positions of authority who fail to report violence
• Access to job placement systems and training for women in shelters
• Rehabilitation of offenders, including therapy and conflict resolution training
• Comprehensive protocols for protecting women after an act of violence, including procedures to recover her possessions and secure safe housing
• Sanctions against “media violence,” including sexist language
• Sanctions against economic violence
  • It is now a crime to hinder a women’s ability to generate income.
• Free medical certificates for women who require treatment for violence

Nunca Mas Feminicidio (credit: CIDEM)

Enforcements, Funding, and Lack of Clarity Complicate Law’s Implementation

While the new law is ambitious and progressive, there are several causes for concern.  It includes problematic gray areas, which could provoke conflict.  For example, the law states that it will regulate the media, but does not specify how, which could lead to protests of censorship.  It also requires the media to adopt a self-regulated ethics code regarding portrayals of women, but does not specify its content or mechanisms for enforcement.  In addition, the new law stipulates that workplaces must have a “system of flexibility and tolerance” for women in situations of violence, but fails to provide the means to evaluate these measures.

Furthermore, the question still remains of how the government will fund all the mandatory educational programs, sensitivity training, prevention mechanisms, rehabilitation programs, mass media campaigns, and increased law enforcement.  The language regarding funding is extremely vague; the law states that necessary adjustments must be made in 2013 budgets, but does not say where institutions should obtain this money.   Silvia Vega, a representative of the Integrated Feminine Education Institute (IFFI) explained that although there may be laws protecting women on paper, there is no budget to implement them, and because of this, the existing three laws and five decrees that legislate against violence against women have not been enforced.

[Source: Los Tiempos]

In addition, although the law specifically states that indigenous communities, Afro-Bolivian communities, and those living in autonomous territories are also subject to this law, in most cases, these communities lack the resources and infrastructure to properly implement it.

In conclusion, while the law represents a significant advance in the fight against violence against women, its successful implementation faces tremendous challenges.

——————————————————–

For detailed information about violence against women in Bolivia see the website of CIDEM (Centro de Informacion y Desarrollo de la Mujer)

Read the Special Edition Bulletin on Extractive Industries, March 2013

Mallku Khota (credit: El Diario)

1. Thinking about extractives: the contribution of Eduardo Gudynas

Of those who have written about extractives and extractive industries in recent years, few have been more influential than Eduardo Gudynas, a Uruguayan researcher at the Centro Latinoamericano de Ecología Social (CLAES). The Bolivia Information Forum thought it useful to summarise some of the points he has made with respect to clarifying concepts such as ‘extractivismo’ and ‘neoextractivismo’, as well as highlighting his ‘ten theses’ with respect to the latter…..

2. Moving towards industrialisation in the mining sector (By José Pimentel Castillo, ex minister of mines, Bolivia)

Since earliest colonial times, Bolivia has been known as mining territory. Doubloons from Potosí filled the Spanish coffers, and from there they moved out to much of Europe, financing industrial development and the age of renaissance…..

3. Significance and implications of the increase in hydrocarbons rents (By Carlos Arze Vargas)

In 2005, before Evo Morales became president, a new hydrocarbons law was passed which changed the tax regime in the hydrocarbons sector. The new law obliged firms to pay 32% in the form of the Direct Hydrocarbons Tax (IDH) and another 18% in the form of royalties. This raised the tax burden for oil and gas companies from under 25% of gross value of output in 2004 to 37% in 2005…..

4. The Mother Earth Law: the proposal and paths to implementation (By María Teresa Hosse, Plataforma Boliviana Frente al Cambio Climático)

Elaboration of the Mother Earth Law has led to a comprehensive proposal for rethinking state administrative structures and, above all, for thinking about how development is understood. It involved widespread public participation, and took place at a special moment…..

5. A community protects its interests: the case of Mallku Khota

Evo Morales government nationalises Mallku Khota (credit: Los Tiempos)

The conflict in Mallku Khota is complex since it brought together a number of different issues. It involved the struggle for non renewable natural resources between private (and transnational) interests and several local groups. It also involved a struggle to gain recognition for territorial rights, laid down in the constitution, and respect for the environment. It highlighted the lack of rural development alternatives and the problems faced by the state as a mining operative at the same time being the main guarantor of law. The conflict gave rise to violence between community members and the death of one person, repeated acts of kidnapping used as a means to bring pressure to bear, the deployment of the police to the area, and several months of tension and hostility among community members.

Read the Special Edition Bulletin on Extractive Industries, March 2013

Emily Achtenberg, NACLA, Rebel Currents, Link to original article, 15 February 2013

Until recently, conventional economic wisdom held that sustained economic growth in any society could only be achieved at the expense of income equality. Today, even free market disciples like The Economist recognize that these goals are not contradictory—and that growing inequality, in fact, is an impediment to economic prosperity.

1. Gubernatorial elections in the Beni

Street in Riberalta, Beni department (credit: Dario Kenner)

On Sunday 20 January elections were held for Governor of the Beni, one of the largest departments in size, yet one of the smallest in population (425,780 according to last November’s census). Carmelo Lens, for a right-wing coalition called Primero el Beni, won 52.27% of the vote, with Jessica Jordan of the MAS coming second with 44.35%. The election was held to find a replacement for Ernesto Suárez, who was obliged to resign last year because of accusations of misuse of public funds, particularly for holding an (unauthorized) departmental pro-autonomy referendum in 2008.

The Beni is part immense wet plains, which pre-Columbian peoples used to connect and farm using huge artificial embankments, and part Amazonian jungle, areas where originally rubber and later Brazil nuts have been harvested, with production and trade controlled by a small number of wealthy families.

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2. Census: first results

According to the results of the November 2012 census, announced in mid-January, there are 10,389,913 Bolivians. This is a 26% increase on the numbers registered in the previous census in 2001. Some had believed that the population increase would have been more than this, since projections from the last census (with figures up to 2010) pointed in this direction. However, it is reasonable to think that with rapid urbanisation, the rate of demographic growth in Bolivia is slowing.

The census shows that Santa Cruz has taken over from La Paz, albeit narrowly, as the most populous department in the country. The population of Santa Cruz department is 2,776,244 compared with 2,741,554 in La Paz. The rates of change since the 2001 census are suggestive of continued patterns of internal migration, particularly towards the lowland departments of the east.

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3. Coca chewing now made legal

It seemed a no-brainer, and indeed that was the international verdict. Despite opposition from the United States and a handful of other G-8 countries (including the UK), Bolivia managed to get an exemption from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics with respect to acullico, the age-old practice of coca chewing. Now Bolivians can do it legally – just as they have done it for countless centuries.

On January 11, following a year or so of international lobbying, the Bolivian government achieved its exemption. It had officially withdrawn from the Single Convention at the beginning of 2011 in protest at the criminalisation of coca chewing, known as acullico in Bolivia. Shortly afterwards Evo Morales wrote to the UN Secretary General expressing Bolivia’s desire to re-join the Convention, but with a reservation so as to legalise the practice of acullico in Bolivia.

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4. Strong economy

Preliminary figures released in January suggest that the Bolivian economy grew by as much as 5.2% in 2012. This compares with 5.1% in 2011  and 4.1% in 2010. The main motor of growth appears to be increased domestic demand rather than an increase in demand for Bolivia’s exports. In his speech to the Legislative Assembly on January 22, Evo Morales, mentioned how this further year’s growth had impacted on GDP per capita (a measure of increased individual wealth) in the various different departments in the seven years in which he has been president.

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5. Salida al mar: muddying the waters

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera’s offer to Bolivia of a strip of land along Chile’s northern frontier with Peru appears calculated to further estrange the two countries and to further muddy the waters by linking the issue to the outcome of Peru’s case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Chile over the two countries’ maritime border.

Bolivia has consistently sought to regain its access to the Pacific, lost as a consequence of the War of the Pacific in the late 19th century.

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Evo Morales Bolivia access to the sea poster in La Paz (credit: Dario Kenner)