Who Will Cross the Line?

For months those with a more hyperbolic analysis of events here have warned of “civil war”. It was supposed to start, they warned, in Santa Cruz, where opposition to President Evo Morales is most fierce. But that was never the unfolding of events that was in the cards. It is the very ferocity of Santa Cruz opposition to Morales, the lopsidedness of it, that made mass civil conflict there unlikely.

The ugly preview of what civil conflict can look like happened, instead, here in Cochabamba. Why? Because this is the meeting point between the western highlands where Evo’s support runs highest, and the eastern lowlands where he is so despised. It happened where both sides could muster large numbers and it happened here because the local Governor, Manfred Reyes Villa, made a dangerous play to position himself as the key national opponent of the President.

So now the lines are drawn. As I have written before, this is not the Water Revolt of seven years ago. This is not a unified city – south and north, poor and middle class, rural and urban – against a repressive government. This is a city deeply divided.

Who will cross the line?

I have made it a point since these conflicts began to spend a lot of time crossing the line, talking to partisans on both sides and the many more who feel caught in the middle. Each side is utterly convinced that there is no legitimacy to the other. If you want a taste of the vitriol and closed-mindedness at hand, you can get a taste from the more bitter comments on this Blog.

Here is what I wish. I wish that some neutral party (if there is one left) would convene a public forum, televised for the whole city to watch, in which three people from each side would share their views of what has happened here and why. Neither side is capable now of listening to the other. Each side has sought some peaceful action toward reflection this past week. One held a street corner memorial for a 17 year old killed brutally. The other held a cultural event opposing racism in the Central Plaza. But they did this apart.

“Is there room for reconciliation?” I asked a young woman yesterday who was in Plaza de la Banderas when the Manfredistas began the assault on the campesinos on the 11th, and who had the blood of a beaten elderly man splatter across her. “Not now, not after hearing the racist attacks as they hit us.”

Here is what I would say to each side:

To The Campesinos and Others Who Gathered in Cochabamba
to Demand Manfred’s Resignation:

Yes, I fully realize that you see Manfred’s demand for a re-vote on autonomy and his alliance with those in Santa Cruz as a broader political move to stop political transformation in its tracks. Certainly, it is that, among other things. I realize that you think that those who back Manfred are “fascists” (whatever that overused term means these days). Certainly the stick and gun wielding young men who broke through the police lines on the 11th to beat women first, while screaming the most racist things they knew, certainly they gave you ample reason to believe this.

But there are a lot of people in Cochabamba who aren’t them and who don’t see it that way. They believe in democracy and they don’t see how a gathering of 5,000 or even 10,000 people have a right to undo an election in which ten times that many participated and chose a governor. They do not believe that burning the state office building is a solution. After weeks of asking I still have yet to get a satisfactory response to the question: “What gives you the right, more than anyone else, to undo an election?” There are many complaints to be raised against Manfred, but this is not Goni in 2003. Then a President ordered out troops to kill civilians, in repression so blatant and brutal that his own Vice President broke with him [While Manfred, by the way, stood by Goni’s side].

My friends, there is another side to the story.

To Those Who Took Peacefully to the Streets to Oppose the Demand for Resignation

Yes, I realize you see the arrival of the campesinos and others as an anti-democratic act by outsiders. I understand that you believe you are defending democracy. But recognize that for years, the better off of Bolivia have been telling the poor and the marginalized to leave behind the politics of the street and enter the arena of elections. Seek political transformation there, you told them. And many of you allied yourselves with that transformation by voting, with hesitation, for Evo a year ago.

But what faith in the integrity of elections are the marginalized supposed to have when a governor elected with a 47% majority, in a blatant move to serve his own national ambitions, seeks to undo a clear vote (63%) against autonomy just six months ago. Are elections a carnival game where if you miss the balloon with your dart the first time you just put down another quarter and demand to play again? Did you really expect those who see so much at stake for them in this transformation to just issue a news release or call into a radio show to articulate their anger?

Yes, someone burned the doors of the Prefectura (though who did and under what circumstances is still not clear). But make no mistake, on the 11th it was not the campesinos who broke through the police lines set up to keep the peace. It was a mob of Manfred backers armed with unhindered racism, sticks, guns and a strategy of “beat indigenous women first”. You should be concerned, deeply concerned, about who organized and ordered that attack. They are not people you want as allies.

The lines are drawn and each side is utterly dedicated to their convictions that they are 100% in the right and those who think differently are misguided at best, and patently evil at worst.

There is something tragically poetic that each side lost a life on January 11th. That can either be a wake up call to find another way to resolve the dispute at hand, or January 11th will serve just as an ugly preview of where Bolivians are headed. Your choice my adopted countrymen and countrywomen.