Bolivia’s fraudulent autonomy referendum
THE LEAST you can say about the autonomy referendum
held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in early May, is that it was unique. It was
controlled by a pro-autonomy electoral college, administered by a
private company contracted by the ‘autonomists’, supervised by
pro-autonomy observers and covered by pro-autonomy media. You do not
have to be very shrewd to realise that this amounts to fraud.
But most incredible is that after the pro-autonomy
media campaign, intimidation and violent threats from groups like Unión
Juventud Cruceñista (Santa Cruz Youth League) – which has fascist
characteristics – they did not succeed in their objective. More than 50%
voted against autonomy or abstained. Nevertheless, the pro-autonomy
forces declared that 85% had voted in favour!
This referendum is the first step in a reactionary
plan. Other autonomy referenda are due to take place in the departments
of Tarija, Beni and Pando. The idea is to stop the changes the
government of Evo Morales is proposing. Santa Cruz and the other three
departments represent two-thirds of Bolivian territory, a third of its
population and more than 50% of its GDP. Two other departments,
Chuquisaca and Cochabamba, want to follow in the footsteps of the
separatists.
Even when they do their best to hide it, the
divide-and-rule attitude and racism of the promoters of autonomy for
Santa Cruz are apparent in the declarations of its most important
leaders. Their public spokespeople can hardly hide their hatred and
contempt for Evo Morales for being indigenous, as they accuse him of
being a centralist, an authoritarian, a radical and a fundamentalist.
Their main slogan should be: ‘For a Bolivia without indigenous people’.
The cynicism of these leaders knows no limits. Their
objective is to create such tension and controversy that it comes to an
open confrontation, which inevitably would have consequences for other
countries of the region. The original promoters of the idea of autonomy
come from a few hundred families who control more than 25 million
hectares of land and who control agriculture, domestic trade, the banks
and the big media outlets. Together with politicians who where part of
the governments of previous presidents, like Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada,
Jorge Quiroga or Jaime Paz Zamora, they have become powerful opponents
of the Morales government. These people own five times more land than
two million peasants and indigenous people.
With the arrival to power of Evo Morales, they were
faced with the possibility that his government would redistribute land
in favour of indigenous people and the peasants. These families have
used their power to generate a political and social movement aimed at
dividing the country to stop the new constitution drawn up by the
Morales government.
Morales and his administration need to take concrete
measures to implement land reform. The land needs to belong to those who
work it, and the right of self-determination for indigenous people needs
to be guaranteed, without negotiations with the landlords who are
occupying the territory.
The run up to the referendum on autonomy should have
been the moment for the government to go onto the offensive and take the
first steps towards land reform and to explain clearly to the indigenous
and poor peasants its aims. It should not have been the signal to start
negotiations with the landlords. It is not sufficient for the government
to say that the referendum was illegal when the reactionary opposition
could not care less for legality, democracy or the constitution. The
conspiracy being hatched in Santa Cruz needs to be broken now, before
the right-wing opposition is given time to get stronger.
It is clear that the majority of Bolivians, in the
cities and the countryside, are against the attempts at division by
reactionary sections of society. The majority of the population cannot
be held imprisoned by a small minority of oligarchs.
The unity of workers and indigenous people is
fundamental to defend the Bolivian process. We cannot accept that the
land is concentrated in the hands of a small number of families. We
cannot accept that the majority of factories are controlled by a small
number of employers. We cannot accept that the media outlets are
concentrated in the hands of a few. All of this is unjust and totally
undemocratic.
The land needs to belong to those who work it, the
factories to the workers who produce. The media needs to be at the
service of the whole of the population. It is impossible to advance
without marching towards socialism. The workers need a workers’
democracy, a socialist society.
Celso Calfullan, CWI Chile
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