Santa Cruz decides tonight
01.13.2005From Santa Cruz newspaper, El Nuevo Día:
Exitoso y contundente. Así fue el paro cívico de los cruceños contra el dieselazo. Ahora, Santa Cruz le lanza un ultimátum al gobierno de Carlos Mesa: encabeza un gran acuerdo nacional con todas las partes, sus demandas y sin exclusiones para salvar el país, o de aquí en más los cruceños tomarán sus propias decisiones.
The president of the Comité pro Santa Cruz, Robén Costas, led a speech ending the department's 48-hour strike, and preparing for tonight's Asamblea de la Cruceñidad, a 200+ member regional assembly to decide what next steps to take. But Costas has already taken a clear, hard line: Mesa governs the country inclusively (meaning, attending to Santa Cruz interests), or "cruceños will make their own decisions".
The problem's partially fueled by Mesa's (apparent) willingness to more quickly resolve some demands over others. Protests in El Alto led to a cancellation of the Aguas del Illimani contract, after the French-owned company was accused of mismanaging the city's water infrastructure. Similarly, Mesa & his ministers frequently make concessions w/ cocaleros, MST dirigentes, and others who use force to make demands. Leaders in Santa Cruz see this as centralist favoritism towards some groups over others. Mostly, they criticize Mesa's inability to govern, to project as sense of a state's basic authority.
The slow radicalization of Bolivian politics is (perhaps) nearing a final extreme. Leaders in La Paz need to turn their attention to Santa Cruz, quickly, and w/o the prejudice that secession is impossible. It is, and always was, a possibility. And tonight's Santa Cruz congress might just be the one that votes for secession.
In two hours, I give my 345 students a lecture on democratic consolidation. Oh, the irony!
Posted by Miguel at 11:18 AM