Here Comes May 4th

Last night I went to the movies. It was a Hollywood flick based mainly on a clever cinematic device. The same 23 minutes during a terrorist attack on the U.S. President is replayed four or five times (I lost count) from different perspectives.

Next weekend will bring the Bolivian version of this dramatic device, but live instead of in cinemascope. Please be patient, I'll get to the mataphor eventually.

On Sunday May 4th an event will unfold here that will bring in reporters worldwide. This kind of attention over the years generally only comes to Bolivia when either: a) the government is going to fall, or b) people are going to start trying to kill one another over politics. In this case it will be the vote by the department of Santa Cruz on whether to approve “statutes of autonomy.” Some visiting press smell the possibility of one or both.

The Vote that Is and the Vote that Isn’t

The May 4th vote in Santa Cruz is a big deal in Bolivia. Let’s not lose site of that. In the current three ring circus of Bolivian politics, regional autonomy is in the center ring.

The new constitution produced by a year-long Constituent Assembly and backed by President Morales, was supposed to be the center ring next Sunday. But that vote got knocked off schedule formally because national election officials said the voting process didn’t meet all the legal requirements. But I think the real reason that Morales and MAS didn’t press forward had more to do with something they smelled, the real possibility of getting defeated.

Now, the Santa Cruz autonomy vote was officially given the same procedural thumbs down as the Constitution referendum, by the same officials at the same time. But, in contrast to Morales and MAS, Santa Cruz leaders clearly smell a whopping victory and, well, those are circumstances under which process and constitutionality are often set aside as less urgent by those doing the smelling.

The growing global interest in the autonomy vote next Sunday seems to revolve around two basic questions:

1. What does the vote really mean?

There are basically two main interpretations, both eager to make their case in rhetorical extremes.

The international left view is summed up by a recent letter on the subject, signed by 200 prominent left names from a variety of countries, including, from the U.S., Noam Chomsky and Ramsey Clark:

The subversive and unconstitutional actions of the oligarchic groups to try to divide the Bolivian nation reflect the racist and elitist minds of these sectors and constitute a very dangerous precedent not only for the country's integrity, but for other countries in our region.

[Note to whomever wrote this, in case you are reading: This is the kind of writing from left intellectuals that no one else really understands. FYI.]

Then there are the Santa Cruz civic leaders sponsoring the vote. They have proclaimed the vote, in essence: A democratic bulwark against Evo Morales’ Rasputin-like efforts to join Bolivia surgically to Cuba and Venezuela in a march toward left-wing authoritarianism. What do you say readers – does that about capture it?

Santa Cruz’s calming and mellow departmental governor, Ruben Costas threw some new logs onto the political fire this week by declaring that passage of the autonomy statutes would usher in a “second republic”, enflaming even more the charges of a secessionist plot. “Second Republic” to some sounds like “Third Reich” to others.

By the way, in case you missed it, according to the current round of conspiracy theories that secessionist plot is being handcrafted by the U.S. Ambassador here, who it seems also single-handedly engineered the same fete in Kosovo beforehand. This, of course, is despite ample evidence that the current Ambassador is little able to manage his own Embassy with much skill, much less a clandestine political conspiracy. But perhaps incompetence is just the political cover dejour.

Okay, do we all get the picture now? In summary:

1. Santa Cruz is going to vote.

2. The autonomy movement there was instigated by the region’s wealthy elite, with a good deal of economic self-interest and racism as fuel.

3. However, long ago that movement and the anti-Evo sentiment driving it also won the support of a lot of people who aren’t rich or white or oligarchs. This is – alternatively depending on your point of view – the product of political brainwashing or skilled political organizing. Take your pick.

4. Autonomy will win by a lot.

5. Then no one really knows what happens next.

On the two substantive issues that drive the autonomy issue – land reform and gas and oil revenue – the region and the Morales government seem to cancel each other out.

On land, Santa Cruz is one of the areas of Bolivia that land reform in the 1950s never really reached. I don’t see how Evo does much of anything there on land without sending in the Army to enforce it. And that is about as likely as me becoming one of Las Magnificas (though it does remain a secret dream). The episode last year of Morales’ quick (and wise) withdrawal of troops from the Santa Cruz airport is pretty good evidence of the government’s thinking on that topic.

On Santa Cruz’s desire for a bigger slice of gas and oil revenue, the situation is reversed and it is Morales who holds the upper hand. Bolivia’s big petroleum buyers are the governments of Argentina and Brazil, both currently left and sympathetic to Morales. The payments go to La Paz first, not the region. And don’t look for any sudden side deals from either country with the Newly Independent Republic of Santa Cruz.

Which takes us to the big question on people’s minds here…

2. Will there be violence?

In all kinds of political and social circles here one hears in ominous whispered tones the words, civil war. No question, the situation is delicate and dangerous. But as others wiser than I in the ways of Bolivia have pointed out, don’t look for rival armies to march on one another, or violence directly led by either faction. It is a long way from the dusty roads of Achacachi (where this past week I saw pro-constitution messages splashed in paint across the plentiful rocks) to the covered patio of Alexander’s Coffee in Santa Cruz. Morales has called for indigenous groups to suspend previous plans to march to the region the day of the vote.

The real danger of violence – and it is real – is from unexpected explosions where rival sides will find themselves in physical proximity to one another. Think the streets of Cochabamba, January 11, 2007. This includes, for example, the impoverished island of Plan 3000 near the city and indigenous areas of the department where community members would like as much autonomy from Costas and Company as Costas and Company want from Evo.

About that Cinematic Premise I Began With

All of which brings me back to watching the same 23 minutes over and over again from different vantage points.

Next Sunday, May 4th, the eyes of those who tune in via the “oligarchs vs. left authoritarians” channel will be watching the autonomy vote. Meanwhile on opposite sides of the Cochabamba Valley, Sunday will be marked in other, vastly different ways.

At the Fairgrounds the annual Expo will be wrapping to a close, ending a week of thousands braving the sun to see new cars, test samples of dried fruit, vomit up some of that dried fruit on the carnival rides, and celebrate Bolivian entrepreneurship in rare and exotic forms.

On my side of the Valley, here in Tiquipaya, we will have the annual chicha festival, and people in lesser numbers will also brave sun, but in the name of getting somewhere between tipsy to plastered on fermented corn.

So, I leave it to my readers to determine for themselves which is the “real Bolivia” that will be on display here May 4th. Will it be the people who march to suspect polls in Santa Cruz demanding a statutory divorce from La Paz? Will it be the indigenous peoples and left intellectuals warning that the vote is a racist plot? Will it be the people gawking at the latest cell phone models at the Expo? Or will it be my neighbors partaking in the best that fermented corn has to offer?

Or is Bolivia all of those things simultaneously, and desperately in need of a will and a way to hold such disparate pieces together?