A Conversation with the Santa Cruz Hunger Strikers

Readers:

At the end of last week at this time Bolivia was focused on the arrival of a dozen Latin American presidents to Cochabamba for a summit. This week the political focus of the nation is on the widening split over a math question – should the building blocks of the new constitution be approved, each one, by a simple majority of the Constituent Assembly (50% plus 1) or a super majority of 2/3? As we have written about here before, there is no dispute that the new constitution, in the end, needs either a 2/3 vote for final approval by the Assembly, or failing that, a majority vote of the people in a national election.

To press their case for a 2/3 vote on the pieces along the way civic leaders in Santa Cruz and elsewhere are staging hunger strikes, to pressure the MAS government towards a compromise. A rally of 2/3 backers is scheduled this afternoon here in Cochabamba and bigger ones tomorrow in the four eastern departments of the country.

The Democracy Center's assistant director, Melissa Draper, visited Santa Cruz recently and spoke to some of those fasting for what they say is an issue of democracy.

Jim Shultz

A Conversation with the Santa Cruz Hunger Strikers

Santa Cruz is a world apart in more ways than one from the central and western parts of Bolivia. Its humidity is one, in contrast to the dry valleys and altiplano. So is unrelenting population growth, which contrasts significantly with highland cities such as Oruro and Potosi where migration out is a common story. It is different economically (much more well off), culturally ethnically and politically, a place far different than the glacial peaks and grazing llamas backpackers see on the altiplano.

The “medialuna,” which refers to the four departments (Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija) of Bolivia’s nine in the eastern part of the country have banded together politically to challenge the La Paz-based Morales administration.

One of the ways they are making their voices heard is by going on hunger strike. Last week, I had an opportunity to talk to a couple of the leaders at the hunger strike in Santa Cruz’s main plaza. As the conversation progressed, it was clear just how wide that gap is between the perspectives of this country’s eastern and western regions and how many of the existing demands are an echo of historical tensions.

Oscar Vargas Ortiz, the President of Municipal Council of Santa Cruz, is a young, articulate man with piercing hazel eyes. Trained as a journalist, Vargas held the air of a leader to whom the other hunger strikers in the central plaza deferred. Seated on one of the mattresses that covered the ground under one of about six other tents, Vargas spoke clearly about why he was joining others on strike.

“We are here to protect democracy,” Vargas said. “We ask that the government respect the fact that four of the nine departments voted for autonomy.” The people in Santa Cruz do not feel represented by the Morales administration, he explained. He pointed to the thirty-some other hunger strikers surrounding him, saying they came from all parts of the department and represent a diversity—indigenous and non-indigenous—that is far broader than the Quechua and Aymara interests that dominate the west, and now the government.

“Every year 70,000 new Bolivians arrive in Santa Cruz. People are coming for work.” He claims that the Morales administration does not listen to the needs of the one of the fastest growing areas of the country. Santa Cruz’s population has now eclipsed La Paz’s, the main capital and the country’s historically largest city.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of an old man standing at the edge of the tent. In a raspy, quiet voice, the man speaks out in solidarity to the hunger strikers, telling them to stay firm in their convictions. Vargas turns to me and says, “History is repeating itself.” The man was Carlos Valverde Barberi, who also fought for autonomy for Santa Cruz back in the 1950s—a struggle that cost lives in the same plaza where we stood. The tensions between east and west have always been there, he says.

When we asked about land reform, Vargas directed us to Mauricio Roca, President of the CAO (Camera Agropecuaria del Oriente—Eastern Agricultural Chamber) who is a landowner and soy farmer in the northern region of the Santa Cruz department. Vargas deferred questions to him, and clarified that the hunger strikers in the plaza were not speaking out against land reform. Their central concern is the demand for autonomy and a 2/3 vote requirement for the articles of the new Constitution in the Constituent Assembly. The MAS government wants a simple majority to decide on the new Constitution, since it does not hold the full 2/3 of the Assembly.

To get to Mauricio Roca, we had to pass from the plaza, where, Vargas explained, the “people of the neighborhoods” were collected, to the central lobby of the state government building. Inside were the “well-known” people: writers, heads of civic committees, and other notables. We passed through security and were led through a very different collection of people. The diversity of the tents and hunger strikers in the plaza was nowhere to be found. And then I realized I had never seen a segregated hunger strike before.

One woman surprised me particularly. She was stretched out under carefully folded, clean pressed blankets. Her hair seemed freshly coiffed and her lipstick recently applied. The hunger strikers common in political struggles in Cochabamba are usually university student or union activists, people who set themselves up under makeshift tents on dirty pavement. Today in Bolivia hunger strikers are as diverse as the country.

Roca was far less inviting in his conversation than Vargas. Roca is a common figure in the national newspapers, serving as the primary spokesperson of the land reform opposition. He was curt and offered nothing more than the most necessary responses to our questions about land reform and the kind of actions eastern landowners might take against the new land reform law, pass by Congress and signed by President Morales on November 29.

“It is going to create lots of problems, said Roca. “We’re talking about impacting the productive sector of this country, which will effect the economic and the social well-being of this country.” When asked what was going to happen if the current hunger strike got no response from the government, Roca refused to elaborate on what actions were planned. “Wait a little bit and you will see.” He was not shy, however, in suggesting that eastern Bolivia may need to consider independence if the Morales administration chooses not to respect private property.

Not long ago, the Minister of Justice, Casimira Rodriguez, was quoted saying “our challenge [as the Morales administration] is to not repeat a history of discrimination but to remain open and represent all Bolivians.” Whatever one's position is on majority vote vs. 2/3, it seems clear, based on what I saw and heard in the plaza in Santa Cruz, that a good portion of the nation feels like the new government is not listening to it. Figuring out how to construct a bridge across such radically different perspectives remains one of the most difficult challenges the MAS government faces.