Indigenous Empowerment in Evo Morales’s Bolivia

Author(s): John Crabtree

Source: Current History , February 2017, Vol. 116, No. 787, Latin America (February 2017),
pp. 55-60
Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48614229

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 “The Morales administration sought to give indigenous peoples more rights and
greater influence in government, effectively breaking down traditional patterns
of exclusion.”

Indigenous Empowerment
in Evo Morales’s Bolivia
JOHN CRABTREE

I
n his inaugural address as Bolivia’s first elected teenth century and the various indigenous rebel-
indigenous president on January 22, 2006, Evo lions that took place in the decades and centuries
Morales declared, “The 500 years of Indian re- that followed, probably peaking in the twin late-
sistance have not been in vain. From 500 years of eighteenth-century uprisings of Túpac Amaru and
resistance we pass to another 500 years in pow- Tupak Katari in Peru and Bolivia, respectively.
er.” He also spoke of the revolutionary tradition The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw
in Bolivia and its struggle against US imperialism multiple uprisings of indigenous peoples, in large
and the neoliberal governments in Latin America part triggered by the encroachment of cash-crop
whose pro-market economic reforms Washington agriculture on much older forms of communal in-
had supported in recent decades. He invoked the digenous landholding. These included the rebel-
spirit of the Cuban Revolution and one of its lead- lion led by Emiliano Zapata during the Mexican
ing figures, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who was killed Revolution; and in Bolivia, the revolt led by Zárate
on Bolivian soil in 1967. The day before his inau- Willka in 1899, which was part of the civil war of
guration, Morales presided at a spectacular event at that year.
Tiwanaku, the pre-Inca site on the Altiplano near In the 1970s and 1980s, indigenous politics
La Paz, in which he celebrated indigenous identity gained new prominence, in part because of the
before a crowd that included delegations of native frustrations of class-based politics but also through
peoples from across Latin America and as far away the appearance of new, indigenous actors on the
as Canada and the United States. political scene. In parts of Latin America where
The new president, elected with 54 percent of indigenous populations represented a sizable pro-
the vote the previous month, thus embodied a dual portion of the population—or in others where mi-
discourse that called both for national liberation nority indigenous groups retained an important
and for the cultural liberation of the indigenous degree of cultural cohesiveness—indigenous peo-
peoples of Latin America. His success in blending ples began to mobilize and make demands on the
these two elements lent his government authen- state. They started to openly challenge the prev-
ticity and legitimacy that would serve it well in alent discourses in which they were effectively
the years ahead. But it would also become a source deemed second- or even third-class citizens within
of tension as Morales tried to reconcile these two political systems dominated by those of European
different aspirations, a balance that has proved in- origin and/or mestizos. In Ecuador, for example,
creasingly difficult to maintain. indigenous peoples from both the highlands and
the Amazon lowlands began to exert pressure on
RISING UP the government through such institutions as the
The salience of indigenous politics in Latin Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ec-
America is, of course, nothing new. Arguably, uador (CONAIE). In some instances, such social
it goes back to the Spanish invasion of the six- movements spawned political parties that man-
aged to win significant shares of the vote.
JOHN CRABTREE is a research associate at the University of At the same time, localized indigenous resis-
Oxford’s Latin American Center. tance to natural resource exploitation led to pro-

55

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56 • CURRENT HISTORY • February 2017

tests by groups such as the Mapuche in southern mestizo culture, had formed a party of their own
Chile. Emblematic figures like Guatemala’s Rigo- and effectively taken control of the main peasant
berta Menchú, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace confederation, the Unified Syndical Confederation
Prize, became international ambassadors for ad- of Rural Workers of Bolivia.
dressing the plight of Latin America’s indigenous They influenced the pro-indigenous policies
peoples. In Colombia, the 1991 constitution in- enacted in Bolivia in the mid-1990s, particularly
cluded special political rights for indigenous peo- with respect to land titling, new forms of politi-
ples. In 1992, the fifth centenary of the start of the cal and social participation, and encouragement
Spanish conquest became an occasion for the as- of education in indigenous languages. Meanwhile,
sertion of indigenous rights. lowland organizations began to have an impact
Of all the countries of Latin America, Bolivia through the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples
has one of the largest indigenous populations. of Bolivia (CIDOB). The 1994 Popular Participation
Estimates vary, but the 2001 census showed 61 reform, under the aegis of President Gonzalo Sán-
percent self-identifying as “indigenous.” It is, chez de Lozada, involved a radical decentraliza-
however, a heterogeneous population, including tion of political power and fiscal spending to the
peasant farmers in the Altiplano and Andean val- municipal level, along with systems of oversight
leys, people from lowland indigenous tribes, and by local grassroots organizations. It is credited by
indigenous migrants to urban areas and the tropi- some authors with creating propitious conditions
cal zone. for the rise of Evo Morales and the Movement To-
There has always been a large overlap between ward Socialism (MAS), of which he was one of the
ethnicity and class in Bolivia; both the peasantry founding leaders.
and many in the working class are indigenous by
origin. But with regard to landholding, there has COCA POWER
long been a divide between the individual own- Morales, the son of indigenous peasants from
ership of land by highland peasants and the ter- Oruro in the highlands, was a migrant to the Cha-
ritories of indigenous groupings (both in the low- pare district of Cochabamba, which had become a
lands and in more remote parts of the highlands) major area of coca production by the 1980s. Like
where land was owned and worked collectively, other migrants, he took with him the tradition of
forming the basis of separate cultural identities rural peasant unionism (sindicalismo) born of the
derived from the pre-Columbian period. Peasant 1953 land reform. Social and political organiza-
ownership resulted from the land reform enacted tion in the Chapare was structured around the six
by the government of the Nationalist Revolution- federations into which the cocalero (coca grower)
ary Movement (MNR) under President Víctor Paz unions are divided. Although they are migrants,
Estenssoro, which had taken power in a 1952 rev- the largely Quechua-speaking people of the Cha-
olution. As well as agrarian reform, the revolution pare are overwhelmingly indigenous in origin.
brought with it the nationalization of the country’s When the “war on drugs” conducted by the
mining industry and the introduction of universal government at the instigation of the United States
suffrage. The distribution of land to peasant fami- reached its climax at the end of the 1990s, the
lies, however, did little to guarantee the territories union federations emerged as the main source of
held by indigenous peoples; indeed, the MNR gov- resistance. The coca leaf became the symbol of
ernment sought to suppress distinctions in the ru- that resistance, representing both indigenous cul-
ral sphere based on ethnic tradition and culture. ture and the nationalist fight against outside in-
It was during the 1970s that highland indig- terference. From time immemorial, rural people
enous movements began to make their mark on had used coca in religious rituals and chewed it
Bolivia’s politics. This was in large part a reaction as a form of sustenance and a means of mitigating
against what was widely seen as the co-optation fatigue.
of the peasant movement in the 1950s and 1960s, The rise of Morales and the MAS embodied
first by the post-1952 MNR governments and then these two traditions, using the defense of natural
by a succession of military regimes through the resources as the leitmotif for bringing together dis-
so-called Peasant-Military Pact. By the late 1970s, parate social movements from across the country
the Kataristas, a group of young indigenous intel- at the beginning of the new millennium. The MAS
lectuals who feared that their culture was at risk thus managed to transcend its particular origins—
from the spread of what they saw as MNR-inspired as much syndicalist as indigenous—and grow into

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 Indigenous Empowerment in Evo Morales’s Bolivia • 57

a national movement with extraordinary speed, ministration of Rafael Correa, voted into office in
taking advantage of the atrophy of conventional 2007, sought initially to include in the governing
political parties. In this sense it contrasts strongly alliance leaders drawn from Pachakutik. It was,
with other more specifically indigenista move- however, an alliance that proved short-lived.
ments that appealed to relatively small popula- The early years of the new millennium also saw
tions, such as the Pachakuti Indigenous Move- shifts at the global level: the efforts of nongovern-
ment, which never managed to grow beyond its mental organizations and international agencies
base among the Aymara communities in the vicin- (particularly those of the United Nations) opened
ity of Lake Titicaca. up new space for the promotion of pro-indigenous
There were few parallels elsewhere in Latin agendas. Key here was Convention 169, adopted
America to the ascent of the MAS in Bolivia. Per- by the International Labor Organization (ILO)
haps the nearest is in Ecuador, where a party in 1989, and the UN Declaration on Indigenous
founded in 1996, Pachakutik, sought to build Rights of 2007. The former was particularly influ-
politically on the foundations set by CONAIE and ential in reaffirming the rights of indigenous peo-
provide a vehicle for indigenous participation, in- ples to give or withhold consent before extractive
corporating (albeit uneasily) the interests of both and other projects could take place on their terri-
lowland Amazonian tribes and highland Quechua tories. It was ratified by most Latin American gov-
speakers. Differences of tradition, organizational ernments. The UN declaration, while not formally
practice, and aspiration made it difficult to create binding, was an important landmark in helping
a common political platform, and splits soon oc- indigenous peoples combat discrimination and
curred. marginalization. It spelled out their individual and
In Mexico, the Zapatista movement that collective rights and the necessity of respecting
emerged in the southern their institutions, languages,
jungles of Chiapas during and cultures.
the 1990s had rather differ- Inequality in Bolivia has fallen Morales’s election in 2005
ent characteristics, involving was widely seen beyond Bo-
a mix of guerrilla warfare and more sharply than almost livia as a key moment in the
indigenous social activism, anywhere else in the region. expansion of indigenous peo-
but it failed to build alliances ples’ influence. Although he
in national politics. In Peru, was not the first indigenous
a country with a large indigenous population, president in Latin America—Benito Juárez, who
class-based politics impeded the development of served five terms as president of Mexico from the
a pro-indigenous agenda, which was also thwarted 1850s into the 1870s, probably deserves that hon-
by the effects of the war against the Shining Path, or—he was the first to articulate a clearly indigeni-
a Maoist guerrilla group. Elsewhere, for example sta ideology. The commitment to protecting and
in Nicaragua (with the Miskito people), in Chile extending indigenous rights in Bolivia was writ-
(with the Mapuche), and in Colombia and Ven- ten into what had become known as the October
ezuela (where indigenous people make up only Agenda, a set of demands codified by the leaders of
very small sectors of the population), indigenous social movements at the time of Sánchez de Loza-
organizations remained local and limited in their da’s ouster as president in October 2003. (He was
political influence. forced to resign following massive disturbances in
El Alto and La Paz that he sought unsuccessfully
PLURINATIONAL STATE to quell with military force, causing many casual-
The election of Morales was part of a wider trend ties.)
in Latin America that saw the election of a range That agenda echoed previous demands, espe-
of left-of-center governments in a so-called “pink cially by the lowland indigenous organizations
tide.” Although the role of indigenous peoples in represented in the CIDOB. In 1990, the confedera-
this shift varied from one country to another, the tion had spearheaded a 35-day march “for territory
pink tide brought attempts to forge new bonds be- and dignity” from Trinidad, the capital of the Beni,
tween the state and society, and in particular to a department in the lowlands of northeastern Bo-
increase public participation in politics. Probably livia, to the seat of government in La Paz. One of
the country with the closest affinity to Bolivia in the main demands of the marchers, included years
this respect was once again Ecuador, where the ad- later in the October Agenda, was a complete re-

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58 • CURRENT HISTORY • February 2017

vision of the constitution to incorporate a range dress the situation by demarcating and titling the
of rights reflecting the majority status of Bolivia’s territories, mainly in the eastern lowlands where
indigenous peoples. land was still held collectively by specific ethnic
With Morales as president, these demands bore groupings. During Morales’s first term (2006–10),
fruit in a new constitution in 2009. It defined Bo- the government sought to accelerate agrarian re-
livia as a “plurinational state” made up of indig- form by allocating large swaths of underused land
enous “nations,” each with rights to autonomy, to peasant farmers and indigenous communities
respect for its cultural identity and language, and alike. In the case of the latter, attention turned
protection of its territories. The constitution creat- mainly to reaffirming collective indigenous land-
ed special systems of parliamentary representation holding in the highlands, where attempts were
for indigenous peoples and pronounced the need made to reconstitute traditional, pre-Columbian
for respecting traditional forms of indigenous jus- forms of land tenure through local governing units
tice. It proclaimed adherence to indigenous val- known as ayllus.
ues, in particular the notion of “vivir bien,” usually Finally, the Morales government used the
taken to mean living in harmony with the com- United Nations and other forums to assert a
munity and the natural environment. It afforded pro-indigenous agenda worldwide. It sought to
Bolivians of African descent the same rights as propagate the notion of vivir bien as an alterna-
indigenous peoples. It thus advanced indigenous tive development parameter, in contrast to the
rights in significant ways. materialist preoccupation with economic growth.
The candidates elected in July 2006 to the This had an impact in some other Latin Ameri-
Constituent Assembly, charged with drafting the can countries, again notably in Ecuador where the
new constitution, included many of indigenous same principle was written into its constitution as
origin. The president of reformed in 2008. It also
the Assembly, Silvia Laz- had influence in neighbor-
arte, was an indigenous The reforms have been at least as ing Peru, but more at the
woman from the Chapare, level of indigenous organi-
and pro-indigenous or-
much about state building as about zation than in state policy.
ganizations—notably the the promotion of indigenous culture. Morales’s government
CIDOB—played a major took an aggressive stance
role behind the scenes in in climate change nego-
shaping sections of the constitution that related tiations, linking the issue to preservation of in-
to indigenous rights. Though some of their ideas digenous peoples’ habitats. This effort probably
were whittled away in the give-and-take process reached its peak at the climate change conferences
of producing a final draft acceptable to a largely in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Cancún the follow-
white opposition, the outcome was generally pop- ing year. In between those meetings, Bolivia hosted
ular with indigenous citizens. The process served the World People’s Conference on Climate Change
as a model for the revision of other countries’ con- and the Rights of Mother Earth in the town of Tiq-
stitutions at the time, notably in Ecuador. uipaya in April 2010.
In the years after 2010, the Bolivian legislature
passed laws to implement the new constitution, ECONOMIC UPLIFT
including one establishing rights of autonomy Events since 2000—not least the victory of
within specified territories, allowing for the intro- Morales and the MAS in 2005—have proved to be
duction of local justice systems based on tradition- greatly empowering for Bolivia’s indigenous popu-
al customs. It also passed legislation to regulate lation, both rural and urban. Throughout its his-
enforcement of the constitutional provision grant- tory, Bolivia has been a highly exclusionary soci-
ing the right of prior consultation to indigenous ety, suffused with ethnic and class discrimination.
communities when they are potentially affected by That has changed. In whatever manner the MAS
extractive industries (as specified by ILO Conven- government eventually comes to an end, the status
tion 169). quo ante will not return.
Agrarian legislation, meanwhile, was passed to The election to the presidency of someone born
secure and extend defined indigenous territories. to an indigent indigenous family has broken the
The 1953 land reform had done nothing to protect glass ceiling that previously prevented people of a
such territories. A 1996 law was intended to re- certain social and ethnic extraction from reaching

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 Indigenous Empowerment in Evo Morales’s Bolivia • 59

positions of power. The social movements that co- indigenous people have increasingly moved into
alesced around the MAS brought indigenous peo- previously white areas, breaking down patterns
ple into government. The composition of Morales’s of exclusion. Elsewhere too, new indigenous
cabinets and the parliament since 2006 reflect this elites have emerged—among the coca growers of
change, which has also brought indigenous wom- the Chapare and Yungas, among former migrant
en closer to the center of power. Such changes, of families from the highlands who have become
course, are part of a social transformation that has prosperous farmers in Santa Cruz, among those
been gestating for years, if not generations. But it who run mining cooperatives in the highlands,
took the political upsets of the MAS’s rise to power and among some Altiplano peasants who have
to provide the necessary catalyst. managed to take advantage of high world prices
Improved status and access to power have been for grains like quinoa. Social and ethnic forms of
accompanied by significant improvements in liv- differentiation are no longer so clearly one and
ing standards. The reduction in poverty has clear- the same.
ly benefited indigenous Bolivians, most of whom
were relegated to the poorest sector of society. CULTURE CLASH
In 2006, 59.9 percent of the population lived in The policies of the Morales regime have both a
poverty; in 2015 that number had fallen to 38.5 pro-indigenous element and one much more as-
percent. In 2006, 37.7 percent lived in “extreme” sociated with the nationalism and state building
poverty; by 2015 only 16.8 percent did. inherited with the legacy of the 1952 revolution.
This improvement in living standards was the While clearly benefiting indigenous peoples, the
result of both accelerated growth rates and policies reforms carried out since 2006 have been at least
of redistribution. The economy grew by an average as much about state building as about the promo-
of 5 percent between 2006 and 2015, the fastest tion of indigenous culture and values. A telling
growth since the 1970s, with gross domestic prod- example was the so-called TIPNIS dispute in 2011
uct per capita rising from $1,227 to $3,071. At the and 2012.
same time, inequality in Bolivia—which long had The dispute originated with plans to build a
one of Latin America’s most skewed income dis- road through the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Ter-
tributions—has fallen more sharply than almost ritory and National Park, or TIPNIS, to link up
anywhere else in the region, clearly to the benefit the cities of the Altiplano with the lowland de-
of the poorest in society. partments of the north and east. It was part of
Government moves to take back control of the a project of national integration and improving
hydrocarbon industry and raise tax rates on foreign access to Bolivia’s neighbors, in this case Brazil.
energy companies, coupled with high prices for oil But the road was perceived as a threat to indig-
and gas during part of that period, provided the enous territories and ways of life. Protesters held
Bolivian state with ample resources for more pro- two lengthy and much-publicized marches from
active social policies. Increased revenue has been Trinidad to La Paz.
channeled into targeted conditional cash transfer The TIPNIS dispute did much to stain the gov-
programs aimed at vulnerable populations (such ernment’s reputation, both domestically and inter-
as schoolchildren and nursing mothers). The Mo- nationally, as a defender of indigenous rights. It
rales administration has also expanded an exist- caused the rupture of the Unity Pact, an alliance
ing universal pension entitlement for the elderly of social movements that formed the base of the
(the so-called renta dignidad). Sharp increases in Morales government, by alienating the CIDOB and
public investment, particularly in infrastructure Conamaq, the federation of highland indigenous
improvements, provided an important boost to peoples. The dispute was also, in part, triggered
employment among lower-income workers. by the ambition of the Chapare cocaleros to move
New economic actors have come to the fore in north into this designated indigenous territory on
recent years, many of whom are of indigenous or- the boundaries of Cochabamba and the Beni. It
igin. Nowhere is this clearer than in El Alto, the exposed the differences between the interests of
township that borders La Paz and which now ri- indigenous peasants and those of tribal peoples, a
vals the seat of government in population. While clash—also witnessed in other parts of the coun-
poverty is still widespread in El Alto, the infor- try—of cultures and lifestyles. When push came
mal economy in the city is burgeoning, spurred to shove, the government came down in favor of
by contraband activity. Even within La Paz itself, the peasants.

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60 • CURRENT HISTORY • February 2017

SHIFTING PRIORITIES seat to boosting domestic production of agricul-

The land redistribution agenda, so much a fea- tural commodities, for both local consumption
ture of Morales’s first term in office (2006–10), re- and export. Even the peasant sector, long the po-
ceived much less attention during his second term litical base of the MAS, saw its role sidelined in the
(2010–15), to the detriment of both tribal indig- new paradigm.
enous peoples and peasant populations. The em- With the opposition parties divided, Morales
phasis of public policy shifted from redistribution won a third term in December 2014, albeit with a
toward maximizing food production. This coin- slightly lower percentage of the vote (61 percent)
cided with a rapprochement with the landowning than in 2009. He dismissed opposition objections
elites of the eastern lowlands, particularly those in about the constitutionality of another term, argu-
Santa Cruz who dominated cash-crop agriculture. ing that this counted only as his first reelection un-
In 2008, the government had been shaken by a der the 2009 constitution. However, he prepared
major political crisis triggered by the new consti- to run again in 2019 by holding a referendum to
tution. The most conservative elements of Santa approve a constitutional amendment allowing him
Cruz society threatened secession. The 2009 refer- a fourth term. His narrow defeat in the referendum
endum to ratify the constitution took place at the reflected a fall-off in support for his government
same time as a parallel plebiscite that would set and disapproval of its reluctance to loosen its grip
new limits on landholding. Crucially, these were on power. This was most notable among urban
not made retroactive, in a major concession to the middle-class voters, though it was also discernible
big landowners of Santa Cruz. among those involved in social movements that
The government’s economic agenda was driven had previously been loyal to the regime. But by
increasingly by the need to maximize investment the end of 2016 it appeared that the MAS would
in extractive industries, particularly natural gas, use alternative methods to change the constitution
which accounted for half the country’s export earn- to enable Morales to run once again.
ings and was a key source of tax revenue. Amid
signs that gas reserves were diminishing, the search LASTING LEGACY?
for new supplies took priority over further protec- The cultural and political tradition that Evo
tion of indigenous rights. This led to conflict with Morales and his fellow cocaleros came from was
indigenous groups, particularly with the Guaraní grounded in a syndicalist tradition, but it also was
people whose lands overlapped the main gas-pro- inspired by the emergence of indigenismo from
duction fields in Tarija. As the search for new gas the 1970s onwards. These two traditions merged
fields moved northward into the Amazon lowlands, in a country in which social class and ethnicity
more territorial disputes erupted. had long been closely intertwined. The Morales
The Morales government’s 10-year development administration sought to give indigenous peoples
plan (the so-called Patriotic Agenda), published in more rights and greater influence in government,
2015, provided further evidence of its shift away effectively breaking down traditional patterns of
from a pro-indigenous discourse toward a much exclusion. Such policies have brought major ben-
more traditional plan of economic and social de- efits to the poorest, mainly indigenous section of
velopment. It emphasized the need to maintain society, and have reduced inequality in this highly
growth levels, raise productivity, and sustain pub- inequitable country.
lic investment and social welfare spending. The However, when pro-indigenous policy initia-
urgency of maximizing all exploitable resources tives clashed with more conventional develop-
increased with the fall in commodity prices and ment strategies, the latter tended to prevail. And
the risk that posed to a state-centered model of de- although the Bolivian example provided an inspi-
velopment reliant on resource rents. Although the ration to other Latin American countries, in prac-
Patriotic Agenda nodded in the direction of vivir tice its impact on policy making elsewhere was
bien and respect for Mother Earth, the environ- relatively limited, with the possible exception of
mental and pro-indigenous rhetoric took a back Ecuador. ■

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