Oh, the ironies

01.17.2005

So far Bolivia's back to relative normality (for Bolivia), meaning everything's in crisis but there's no tanks in the streets. Some interesting wrap ups to the last few days:

El Alto protesters convinced the government to rescind the French-owned Aguas del Illimani contract for water treatment in the city. So a huge victory, it seems, for protesters. Of course, the foreign contractor will likely sue the government for reparations (estimated at $60 million). Where will that money come from? And now El Alto's water will likely be treated by the state-run SEMAPA (who's bungling inefficiency led to privatization in the first place) at an unknown public cost. Also, and just for good measure, several more El Alto industries are abandoning the city in the protest's wake (heading to Santa Cruz or overseas) because they see little economic stability or government protection for property rights.

So. El Alto gets to continue having bad drinking water, it loses hundreds (if not thousands) of jobs, and Bolivia's government picks up the tab. Wonderful. Of course, the IMF, World Bank, European Union, and other lenders already warned they might cut off aid to Bolivia (which made up 59% of gross capital formation & 29% of import earnings in 2002 according to the World Bank) if the government entertained nationalization or rescinding contracts.

Talk about Pyrrhic victories.

In other news: Evo Morales thinks he should be president. Several of his own party's senators think otherwise. And Venezuela (along w/ some other countries) have invited him to one-year study-abroad programs for "capacitation" training. No, I'm not making this up.

Santa Cruz is still upset about everything, sticking to their deadline for a national referendum on regional autonomies. Mesa's first meeting will be w/ the cruceño business sector, which mostly just wants some of the stability businessmen always look for.

And because he's felt ignored in the last few weeks, Felipe Quispe (not sure if he's still Mallku, since the title's under dispute) has decided to start bloqueos around the altiplano, threatening to choke off La Paz again.

I guess that's about it.

Well, I'm off to enjoy the rest of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Either by working on hypotheses re-structuring, or shooting pool. One of the two. Perhaps both?

Posted by Miguel at 03:38 PM

Comments

From a scientific poit of view, it would be very interesting to see Evo elevated to the presidency. Would the world really have guts to turn its back on Bolivia? What other countries would come to Bolivia's side? Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? perhaps China, who knows. What would the people do, if Evo would fail miserably? But the most interesting question would be, what if Evo is relatively successful. Is there really another alternative to neo-liberal (capitalist), democratic, western policies?

Posted by: MB at January 17, 2005 04:20 PM

Sure, it'd be interesting to see Evo take office, from a cynical let's-watch-him-fail-so-I-can-say-I-told-you-so point of view. But it probably won't happen.

Also, while I do think there are options to neoliberal policies (mixed economies, more capitalism, or even welfare economics), I think few of those options are available to Bolivia. But I don't think representative democratic governments have viable alternatives in plural societies. The ayllu is not a good form of government (no matter what the starry-eyed might think), nor are non-democratic options (fascism, corporatism, bureaucratic-authoritarianism, populism, communism, etc).

If Bolivia loses its support from the Western democracies, it'll sink into terrible chaos since (as the data shows) about half of Bolivia's economy is maintained almost ENTIRELY by by forein aid.

Posted by: Miguel [TypeKey Profile Page] at January 17, 2005 06:01 PM