Gas Uprising Update: Car Bomb and a Summit Cancelled

As of Friday evening it still looks like Bolivia is headed toward a major social confrontation starting Monday. Here’s the latest.

Car Bomb Explodes in Santa Cruz: Reuters just published a report on the wires that a car bomb exploded earlier today outside the Bolivian headquarters of the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobras. The company is a major player in export of Bolivian gas and oil. No one was injured but the explosion clearly indicates that the rebellion against foreign control of the nations gas and oil reserves could take a violent new turn. A previously unknown group calling itself the “Patriotic Block” claimed responsibility for the bombing and warned that other attacks could follow.

President Cancels Summit: President Carlos Mesa’s plans for a national summit to try to find a peaceful solution to the gas battle fell apart Friday as Mesa announced that the Monday meeting has been cancelled until some unspecified future date. It isn’t hard to figure out why. Mesa’s summit proposal went over like a lead balloon in quarters across the political spectrum. Key leaders on the left, including Socialist Party leader Evo Morales, had already dismissed the meeting as a gathering of people allied with the foreign oil companies. Then yesterday both the Congress and the head of the national Supreme Court formally announced they would be no shows as well. There are various reports this afternoon that Mesa is drafting a whole new gas bill proposal to submit to Congress. That plan, following months of hard Congressional negotiations, is likely to be met with about as much enthusiasm as his summit proposal.

Marches Begin Monday: Indigenous and community groups in El Alto have reaffirmed their plans to march on the capital Monday. Labor, farmer and citizen groups from other parts of the nation are also still moving ahead with plans to start a longer three day march on La Paz (the capital) starting Monday as well. Marchers will face bone-chilling cold nights on the 14,000-foot-high altiplano. I asked one young marcher this afternoon how he was planning to get there. “Wrapped in a lot of warm clothes,” he told me. El Alto groups defended their plans saying that marches and popular protest is the only thing that the government really listens to. They, unfortunately, have a point, which leads me to:

It’s About Foreign Pressure: From outside Bolivia it may well look like the nation is headed to a political meltdown for the lack of an ability by its leaders to negotiate peacefully. The truth is that, if Bolivians were really being allowed to reach a gas accord as Bolivians, they could probably work things out. I have spoken over my time here with many of the political actors involved – from the President to social movement leaders. They are smart and they really do love their country.

But Bolivia really isn’t being allowed to hash this out as Bolivians. The IMF is holding a cleaver over the nation’s head if it seeks to renegotiate existing contracts with British Petroleum, Petrobras and the other companies. The companies bought themselves a batch of lucrative contracts a decade ago when the IMF forced Bolivia to the privatization table. Control of the continent’s second largest petroleum reserves is a lucrative prize and no matter how unfairly it was won they will fight tooth and nail to keep from having to turn it back over to the Bolivian people.

This afternoon I spoke with a UN official from New York, as the global assembly decides what it ought to say about the events unfolding here in the Andes. Here’s what I said. The message should go forward to the IMF and the oil companies to back off. This is Bolivia’s gas, it is Bolivia’s future, and it is Bolivian blood on the line. If either the Fund or the companies don’t like how Bolivia decides to handle this, fine. If the companies decide they don’t want to do business here under the terms that Bolivia will demand, that is their choice.

But in the meantime the IMF and the corporations should stop manipulating and pressuring Bolivia from abroad. If people die next week, no matter who fires the gun or who ignites the dynamite, the blood will be on their hands. You can also damn well bet that The Democracy Center – as we did with Bechtel in 2000 and as we just did with our new report on the IMF – is going to document that connection and make it known far and wide.