On 28 September 2011 I arrived into the gridlocked city of Cochabamba amidst a national strike by the union organisation COB. During the preceding days the scale of the TIPNIS conflict had significantly increased due to the events of 25 September, a day that will forever be marked in history as the day that an indigenous President gave the orders for police brutality against a non-violent indigenous protest march. At 5pm on Sunday 25 September, a group of approximately 500 federal police entered a campsite in Chaparina, just outside of Yucumo, on the route of the Eighth March. Using tear gas, rubber bullets and batons the police escorted marchers onto waiting buses and transported them to nearby towns. Others fled to the mountains resulting in the separation of children from parents. Roughly 100 people were injured and two women suffered miscarriages. As television footage of the police violence emerged, vigils quickly sprang up in the plazas of Bolivia’s main cities as protests against the government intervention became widespread. The Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti was forced to resign over accusations he gave the police order and the Defence Minister Cecilia Chacón also resigned criticising the government for the police deployment. After just five days the marchers regrouped and continued their journey to the capital city of La Paz where they were greeted by tens of thousands of supporters. On the 24 October the government was forced to announce Ley No. 180 that halted the construction of the proposed road through the TIPNIS.
Fundamentally, the government had resorted to coercive force marking a crisis of hegemony in which the legitimacy of the MAS was severely undermined. Until this point, the administration had managed to strike a balance of governing in the interest of social movements whilst appeasing significant forces on the political and economic ‘right’. Overall, the party had maintained the legitimacy of being a self-professed ‘government of social movements’. However, it seemed that the scale-making project of indigenous territoriality was beginning to be seen as a threat to the model of state-led resource nationalism positioned in an effort to recover national patrimony from foreign interests and national elites. The use of violence also reflected the legacy of nation-state building in
130 postcolonial contexts and specifically in Latin America. As the media coverage spread, the TIPNIS conflict became a vessel for a number of popular grievances.
During the TIPNIS conflict the relations between the government and the lowland indigenous movement changed substantially. As part of the Unity Pact, a left-indigenous alliance representing key peasant, indigenous and union organisations, CIDOB was an important sector of support for the MAS. The Pact was established in September 2004 as a political instrument to push through the Constituent Assembly and bring Morales to power. The alliance was ‘to be a foundational political moment, one that was truly constitutional, in which social movements, indigenous and others, rather than conventional political parties, would literally “refound” the state’ (Garcés 2011: 47; original emphasis). In 2006 Pedro Nuni, a leader of CIDOB and a Mojeño representative from the TIPNIS, occupied an important position at the national level as a MAS congressman. Due to these state- indigenous alliances, representatives of CIDOB were reluctant to participate in protests against the road project despite the fact that more localised struggles in the department of Beni had already begun.
Yet, the Pact’s indigenous and campesino members have long held contrasting views on key issues, such as whether the country should rely on extractive industries or seek alternatives, how much land should be redistributed to collective indigenous territories, the meaning and limits of political autonomy and the social control of the state (Garcés 2011). In addition, the social movements involved exercise different forms of social and political organisation. Thus, Garcés suggests that the groups did not have a common dialogue but subsumed tensions under a collective objective of bringing the MAS to power and pushing through the Constituent Assembly. However, the TIPNIS conflict has served to pit highland campesinos and cocaleros against lowland indigenous groups inhabiting collective territories. In particular, in 2011 CIDOB was going through a turbulent time in which internal disputes broke out over whether the organisation agreed with the direction of the government’s plans, especially surrounding the proposed renegotiation of the agrarian reform law, Ley INRA, in favour of campesino sectors. The executive branch of the government had converted TCOs into TIOCs, which recognises the campesino sector as subjects of territorial rights, opening the possibility of titling individual land for the peasant and coca-growing sectors (Bolpress 2010). As such, discords have resurfaced and been exacerbated during the conflict.
131 Tensions therefore emerged amidst a growing concern that the party that they had struggled to bring to power had no intention of fulfilling its promises of being a ‘government of social movements’, let alone living up to political autonomy demands by the indigenous movement. Rather it was clear that the government were privileging some sectors, such as the coca growers, whilst marginalising others giving social movements the choice of devoting their unconditional loyalty or being sidelined from political decision- making powers (Canessa 2012). Furthermore, the decision to continue supporting the MAS Party regime was perhaps easier for the peasant and coca growing sectors because of a shared lineage defined by union organisational practice and prominent Marxist ideologies. Gustafson states that Morales ‘cut his teeth in the language of union politics rather than among indigenous rights movements’ (2009b: 254). Similarly, in personal communication with Morales’ ex-consultant Pablo Regalsky, he argued that Morales was more concerned with class politics centred on national liberation, rather than indigeneity (personal field- notes, 12 January 2012). In the offices of CPITCO, a regional body of CIDOB based in Cochabamba, President Rosa Chao described how Morales treated the lowland indigenous: ‘it is as if we are entenados [stepchildren or illegitimate children i.e. looked down upon]’61 (personal interview, 20 January 2012). The MAS are therefore continuing power relations that create a re-spatialised internal colonialism that positions the campesino/cocalero sectors as dominant and the lowland indigenous as subordinate (Laing 2012).
Eventually after several calls by regional leaders, CIDOB came together to participate in the first indigenous march in defence of the TIPNIS. Nevertheless, a fairly amicable relationship of dialogue endured between the indigenous movement and the government during the first stages of the march. For example, in the town of San Borja, the marchers warmly received ten government ministers in order to establish working tables of negotiation.62 However, discussions quickly broke down when it appeared that the representatives of the government had no intention of compromising over the construction of the road. Meanwhile, Evo Morales made his feelings clear pronouncing that ‘no hay alternativa’ (there is no alternative) (Los Tiempos 2011c).
Relations with the state have not been a one-way process of domination, however. The indigenous movement has at different times chosen to align with the state or maintain their autonomy depending on the political gains available at the time. In the first five years of
61 ‘como si fuéramos entenados’. 62
132 the MAS administration the lowland indigenous movement strategically maneuvered through the spaces opened up by a progressive government and the constitutional process. During this period, CIDOB actively supported the political programme of the MAS maintaining strong relations of negotiation and dialogue over key issues. In 2011, CIDOB representatives increasingly questioned the extent to which the MAS were fulfilling its promises of re-founding Bolivia through the concept of the plurination. Resultantly, CIDOB decided to re-establish more traditional forms of rebellious practice, such as protest marches, in order to make demands of the state. The final break with the MAS came when CIDOB and CONAMAQ decided to abandon the Unity Pact in early 2011, which was not only a result of internal disappointment but also represented a tactical retreat at a time when the legitimacy of the MAS administration was being questioned by broader societal sectors. The government also appeared to have chosen to take a step back from their own relations with CIDOB announcing Ley No. 222 on the 10 February 2012 that diminished the original indigenous victory of Ley No. 180 by reopening the agenda of the proposed road. Conversely, CSUTCB, Bartolina Sisa and CSCIB have sustained support for the government and continue to gain the benefits afforded by this relationship. Rosa Chao, the President of CPITCO, explained CIDOB’s decision to leave the Pact:
The Unity Pact was created when they were going to construct the political constitution of the state because there was a need, right? [...] They all had the same vision. To have a new constitution where all sectors are participating that make this country Bolivian, but until now the pact has not functioned because the five confederations have different visions. Two are the same but three want to be very different and they are to their own interests and not to the interests of these two organisations [CIDOB and CONAMAQ] that were left out. [...] For us the Unity Pact does not exist because a Unity Pact is where all the confederations were united and had the same vision and the same interest. Now there isn’t this anymore.63
(personal interview, 20 January 2012)
In addition, interview participants gave the general impression that the MAS were using social movements in the alliance to push through their own agendas without dialogue and
63 El Pacto de Unidad se creó cuando se iba a hacer la Constitución Política del Estado porque había una
necesidad ¿no? […] Tenían todos la misma vision. De hacer una nueva constitución donde estén participando todos los sectores que hacen este país boliviano, pero hasta ahora el pacto no ha funcionado porque tienen otra visión las cinco confederaciones. Dos son iguales pero tres quieren ser muy diferentes y ellos están a sus intereses propios y no a los intereses de éstas dos confederaciones que quedaron fuera. […] Para nosotros no existe un pacto de unidad porque un pacto de unidad es donde todas la confederaciones estaban unidas y tenían una misma visión y un mismo interés. Ahora ya no hay eso.
133 consultation. Juan José Sardina, a cacique within CONAMAQ stated that ‘we were simply being used by the President for electoral spoils in many cases’64
and that when they left the Unity Pact ‘we have obviously become enemies of the government’65
(personal interview, 17 June 2012). In addition, Rafael Quispe, the former President of CONAMAQ, explained that ‘the objective was to deepen the plurinational state, as it was not being achieved [and] the other three organisations were submissive to the party, [so] we decided to leave’66 (personal interview, 29 April 2012).
Bertha Vejarano showed her disappointment in the promises of the Unity Pact, stating that ‘when he [Evo Morales] was in the political campaign he said that “I will rule by obeying the people”, so who are we? Are we not the people?’67. She concluded that ‘it seems that we, the indigenous, are second-class for him’68 (personal interview, 15 May 2012). Moreover, Jeremías Ballivián Torrico, a participant in the Eighth March, stated that ‘Evo Morales only has the face of the indigenous but [he is] not in other ways, in the sense that he doesn’t respect our cosmovisión and our autonomy. He doesn’t respect how we live. […] We feel very marginalised’69
(personal interview, 20 January 2011). I met for an interview with the online activist Wara Ysabel from the Coalition of Defence of the Environment and Self-Determination of the People (CDAPMA) in Santa Cruz. We sat down over coffee in the central plaza and after initial discussions I was still trying to get to grips with the concept of indigeneity in Bolivia. Wara proceeded to take my notebook and draw a ranking class system that categorised the Bolivian populations into four groups that descended from: the Spanish and foreign elites; the middle class mestizo populations; the urban, campesino and cocalero indigenous; and finally the lowland indigenous peoples. He noted that the President has made great strides in representing the third sector – the coca- growers and peasant indigenous – but not the lowland indigenous who are still considered backward and in need of civilising (personal interview, 16 March 2012).
Interview participants expressed their wishes for the plurinational state to recognise the plural cosmovisiones present within the country. Bertha Vejarano therefore stated that the
64 ‘simplemente estábamos siendo utilizados por el presidente como botin electoral en muchos casos’. 65 ‘nos hemos convertirnos obviamente en enemigos del gobierno’.
66
‘el objetivo era profundizar el estado plurinacional, como no se estaba logrando y las demás tres organizaciones eran sumisas al partido, decidimos abandonar’.
67 ‘él, cuando estaba en campaña política, dijo “yo gobernaré obedeciendo al pueblo”, entonces nosotros que
somos, ¿no somos ese pueblo?’.
68
‘entonces pareciera que nosotros, los indígenas, somos de segunda clase para él, ¿no?
69 ‘Evo Morales solamente tiene de indígena la cara pero otra cosa no, en el sentido de que no respeta la
cosmovisión y la autonomía de nosotros. No respeta cómo queremos vivir. […] Nos sentimos muy marginados’.
134 indigenous movement ‘would have liked, in Bolivia, to have had a president who governs for equals, right? For blacks, whites, for poor and rich’70 (personal interview, 15 May 2012). As such, Celso Padilla stated that:
The Andean vision of the West and of those who represent Evo Morales is very different, in other words you can’t compare it to the vision of us, so for this we do not enter into an agreement, we cannot enter ourselves into an agreement with the government, because the government has another mentality, another way of thinking, another vision, another way of life, another structure of organisation […] The plurinational state signifies that we have every right to be different but equal.71 (personal interview, 16 May 2012).
Thus, the lowland indigenous movement has maintained that there are plural and diverse understandings of place-based indigeneity that need to be recognised and represented within the plurination. Within the movement, a relational ontological politics is constructed and refigured that works as a mobilising vision for the indigenous peoples involved.