All your snakes are belong to us
09.10.2006Technorati tags: Bolivia politics Evo Morales
Just a quick note. I was out of town this weekend (wedding engagement shower for K8 & I; we have a lovely time, btw, more later). But I tried as much as possible to keep up w/ events in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Mainly, I called my parents, who've recently moved back to the city where I spent my first nine years.
The Friday strike was, in their opinion, pretty comprehensive. But they were shocked, as was I, at the level of propaganda the MAS government was willing to emply. State-run television & radio stations broadcast one of two message: either the strike was a "failure" (that is, it had limited participation) or there were numerous violent clashes initiated by "drunken" youths. How both stories can be mutually acceptable (if there were numerous clashes, then the strike wasn't a failure, and if it was a failure, there shouldn't be numerous clashes) is beyond me. Of course, private-owned television & radio stations (as well as newspapers) reported the opposite — along w/ live, color images of eerily empty streets.
It seems clear that the 24-hour general strike in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando was relatively successful. Its leaders acknowledged that not all activities ceased, but enough that the major cities (particularly the cities of Santa Cruz & Tarija) were virtually shut down. There were, as far as I could tell, two major confrontations in Santa Cruz. One (reported by the state-run television) involved an alleged early morning attack on the television station. The other, was a clash between pro-government youth (the Grupo Ernesto Che Guevara) & pro-regionalist youth (the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista) in the Plan 3,000 neighborhood. That's it.
There were, it seems, other confrontations between MAS supporters & regionalist strikers in other parts of Tarija, Pando, and rural Santa Cruz. But most seem to be primarily scuffles — except for a broad meleé in a Tarija market that left seven slightly injured. But if the central focus is on the city of Santa Cruz (w/ 1.4 million residents it's the country's largest city and second largest metropolitan area after the 1.6 million in the combined La Paz-El Alto metropolis), the strike seemed mostly successful & mostly peaceful.
Nevertheless, several government ministers & other spokespersons (Evo was in Havana visiting Castro) went on a media blitz on state-run television & radio to present an alternate reality.
And here's where I don't understand the government tactic. Unlike in Cuba, there's no state-monopoly over news media or sources of information. So a series of pronouncements about the failure and/or drunken violence of the strikes on state-run channels stood in stark contrast to what Bolivians could see & hear on other news networks. The move reminded me of Baghdad Bob's fantastical pronouncements during the first month of the Iraq War. Does Evo's government really expect citizens to accept an alternate reality of events? Particularly when they can turn the channel to another station? If that's the case, then I really don't understand.
There's a difference between "spin" & disinformation — and I'm not sure if Evo's government crossed that line or not.
In the end, of course, not much happened. The strike seems to have persuaded Evo to compromise & accept that he might not get to use the constituent assembly as a rubber stamp. And the media luna departments have backed down again, willing to return to negotiation tables rather than push for secession & civil war. Moderation, at least for now, seems to have won out again.
But threats by Evo's supporters to shut down the Feria Expocruz, a small scale regional, industrial "world's fair" in Santa Cruz has my parents worried (not least, of course, because they live near the fair's site). I remember attending the event as a kid growing up in Bolivia. It was an opportunity for Santa Cruz businesses of all stripes (agricultural, chemical, industrial, etc.), as well as foreign companies (Chinese, Argentine, Brazilian, etc.) to showcase. In short, it was an annual celebration of the country's dynamic economic engine. Efforts to disrupt this symbol of the very essence of the comité cívico image of Santa Cruz — "the Bolivia that works" — could be disastrous.
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UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the La Paz altiplano, a separate 10-day strike by the local rural syndicate was negotiated w/ no government repression. Rural syndicalistas demanded a local tourist hostel managed by Franciscans be given to them. Beginning tomorrow, the local syndicate will hold legal title to the hostel. What's troubling (to me) is that Evo's government seems to follow one cosistent policy: Social movements allied to the government are allowed to strike, w/ impunity, using any tactics (including coercive ones), and w/o interference from the government on behalf of any demand. Social movements tied to the political opposition, in contrast, aren't allowed to be "political" or make demands against the government outside the strict interpretation of the laws (not w/standing, of course, that the constitution allows peaceful protest, but specifically bans road blockades or other "coervice" protest measures). So there.
Posted by Miguel at 04:22 PM
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