Nearly 100,000 protesters, who had marched on Bolivia’s capital for 23 days and paralyzed the city for weeks, succeeded June 6 in forcing the resignation of President Carlos Mesa.
The demonstrators, who want Bolivia’s natural gas industry to be nationalized, marched daily in La Paz and manned dozens of roadblocks throughout the country to protest the Bolivian Congress’s May 17 decision to increase tax on gas and oil for foreign industries.
In addition to concerns over foreign domination of the country’s natural gas deposits—the second largest on the continent after Venezuela, according to a BBC report—the Bolivian people are also requesting greater autonomy for the country’s indigenous majority. Quechua and Aymara constitute nearly 60 percent of the country’s 9 million inhabitants.
Bret Gustafson, an associate professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, believes the grievances of the indigenous majority will be addressed. "They cannot be dismissed," he said. "Whether indigenous demands will be attained is more about when and in what form."
The Confederation of Indigenous Pueblos of Bolivia (CIDOB) released a statement on June 8 outlining the movement’s five goals. The confederation calls for a meeting of Bolivia's National Congress to accept Mesa’s resignation, general elections to be held for President, Vice-President, Deputies and Senators, the inclusion of 34 indigenous representatives (one for each indigenous community) in the new government, and a new constitution written by representatives of all factions of society.
"There is a racial battle between whites and indigenous people. It was high time for us [indigenous Bolivians] to take power, that the invaders return our territory," said Felipe Quispe, an Aymara leader of the Peasant Trade Union Association and former member of the Tupak Katari Guerilla Army, on the Peruvian radio station RPP Noticías June 8.
Despite Quispe’s comments, Eduardo Gamarra, professor and director of the Latin America and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, warns against labeling the uprising as an indigenous movement. Gamarra emphasized that is it more of a popular movement because it involves unions and coca groups and is focused on nationalization of the natural gas industry.
According to Gamarra, past political movements in Bolivia were labor-based. But after the ascension of Mesa in October of 2003, indigenous leaders such as Quispe and Evo Morales, the Aymara leader of the Movement to Socialism, began infusing indigenous ideology into their mobilizations.
Gustafson worries that the nature of the uprising may heighten polarization between societal factions in Bolivia, because the conflict is being described in racial terms, threatening to pit the elite centralized in the Eastern city of Santa Cruz, against the indigenous majority located throughout the small Andean country.
"If the events hold some promise, it is in the pushing of a more democratic process in the country, and in the pursuit of issues on the popular and indigenous agenda," Gustafson said.
Roberto Laserno, a researcher at the Center for Studies of Economic and Social Reality (CERES) in Cochabamba, attributed the recent success of the indigenous leaders to the increase in ethnic tolerance the country has experienced during the past decade. "This mobilization is not because of the lack of progress, but the presence of progress," he said.
Despite the prominent role Morales has played in the events predating Mesa’s resignation, observers doubt he will assume the presidency after Congress accepts Mesa’s resignation.
"Evo has lost a lot of support among the indigenous community," said Jean Friedman-Rudovsky, a freelance journalist based in Bolivia. "He has strayed from his support base. … I don’t think right now Evo could win a popular election."
Hormando Vaca Diez, the highly unpopular president of the Congress and next in line for the presidency, told reporters he postponed the assembly to determine the new president for a few hours on June 9 to allow members of Congress to hold party meetings.
Later in the evening, Vaca Diez and Mario Cossi, the leader of the lower house of Congress and second in line for the presidency, declined the presidency, and the Congress appointed the more popular Supreme Court President Eduardo Rodriguez as Bolivia’s new president. Rodriguez stated he will accept the role until popular elections can be held later this year.
