RIGHTS-BOLIVIA:
Indigenous People March
On Constituent Assembly
By
Franz Chávez
LA PAZ, Jul 10 (IPS) -
Indigenous people are
marching for their right
to autonomy, heading
from the lowland city of
Santa Cruz de la Sierra
in central Bolivia to
the constitutional and
judicial capital, Sucre,
where the country's
Constituent Assembly is
meeting.
About 400 men, women and
children from the
tropical zone's ethnic
groups, belonging to the
Confederation of
Indigenous People from
Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB),
this weekend began their
608-kilometre march to
take their claims to the
Constituent Assembly,
which began
deliberations in August
2006.
In 1990, dozens of
indigenous people took
the first step in
defence of their land,
and in favour of
constitutional reform,
when they marched 600 km
from the northern city
of Trinidad to La Paz,
the seat of government.
Now, again, indigenous
people are on the move,
demonstrating for
autonomy for 36 ethnic
groups.
The protest march to
exert pressure on the
Assembly's 255 members
arises a week after a
mass rally of Santa Cruz
de la Sierra
townspeople, which
declared itself in
favour of autonomy for
four of the country's
nine departments, but
not for indigenous
peoples, on the premise
that further
decentralisation would
threaten the unity of
the country.
CIDOB leader Adolfo
Chávez said that their
march is a demand for
autonomy for indigenous
peoples, their
representation in
Congress, the creation
of a plurinational
state, and respect for
their lands and natural
resources.
This action by the
indigenous people from
the eastern part of the
country follows shortly
after the period of
deliberations of the
Constituent Assembly was
extended to Dec. 14,
although those directing
its proceedings wish to
have a new constitution
approved before Aug. 6,
which was the original
deadline.
In spite of the
independence of action
claimed by the members
of the Assembly, the
extension will by law
have to be approved by
Congress, where the
governing Movement
Towards Socialism (MAS)
party has a majority.
During the 11 months it
has been sitting, two
distinct visions of the
country have emerged,
and the debate is
focused on issues
related to autonomy,
ownership of land and
natural resources, the
shape of a decentralised
administration and a
secular state, Franklin
Pareja, postgraduate law
school coordinator at
the Universidad Mayor de
San Andrés, told IPS.
The Constituent Assembly
"generates a
dialectical, rather than
a belligerent, form of
confrontation," Pareja
said. Other topics have
also been addressed,
such as demands by the
authorities in Sucre
that the executive and
legislative branches
(now located in La Paz)
move to the capital.
At present only the
judicial branch of
government is located in
Sucre, which has been
the constitutional
capital of Bolivia since
the republic was founded
in August 1825.
According to Pareja,
changing the seat of
government has become a
"blackmail tool" used by
the Assembly members
from the departments of
Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando
and Tarija (known
collectively as "the
crescent" because of the
shape their borders
create on the map). They
are pushing for this
reform in exchange for
regional autonomies,
which is their real
goal, he said.
In his view, there are
two positions on the
subject of building the
new Bolivian state: a
new government
architecture based on
indigenous people's
autonomies, or one based
on the departmental
autonomies.
This point has been
reached through a
complex process, in the
context of a political
and economic crisis, and
at a time of
polarisation between
dominant sectors in the
relatively rich, more
developed west of the
country and the
impoverished east,
Constituent Assembly
Vice-President Roberto
Aguilar told IPS.
The Assembly's
presidents had to
overcome a negative
image, in the view of
outsiders, of the
apparent slowness of the
work, in the midst of
learning how to build
consensus, while the
political parties sought
the extremes of total
failure, or the success
of radical visions, he
said.
Exactly the same
extremes were apparent
last week in Santa Cruz.
The Pro Santa Cruz Civic
Committee, an
organisation led by
landowners and members
of the business
community, celebrated
the first anniversary of
the local victory in the
elections of the
proposal for
departmental autonomy,
by presenting a
controversial statute
that would give the
department of Santa Cruz
absolute control over
land, natural resources,
the justice system and
the forces of law and
order.
It also proposed the
department should have
power to regulate
migration of Bolivians
from other parts of the
country who want to
settle in Santa Cruz.
Almost simultaneously,
the indigenous people of
the east began their
march, in outright
opposition to this
conservative proposal.
They will take two or
three weeks to reach
Sucre, where they aim to
show the Assembly the
strength of their
feelings for their
cause.
However, the indigenous
people from the east of
the country are not the
first to put pressure on
the Constituent
Assembly. The quiet
streets of Sucre have
already been taken by
violent university
students from state
universities, in defence
of administrative
freedoms, and by
students from private
universities on behalf
of their institutions of
higher education.
Aguilar said he was
convinced that a
pluricultural state
would not lead to the
disintegration of the
country, and suggested a
fair distribution of
power and
responsibilities, and
access to participation
in decision-making, to
consolidate the
decentralisation
process.
"Autonomy is a form of
state architecture, and
bears no relation to
fragmentation, nor
should it imply ethnic
confrontation," Pareja
agreed.
Autonomy is a way of
creating a state
structure by means of
fiscal engineering that
decentralises power, so
that regions may take on
the qualities of
self-government, Pareja
said.
Federal states such as
Brazil, Argentina and
the United States are
not at risk of
dismemberment, although
they have granted
autonomy to their
regions, he said.
But irreconcilable
visions are to be
avoided, because "the
idea of autonomy cannot
be used as an instrument
by the dominant classes
to protect private
interests, nor should it
be used by sectors that
support the government
as a radical way to
redesign land
ownership," he said.
Now that the traditional
parties have sown
disillusion and are
discredited, the legally
recognised government of
President Evo Morales --
the country's first
indigenous president --
has the historic
challenge of bringing
the country back to its
democratic framework as
the best way of living
together in society,
Pareja said.
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