Bolivia's controversial highway cancelled, but deeper conflicts remain

Although President Evo Morales has finally bowed to pressure from indigenous people to cancel a controversial road which would have cut through their homeland in Amazonian Bolivia, some festering problems regarding the direction of the country's development have still to be addressed.

Emily Achtenberg

IN a stunning political reversal, Bolivian President Evo Morales signed a new law in October prohibiting construction of the highway previously championed by his government through the TIPNIS national park and indigenous territory. The event marked a historic victory for lowland indigenous groups who marched 360 miles from Beni to La Paz to protest the road, and brought the highway dispute to an official conclusion. But the fractures in Morales' political base and the divisions among Bolivia's social movements triggered (or exacerbated) by the TIPNIS conflict will be more difficult to resolve.

In addition to permanently cancelling the TIPNIS highway, the law prohibits illegal settlements by non-resident groups inside the park and protects the indigenous territory as an 'untouchable' zone. Only two months ago, Morales insisted that the highway was essential to promote regional integration and would be built 'like it or not'.

In just 48 hours, Morales also directly resolved 16 other demands raised by the marchers, including a pledge to compensate and remediate environmental damage caused by extractive activities in the Aguarage National Park in Tarija. During the march, the protesters were perceived as demanding a halt to all hydrocarbons extraction in the park, which generates 90% of Bolivia's gas exports - a stance that infuriated Morales, and provided a major impetus for the Yucumo blockade against the marchers by pro-government campesino (peasant) 'colonists'.

Morales' surprise 21 October announcement cancelling the road came just two days after the indigenous march arrived in La Paz to a tumultuous welcome, and less than a week after 43% of Bolivian voters invalidated their ballots in a popular judicial election widely viewed as a referendum on the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) government. With indigenous protesters camped out in front of the government palace, the potential for violent confrontation loomed large, evoking memories of the widely repudiated police repression of the march last September.

Political pressure

While Morales characterised his reversal as an example of enlightened 'gobernar obedeciendo' (governing by obeying the people) - similar to his retraction of last winter's unpopular gasoline price hike - critics see the President as being forced by political pressure to promulgate a law he does not genuinely support. Indeed, Morales used the occasion of the signing ceremony to remind indigenous marchers that 200 campesino, civic, business, and indigenous organisations in Beni and Cochabamba are in favour of the TIPNIS road. He urged the marchers to assume responsibility for explaining the new law to these sectors, and to shield him from blame for changing his mind.

The TIPNIS conflict has taken a high political toll on the MAS government leadership. In addition to the disappointing judicial election results, the government has lost two important cabinet ministers and at least three vice-ministers or high-level directors who either resigned under protest or were fired. The cabinet's credibility has been effectively undermined: by its own count, the government sent a total of 11 ministers and 17 high-level commissions to negotiate with the protesters during the march, but they were unable to deliver results. Both the marchers and social sectors supporting the TIPNIS road accuse the ministers of obstructing a resolution to the conflict.

Morales himself suffered a major decline in approval ratings to 37%, following the police intervention in September (in a largely urban poll, which likely understated his traditional rural support). The political impact of his reversal on the TIPNIS road remains to be seen, but there are many factors to consider.

On the one hand, the road cancellation represents an acknowledgement by Morales that the lowlands indigenous groups, despite constituting only a fraction of Bolivia's population, have disproportionate moral and political force through their effective ability to mobilise and cannot be readily dismissed. As Chief of Staff Carlos Romero recently put it, 'We can't conceive of the Plurinational State we are building without the lowlands indigenous people. The people who marched are the expression of our cultural diversity.'

But lowlands indigenous leaders who were repeatedly attacked by Morales during the march (and beaten by police) remain sceptical, and are keeping their critical distance from the government. 'We'll continue giving them headaches until 2015 if they don't recognise our rights,' says Adolfo Chavez of CIDOB, the lowlands indigenous federation that co-sponsored the march.

On the other hand, Morales' reversal on the TIPNIS road has provoked outrage among campesino, cocalero (coca farmer), and colonist groups that have been the traditional bastions of MAS support. These sectors, who view the road as critical for transportation of their products and expansion of commercial opportunities, now feel betrayed by Morales - even though the government has promised to identify an alternative route to connect the two road segments on either side of the TIPNIS park that are already under construction. The groups have conducted vigils and are mobilising to plan next steps.

Deeper dispute

The TIPNIS conflict has effectively ruptured the 'Unity Pact', an alliance of Bolivia's˙ five major social movements (campesinos, colonists, peasant women, and highland and lowland indigenous federations) that historically has been the main force behind the Morales government and Bolivia's 'process of change'. In addition to CIDOB, the highland indigenous organisation CONAMAQ supported the TIPNIS marchers in the road dispute, while the other groups supported the government.

Underlying this conflict is a deeper dispute about the direction of development in Bolivia. Should it continue to rely on extractive activity and infrastructure expansion, to maximise economic growth and revenues for desperately needed social programmes, or emphasise slower growth alternatives that protect the environment and indigenous rights? How much land should be redistributed to indigenous communities as territorial holdings, and how much allocated to small agricultural producers seeking new frontiers?

The Unity Pact's campesino- and indigenous-identified members have long held contrasting views on these issues, along with different cosmovisions, lifestyles, and forms of social and political organisation. But these differences were submerged for a time through a common identification of all sectors (more or less) with the MAS government and Evo Morales. The TIPNIS conflict, pitting highland campesinos and colonists against lowlands indigenous sectors, and symbolised most graphically by the Yucumo blockade,˙ brought these divisions to the fore and exacerbated them in dramatic fashion.

How these social forces will reconfigure in the coming months and years, and what their relationship will be to Morales and the MAS government, depends a great deal on the government's ability to articulate a new development agenda for Bolivia that addresses these conflicting concerns. In his 12 October speech to MAS loyalists mobilised for the judicial elections, Morales called for a convocation in December to begin this task. Judging from the current volatile state of political affairs, it can't happen a moment too soon.  

Emily Achtenberg is an urban planner and a former Research Associate with the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) with a focus on Latin American social movements and progressive governments, especially Bolivia. She has published recently in NACLA News, Upside Down World, Bolivia Rising and Progressive Planning magazine. This article is reproduced from her Rebel Currents blog on the NACLA website (nacla.org/blog/rebel-currents).

*Third World Resurgence No. 254, October 2011, pp 36-37