BLOQUEO

BLOQUEO

09.05.1994

It is almost five months to the day since we arrived in Bolivia and I regret very much that I have reached the conclusion that not only is Bolivia going nowhere fast, it is going nowhere - PERIOD.  If I had any doubts on this score they were dispelled completely by the events of the past two weeks.  (end of April-beginning of May)

For more than a month the schools all over the country have been closed and teachers (particularly primary teachers)  have been on strike with thousands of them on hunger strike in an attempt to press upon the government the need to improve salaries and conditions of service so that they will be able to eat - literally.  At the moment families of the children attending school have to pay the equivalent of US$1 to try and make up the teachers' salaries because, if not, they would simply starve.  The government wants to reform education in the country (and rightly so, because it is a total disaster) but they have proceeded to do so without consulting with the teachers.  The health workers are in a similar situation.  The trade unions stress that the 7% salary rise which the government was proposing is insufficient and does nothing to take workers out of the misery trap that they are in.  Then there are soon to be trade union elections.  The campesinos maintain that the only source of income they have is coca leaf, and unless and until the alternative development projects being promoted in the area can provide a real alternative they simply cannot afford to stop growing coca.  In this they are 100% correct.  The alternative development projects over the past 20 years have been an utter failure and there is no questioning that fact.  It is simply and patently true.

In view of all this unrest and upheaval, on Thursday April 28th. a nationwide campaign to block all roads came into force.  The campesinos responded to the call and by midnight April 27-28 all the roads and pathways in the country were blocked by human barricades later reinforced by tree-trunks and any other material to hand.  By morning all traffic was stopped - buses, trucks and everything with thousands of passengers caught in the way. The entrance to the dairy was the point chosen to set up the block at this end of the village so we were completely closed in with the blockade on one side and the river on the other.  Two thousand people were at this barricade.  Between Entre Ríos (the scene of the helicopter attacks last time around) and Bulo Bulo there were nine thousand people over a distance of 25Kms.

As is frequently (nearly always) the case, alternative development projects become the focus of people's frustration and there is a danger of assault.  The UMOPAR (the army anti-drug patrol) came by to protect the premises, but we told them (in the nicest possible way, of course) that we would rather protect ourselves, thank you very much.  If there is any protection you don't want and that is the UMOPAR. In fact their presence anywhere is a sure-fire recipe for reprisals.  The best protection you can have under these circumstances is to have good relations with the campesino leaders which, fortunately, the project has been fostering and developing.  In any case, the first night we thought it wiser to put out all lights on the complex so as not to attract attention to ourselves.  The following day some campesino leaders came and asked if they could have the lights  of the central passage on at night because they have to check the change-over at the barricades and they needed light(!), so the next night we put those lights on again.  


A group of World Health Organization experts were caught in Chimoré (where Robert’s office is)  with the potential head of a new project.  We were asked to check up on them, so Filippo who was at Chimoré went to see them.  The head was terrified out of his wits and decided to hire a private plane to get flown out.  Since there was room for only him and 2 others, the remaining two had to stay on and the next day they decided to walk (50Kms.) to Villa Tunari where they had a car.  Since this guy then had to justify the expense of hiring a plane, he put the wind up everybody in the UN offices who started sending messages for us to evacuate.  Even if we had wanted to, that was impossible, because there was nowhere for us to go.  The only escape route is the river and we don't have a boat or a canoe.  Anyway, it was panic stations in Vienna and God knows where else.

The news regarding government  reaction to the blockade was worrying, because, as usual, the Minister of the Interior wanted to bring in the troops.  If that were to happen, it would have meant a massacre and a great deal of violence.  Edgar Tapia's daughter who lives in Germany called up to say that there had been a news flash in Germany that 2 members of the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) had been kidnapped.  That gave us some cause for concern because then the US would definitely have wanted to put the boot in. It was difficult to get any reliable information about this, but we eventually found out that what had happened was that these two had been trying to pass themselves off as doctors in a Red Cross car but were detected by the campesinos, who took them out, gave them a real hiding and then let them go.  (This is the same ploy that they used in March when they used a UN vehicle to masquerade in).  It was worrying, because the silence was ominous (no helicopters or planes or anything like the last time) and we thought that the Americans were probably planning an Entebbe-type strike at night.

Eventually we prevailed upon Edgar Tapia to call all his government contacts to find out what was happening.  The Minister of the Interior wanted to strike, because, he said, the campesinos were behaving violently and had to be put down.  This was a patent lie:  the people were sitting out on the road - men, women and children - with their cooking pots and candles at night.  In view of this, Edgar provided true information based on what he had seen with his own eyes.  He called everyone he could get hold of, including the President's wife and son, and gave them reports of events.  This was most important because the only (mis)information they were getting was from US intelligence sources bent on armed intervention, and the fact that these people have known Edgar for many years and he has been involved in campesino affairs for decades meant that they could not disregard what he was saying. This sowed the seed of doubt as to the veracity of the other information, giving the other ministers who were not in favour of armed intervention something concrete to negotiate with and so any such action was postponed.

On the Monday (the fourth day of the blockade) the US was really getting itchy and they called a government ministerial meeting at the U.S. Embassy!!!  (If that isn't controlling the affairs in someone else's country,  I don't what is).  Intervention was on the cards again that day.  Again we pressed Edgar that he had to do something and the endless telephone calls began again.  Fortunately they yielded their fruit.  Next step - to try and get both sides together in some kind of meaningful discussions.  More phone calls.  Gradually the teachers and health workers worked out an arrangement.


All day Thursday (a full  week after the blockade had begun) the campesinos trailed up and down to the river and on the return journey they carried rags and sacks filled with stones.  Trees and branches and pieces of wood were beavered up to the road in readiness in case no agreement was reached.  In the afternoon negotiations were broken off.  Low profile policy once again. Under the trees at the entrance to the dairy the men sat sharpening their machetes.  Finally in the evening of Thursday May 5th.  it looked like some kind of agreement was being reached.  

The campesino leaders came back from La Paz to explain the basis of the agreement they had made.  This then had to be submitted to popular assent and, if the grass-roots accepted the agreement, the barricades would be lifted.  The whole procedure is like something out of another century.  Since modern communication systems are virtually non-existent, everything must be done by word  of mouth, not much different from medieval kings and queens or their representatives touring their territory.  Effective communication is face to face.   The leaders from the Chapare began at Villa Tunari and processed along the route explaining the agreement.  As assent was given at the different spots the barricades there were lifted and the leaders continued to the next place.  After Chimoré, however, they only passed quickly through our barricade, because they wanted to go to Bulo Bulo first. In this area the Eje Pachacutec is strong, and therefore they believed it would  be better to convince the people there first.  Pachacutec was an Inca leader (I don't know what century yet) under whom the frontiers of the Inca Empire were extended by 250Kms. EVERY DAY and he just lopped off the heads of the vanquished - well, they did have a head trophy tradition.  

At 10p.m. we went out to do the rounds of the barricades to see what was happening.  Great trees across the road, grass huts erected, people lying everywhere.  Under the MILKA sign lay lots of young men in a circle with their bag of coca leaf in the centre, all chewing quietly away.  The women had set up kitchens and were cooking and washing and tending to their children who lay on the ground.  Life goes on as usual within the bounds of abnormality.  One of the local leaders came across to greet us.  They do this as a sign to the people that you are friend not foe.  In the course of the week we had supplied them with pasteurized water, cheese and the last of the milk from the dairy.  They estimated that their leaders would not return before about 11p.m. but in fact it was almost midday on Friday before the barricade outside the dairy was lifted and we could get out.  Just as well, because we had run out of everything except cheese and yoghourt - no bread, no milk, no eggs, no fruit, no nothing.

Thousands of passengers, either in buses or trucks, sat there on the road for a full  week and nobody complained. What hardship you might say.   But is it?  In fact, in their own homes there is not much more in the way of creature comforts than what they had on the road.  No beds, mostly; no chairs.  In the evenings the people sit out on the roadside and chat.  In the daytime they sit on the ground to do their daily chores.  The children lie on the ground anyway.  They wash themselves and their clothes in the river.  Many people only have candlelight.  

The lesson I learned from all this is that any country that governs its people on the basis of what pleases or displeases the US is going nowhere except down the drain.  There is no future until the nation is governed as an autonomous entity with its own goals and achievements set in accordance with the needs of the people.  The basic needs of these people are improved nutrition, education, health care and a basic infrastructure to allow the country to compete at a minimum level with the rest of the world.  


I have just sent off a translation for the UNESCO encyclopedia on archaeological studies in South America.  Skeletal evidence shows that the women in the 10th century had little access to protein and that their diet consisted mainly of carbohydrates.  When the skeletons of today's women are examined by future archaeologists, they will find exactly the same.  Hardly a single girl after the onset of puberty has an unspoiled tooth in her head and by the age of 20-odd, once they have had a couple of children, they have no front teeth at all.  From my observations as I drive up and down this road, I would say that at least 60% of children do not attend school.  Health care is virtually non-existent.  Unless these priorities are set and a concerted effort is made to achieve concrete goals in these areas, Bolivia (and most the the Third World) is a write-off.  

As for alternative development, the focus is all wrong.  It should be aimed at fostering small local initiatives, instead of embarking on a lot of white elephant projects with no future.  The burning question, however, is whether they really want alternative development to succeed...  I harbour great doubts in this regard.  Time will tell in this direction, because Robert's project has adopted a totally different approach from everyone else.  Fortunately, Filippo and Edgar also believe in sustainable development as the only viable path to follow, but we shall see just how serious the powers-that-be are about making it work, because parts of it CAN work.  But will they let them?

I have just read a book entitled "The Big White Lie - The CIA and the cocaine/crack epidemic" by Michael Levine, an ex-Drug Enforcement Agency man, who explains how for years the US has supported and kept in power all kinds of dictatorial and fascist régimes in South America, including the García Meza Dictatorship in Bolivia in the 80s on the basis that bigtime drug barons were (and are?) the strongest bulwark against the spread of communism.  Now, GET THAT! And the sad thing is that it is true.  Drug traffickers practise red blooded capitalism no holds barred and they own everybody who is anybody.  In the course of the last few months it has come out that the former government of Jaime Paz Zamora, which had always been held up as a paragon of virtue, was up to its neck with drug barons of every description - with the connivance of the US.  If you can get hold of that book you should read it.

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