Fragile States in the Americas by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic

Chapter 9

The Ungovernable State

Bolivia in the Age of Morales

Marten Brienen

Few Latin American leaders have been lauded as extensively as Bolivian president Juan Evo Morales Ayma, who surfed the pink tide to power in 2005–2006, heralded by the global left as the champion not only of the poor, but of indigenous rights, environmental responsibility, socialism, anti-imperialism, decolonization, anti-neoliberalism, and justice for the victims of the U.S. war on drugs.1 His was a platform that promised land to the landless, an end to the persecution of cocaleros, and most importantly, the renationalization of the Bolivian hydrocarbons sector and the reconstitution of the state oil company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB).2

While his ascent to power has been well documented, it is important to recall the circumstances under which his unlikely career unfolded. Having earned his stripes as a leader of the cocalero movement, engaging the administration of Hugo Bánzer Suárez as the latter tried to eradicate coca excedentaria from the Chapare region using military force and assisted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),3 he emerged as a leading voice in the protests known as the Gas Wars, which erupted as the result of a plan to export newly found Bolivian natural gas via Chile to the United States.4 Due to a brand of resource nationalism described later in this chapter, the idea was so upsetting to Bolivians, that it resulted in the fall of two successive administrations; those of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Mesa Gisbert.5

It is equally important to remember the sheer frustration expressed by his immediate predecessor, Mesa Gisbert, who upon stepping down declared that the country was ungovernable.6 This sentiment was understandable; while he was perhaps not an inspiring leader, and even less a willing one, he was also not particularly disliked personally. Moreover, he agreed with many of the demands made of him by the protest movements that crippled the country and its economy seemingly without end between 2002 and 2005.7 Neither concessions nor reason could calm the anger of the general population until he was left with no choice but to step down amid the political chaos and social turbulence that had resulted, of all things, from the discovery of apparently vast reserves of natural gas.8 In short, his expression about the state of the country was accurate: Bolivia was indeed ungovernable amid the unrelenting protests.

The era of Evo Morales, which followed the chaos that marked the beginning of the millennium, certainly reads as a success story of epic proportions. The angry crowds dissolved and in the place of political chaos and social turbulence came impressive economic growth, dwindling poverty rates, the virtual extirpation of illiteracy from the country, the promised nationalization of hydrocarbons, a process of land distribution to favor landless peasants, the expulsion of the much hated U.S. DEA,9 a realignment with likeminded leaders in Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Argentina,10 and not least of all, an unending torrent of denunciations of the United States, its allies, and its imperialist and exploitative policies.

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