Above photo: Boulders placed on a road. De Raíz.
In Bolivia, the government of Luis Arce is confronted by the protests of peasants and workers, who are carrying out massive roadblocks. The pressure measure, which began five days ago, already affects four of the nine departments of the country and continues to expand.
Protesters at the Bulo Bulo blockade say that this is a multi-sector action to defend Bolivia’s democracy. They are currently 4,000 people strong and are prepared to increase presence at the bloqueo by the thousands. pic.twitter.com/ed9VJk7EwL
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) August 8, 2020
The government’s strategy of containment and delegitimization of this mass action, a strategy that was led by the minister of the presidency, Marianela Prada, and the minister of government, Eduardo del Castillo, did not yield results. Both authorities took on the task of minimizing the scope of the protest, stating that it was only seeking to protect Evo Morales. Later, the government combined this line of communication with police repression that, for the moment, is limited and focused only on some of the blockades—those with fewer people, since it is very risky to do so where crowds have gathered.
The majority of the protesters are peasants; they have been joined by workers from various mining cooperatives and residents of low-income peri-urban neighborhoods. Their list of demands is related to the deterioration of the national economic situation, as they ask the government to control the prices of basic products, which have become more expensive in the last year, especially processed foods that come from outside the country. This inflationary effect originates in the shortage of dollars (imports are paid for with this currency), which doubled the exchange rate. If today, the official exchange rate is still seven bolivianos per US dollar, a parallel exchange market has emerged that sells them for up to 14 bolivianos per dollar. Too much difference.
Another pressing issue is the shortage of gasoline and diesel, which the state buys abroad at international prices, but sells in Bolivia at subsidized prices. This generates a growing fiscal expenditure that unbalances the national economy, and which Luis Arce could not resolve by gradually lifting this subsidy, as President Gustavo Petro did in Colombia. Arce chose to leave the decision to a popular consultation, which could not even be convened.
Added to this is the social defense of these sectors of Evo Morales, against whom eight criminal proceedings were initiated by order of President Arce. The peasant and popular protest supports him, calling the persecution to which he is being subjected unjust, because Evo has maintained himself for decades as a mass leader. This could be verified three weeks ago, when a march led by Morales arrived in the city of La Paz, the seat of government, gathering hundreds of thousands of people.
Curiously, after this march that validated his political stature, the government activated (or reactivated) the complaints, accompanying them with a sustained campaign, in the media and on social networks, to discredit the former president. However, apart from the media scandal, the government did not achieve any real judicial progress: an arrest warrant was announced that was later judicially annulled. It was said that there would be a migration alert so that Morales would not leave the country, but this was later denied, indicating that it was not viable. All of this ended up reinforcing the legal argument of Morales’ lawyers, who have described these criminal actions as “lawfare”: judicial persecution for political purposes.
For now, there is no sign of dialogue between the government and the peasants.