And Now, an Exit Strategy

Yesterday I wrote that events in Cochabamba had placed Bolivia in uncharted waters in terms of how these kinds of political crises get resolved. Today we are back in charted waters of partial retreats, negotiation, mediation, and compromise, as the outlines of an exit strategy begin to emerge from various sides.

Manfred: “Well, if a new referendum is unconstitutional…”

Yesterday Manfred Reyes Villa and the other governors supporting him took their road show from La Paz to Santa Cruz where the Cochabamba governor made his first significant public comments since the explosion of violence here Thursday. He blamed events on Morales and the cocaleros and said it was the President’s responsibility, not his, to restore order. But then he also announced that he was retreating on his call for a new regional vote on the autonomy question, saying that if it wasn’t constitutional to convene a re-vote he certainly didn’t want to violate the constitution.

Evo: Scrambling to look like a President

For his part, Evo was back from Nicaragua Friday and scrambling to look presidential. A government vice-minister had already proclaimed earlier in the day that the “democratic” solution to the Cochabamba crisis was for protesters to respect the legitimacy of Manfred’s election as governor and for Manfred to respect the anti-autonomy position of the people expressed at the polls last July. In a televised address Evo called for calm on all sides and put his weight behind a constitutional amendment he will send to the Congress allowing for voter recall of all major public officials. "Be it a mayor, be it a governor, be it the president of the republic, if he violates human rights or is corrupt or he does not honor campaign promises ... it should be possible to revoke any authority's mandate by a referendum."

The Church: Back in the game as mediator.

I have been telling reporters all week, “Keep your eye on the church.” When the conflict hits the fan in Bolivia, at the end of the day, the only institution that can get everyone to the table – from left to right – is the Catholic Church. At the news conference of the governors yesterday Manfred announced that Bolivian Cardinal Julio Terrazas has agreed to mediate a dialogue between the governors and Morales (or whomever he sends).

The Anti-Manfred Protesters: The roads are open

Yesterday afternoon the anti-Manfred forces that continue to have control of the city’s main plaza announced the end of their blockade of roads leading in and out of Cochabamba, which has left thousands of travelers stranded for days. One of the leaders of the protest said on television that it was never their intent to cause harm to businesses and citizens, just to apply pressure on Manfred. I doubt that makes much real difference to the businesses and citizens who have been so drastically affected. I have it on a good source that the sudden move to drop the blockades resulted from a not especially happy phone call to protest leaders from Morales on his return. They have not withdrawn their demand that Manfred resign.

Manfredistas with sticks and pistols: No where to be seen

There were a few stick-wielding Manfred supporters on the streets yesterday, but very few. The army of Manfred backers, which set upon the cocaleros Thursday with suspiciously military precision, was nowhere to be seen.

Tuto Quiroga: It is Manfred’s fault…

Former President and PODEMOS opposition leader, Tuto Quiroga, was on television yesterday blaming Manfred for the Thursday violence, saying that the Cochabamba governor should have been at home managing the crisis instead of roaming about the rest of the country in political meetings. Quiroga has found himself utterly replaced, in just a matter of a month, as the lead opponent to Morales. Welcome to the new reality of Bolivian politics: the opposition that counts from now on is not in the Congress but among the now-elected governors.

Enough Blame for Everyone to Get a Share

So, Cochabamba returns to relative calm and normalcy for the weekend, with some hope that an end is in sight to the crisis that has struck the city for a week, but knowing that nothing is certain. Two men are now dead, one from each side of the battle, and hundreds are injured. Thousands have lost a precious week’s wages and a cloud of Cochabambino vs. Cochabambino mistrust hangs in the air. Who is to blame?

Manfred deserves a lot of credit. It was, in the beginning, he who started it with his demand that the election he lost on autonomy in July be rerun to see if he could get a result more to his liking. Manfred is many things but he is not stupid. He had to know that his demand would provoke a crisis and there is ample reason to believe that he did it purposefully to position himself (as he has) as the new leading opponent to Morales, knowing as well the potential for violent repercussions. Manfred’s call for a re-vote on autonomy is the Cochabamba equivalent of President Bush responding to the anti-Iraq War vote in November by sending in 20,000 more troops. If these had been US protests we might have seen a banner reading, “Hey Manfred, What part of 63% NO don’t you understand?”

Evo is not much cleaner. All week I have tried to get an honest answer from people in a position to know: Did Evo engineer or authorize the MAS/cocalero-led protests as a way to pressure Manfred in his own backyard. There is no straight answer, which leads me to believe that Evo did not engineer this but also did not prevent it from happening when he could have. I believe that Morales will pay a huge political cost for all this. He began 2006 with a vast reservoir of political capital and a strong base of middle class support to add to his natural base among the poor and rural. After this week, in Cochabamba at least, what was left of that middle class base is gone and it isn’t coming back.

The Anti-Manfred Protesters miscalculated. Yes, it is true that there is nothing else they could have done to stop Manfred and his re-vote other than civil disobedience. There is nothing short of that he would listen to. But the protesters underestimate the animosity they create among city residents when life is disrupted and property is destroyed. Yesterday in the Plaza Principal, Omar Fernandez, the MAS Senator and irrigators' union leader, spoke from the same balcony where he spoke so many times during the water revolt seven years ago. And Fernandez tried to invoke this week’s protest as the extension of that water revolt victory. In fact, sadly, it is the reverse. The water revolt historically unified Cochabamba’s urban and rural communities. This week left those communities bitterly divided.

The Pro-Manfred Thugs: There is a groups of people out there who are not the college students and business women I met and talked to in the streets and who pledged that the sticks in their hands were for self-defense. They are others who flew in as a swarm Thursday afternoon to take first aim at women in wide pollera skirts, letting their racism fully loose as they swung their bats. What role did Captain Manfred Reyes Villa (the title he has conspicuously resurrected for himself as late) have in their arrival on the scene?

Last night I was walking home late from the city center, on streets that were eerily quiet and dark. I ran into two very small boys, Henry and Carlos, who had sticks in their hands. They were smiling and we spoke:

“So why do you have those sticks?” I asked them.

“There are some boys down the street who bother us sometimes.”

“And now you are fully armed?”

“Yes, now we are fully armed.”

“Did you get the idea for the sticks from what happened yesterday?”

They both nodded back to me.

When political conflict dissolves into brother upon brother, sister upon sister, violence we never know how that changes things. Everyone who had a hand in the events this week needs to ask some deep questions about what they could have done different.