[looks like i wrote this one in anticipation of sending it to people, as it includes more summary and background info.]
it’s all coming together, or falling apart, depending on your point of view.
a couple weeks ago, i was on the street and i saw an older campesino trudging along the street yelling at a couple soldiers from the national guard on the other side of the street , telling them how the government was ruining the country. the soldiers just laughed at him as they ate their empanada. i remember thinking how futile his protests looked and how deaf the ears upon which those insults fell looked. but now, those protests are making a deafening noise.
it’s absolutely astounding that the vestiges of the spanish colonialism and persisting oligarchy have lasted this long. or maybe it isn’t. maybe every other american country (usa included) just eliminated completely even the possibility that its indigenous population's voice from the government (in very Machiavellian fashion nonetheless). maybe it’s only because bolivia is one of the only countries in latin america with an indigenous majority that this conflict is more pronounced or crystallized, less difficult to ignore. one of the most profound souvenirs i’ve seen thus far has been chess sets: one side is the conquistadors, the other, the incas. it’s on murals, it’s in their dress, it’s everywhere. it’s hard to explain how much this oligarchy persists and how present the history is. in my upper class family, they talk about bloqueos as annoyances, disturbances to their otherwise tranquil lives. when i asked my sister what she did during the water wars in 2000 when the protests were right outside our house. she said she just took advantage of the time off from school and tanned. they say the campesinos like violence, that they like to march and protest, and that they throw rocks because they’re badly brought up. they say if you ask them they they’re marching, they won’t give you a straight answer. ‘they don’t just wake up and decide they want to go cause violence,’ i said at lunch today. ‘yes they do!’ my host sister and her boyfriend cried in unison. it’s incredible how real the lies can become in their heads the longer they keep telling themselves that. they both go to work on other rich people’s teeth during the day when other people in their country don’t have anything to put in their mouths to eat. they go to each other’s birthday parties, talk about how much they’ve traveled, and their european/asian/anythingotherthanlatinamerican heritage.
to the poorest country in south america, and only third poorest in all of latin america after haiti and nicaragua, the idea of bolivia selling off its immense natural gas reserves seems like a stellar idea. but the problem, as was made clear during the Water Wars of 2000, was that a country opened up to free markets in the mid 80s had neither the resource nor the capital to develop its own enterprises to benefit from this opening, and thus, all was sold to foreign firms, including rights to natural resources. selling natural resources is always bad; you have to develop them, at a minimum, to get any sort of added value or development of market infrastructure.
it’s hard to really explain the legitimacy of the statement that the people won’t see a dime of this money from selling the gas. it’s not like the alaskans getting money from whatever firm drills their reserve. they at least have the power to demand that alimony. these people don’t have any type of that power, even the rich ones. we don’t trust our politicians, but at least we can rely on the system, and if nothing else, the option to take to court if we feel that the system was mean to us. here, they don’t even have a system to rely upon. everyone here pays personal guards to patrol their streets because the real police are considered absolutely useless. my abuelita told me that when one of her friends called the police to report that her house had been broken into, they told her they didn’t have enough gas in the car to come to the house. under the law 1008, the controversial anti-drug law introduced under heavy pressure by the US in 1988 (the first version appeared in english), people have been imprisoned for years before being convicted of any crime. the law actually contradicts the bolivian constitution, but of course, the officials will just tell you you’re not reading it right.
the bottom line is that there is no faith in the system, and the campesinos are fully justified in their conviction that they will see no benefit from the selling of the gas, and if anything, they’ll lose their job because a foreign company bought the contract to export the gas. during the water wars, bechtel, through two different child companies, bought the water rights to the city of cochabamba and tripled the prices so that people who were making $80 a month were being forced to pay $20 a month, up from the $6-7 they paid normally. bechtel knew people would protest the price hike. they knew this so well they had the foresight to move their headquarters from the cayman islands to amsterdam because the netherlands have a special trade agreement with bolivia that would protect any “dutch” company from legal action taken by bolivia. so why did they go ahead with raising the prices? the best we can guess is that the bolivian government had assured them that the campesinos could be kept under control, heck, that’s what they’ve been doing for the last 500 years, right? but something went wonderfully wrong. protests shut down the city of cochabamba for six days, and the officials of the company fled. they didn’t take it, and they’re not about to again. the campesinos are not letting this government sell off what they view as (and likely is) their last natural resource without promise of some benefit for them.
over fifty people have died thus far in the last three days. the vice president has officially cut his tie to the president. (he’s still retaining his office, most likely in anticipation of goni’s resignation.) the president’s economic minister resigned yesterday. two weeks ago, his approval rating was down to 8%, and that was before anybody had died. yet, david greenlee, our american ambassador here in bolivia, as well as bush, have said that they continue to support goni. it would be so easy for us to stop hurting situations like this so badly.
it’s all coming together, or falling apart, depending on your point of view.
a couple weeks ago, i was on the street and i saw an older campesino trudging along the street yelling at a couple soldiers from the national guard on the other side of the street , telling them how the government was ruining the country. the soldiers just laughed at him as they ate their empanada. i remember thinking how futile his protests looked and how deaf the ears upon which those insults fell looked. but now, those protests are making a deafening noise.
it’s absolutely astounding that the vestiges of the spanish colonialism and persisting oligarchy have lasted this long. or maybe it isn’t. maybe every other american country (usa included) just eliminated completely even the possibility that its indigenous population's voice from the government (in very Machiavellian fashion nonetheless). maybe it’s only because bolivia is one of the only countries in latin america with an indigenous majority that this conflict is more pronounced or crystallized, less difficult to ignore. one of the most profound souvenirs i’ve seen thus far has been chess sets: one side is the conquistadors, the other, the incas. it’s on murals, it’s in their dress, it’s everywhere. it’s hard to explain how much this oligarchy persists and how present the history is. in my upper class family, they talk about bloqueos as annoyances, disturbances to their otherwise tranquil lives. when i asked my sister what she did during the water wars in 2000 when the protests were right outside our house. she said she just took advantage of the time off from school and tanned. they say the campesinos like violence, that they like to march and protest, and that they throw rocks because they’re badly brought up. they say if you ask them they they’re marching, they won’t give you a straight answer. ‘they don’t just wake up and decide they want to go cause violence,’ i said at lunch today. ‘yes they do!’ my host sister and her boyfriend cried in unison. it’s incredible how real the lies can become in their heads the longer they keep telling themselves that. they both go to work on other rich people’s teeth during the day when other people in their country don’t have anything to put in their mouths to eat. they go to each other’s birthday parties, talk about how much they’ve traveled, and their european/asian/anythingotherthanlatinamerican heritage.
to the poorest country in south america, and only third poorest in all of latin america after haiti and nicaragua, the idea of bolivia selling off its immense natural gas reserves seems like a stellar idea. but the problem, as was made clear during the Water Wars of 2000, was that a country opened up to free markets in the mid 80s had neither the resource nor the capital to develop its own enterprises to benefit from this opening, and thus, all was sold to foreign firms, including rights to natural resources. selling natural resources is always bad; you have to develop them, at a minimum, to get any sort of added value or development of market infrastructure.
it’s hard to really explain the legitimacy of the statement that the people won’t see a dime of this money from selling the gas. it’s not like the alaskans getting money from whatever firm drills their reserve. they at least have the power to demand that alimony. these people don’t have any type of that power, even the rich ones. we don’t trust our politicians, but at least we can rely on the system, and if nothing else, the option to take to court if we feel that the system was mean to us. here, they don’t even have a system to rely upon. everyone here pays personal guards to patrol their streets because the real police are considered absolutely useless. my abuelita told me that when one of her friends called the police to report that her house had been broken into, they told her they didn’t have enough gas in the car to come to the house. under the law 1008, the controversial anti-drug law introduced under heavy pressure by the US in 1988 (the first version appeared in english), people have been imprisoned for years before being convicted of any crime. the law actually contradicts the bolivian constitution, but of course, the officials will just tell you you’re not reading it right.
the bottom line is that there is no faith in the system, and the campesinos are fully justified in their conviction that they will see no benefit from the selling of the gas, and if anything, they’ll lose their job because a foreign company bought the contract to export the gas. during the water wars, bechtel, through two different child companies, bought the water rights to the city of cochabamba and tripled the prices so that people who were making $80 a month were being forced to pay $20 a month, up from the $6-7 they paid normally. bechtel knew people would protest the price hike. they knew this so well they had the foresight to move their headquarters from the cayman islands to amsterdam because the netherlands have a special trade agreement with bolivia that would protect any “dutch” company from legal action taken by bolivia. so why did they go ahead with raising the prices? the best we can guess is that the bolivian government had assured them that the campesinos could be kept under control, heck, that’s what they’ve been doing for the last 500 years, right? but something went wonderfully wrong. protests shut down the city of cochabamba for six days, and the officials of the company fled. they didn’t take it, and they’re not about to again. the campesinos are not letting this government sell off what they view as (and likely is) their last natural resource without promise of some benefit for them.
over fifty people have died thus far in the last three days. the vice president has officially cut his tie to the president. (he’s still retaining his office, most likely in anticipation of goni’s resignation.) the president’s economic minister resigned yesterday. two weeks ago, his approval rating was down to 8%, and that was before anybody had died. yet, david greenlee, our american ambassador here in bolivia, as well as bush, have said that they continue to support goni. it would be so easy for us to stop hurting situations like this so badly.
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