Bolivia: Conflict in Paradise, Again

As the rains and the floods continue to bring haunting damage to some parts of Bolivia (and tall green corn fields to others), so the waters of political conflict appear to be rising again as well, on several fronts.

On the domestic side, political attention turns once again to the nation’s capital, La Paz, where President Morales’ government has announced its plans to use street heat to pressure Congress to convene two national voter referendums related to the proposed new constitution backed by he and his political party, MAS. Alfredo Rada, the Minister of Government, announced yesterday that Morales and MAS are mobilizing labor unions, coca growers and other social movements that back the President to march on Congress.

Their demands: a vote to set up national referendums to approve the new MAS-drafted constitution, and a parallel vote on a land reform provision MAS supports which won a majority on the Constituent Assembly but not the required 2/3 (hence the need for a separate vote on that provision).

Opposition leaders were quick to denounce the move. “Whatever decision is taken in the face of new blockades and pressures will not have validity or legitimacy,” said the PODEMOS head of the Senate.

While social movements on the left have the longest history of using street protest and blockades to pressure officials into action (and often resignation), Morales opponents are going to have a hard time calling this latest move illegitimate. Street mobilizations by Sucre and opposition leaders last year completely stopped the work of the MAS-dominated Constituent Assembly that was drafting the new Constitution, forcing members to flee the city altogether.

Meanwhile, tensions between the Morales administration and the U.S. government are also heating up again, with the Morales government floating publicly the possibility that it may formally ask that the Bush administration replace embattled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg (pictured above in rare happier days with the Bolivian Foreign Minister). The Bolivian government has also dispatched Minister Juan Ramon Quintana to Washington to wage a formal complaint against what it has declared a USAID policy of funding Morales opponents.

The USAID controversy is just one in a string of recent uproars between Morales and Goldberg, including the U.S. Army’s Embassy attaché bringing in 500 rounds of ammunition in a relative’s suitcase, revelations that Embassy staff have been asking Fulbright Scholars and Peace Corps volunteers to provide it with intelligence on Cuban and Venezuelan presence in the country, and a disputed photograph of Goldberg with a Colombian later arrested on criminal charges in Bolivia.

While Morales has certainly raised some strange and unsubstantiated charges against Goldberg in the past (the photo with the Colombian was a real stretch), it is also true that the Ambassador’s tenure here has been a litany of boondoggles that few diplomats would care to include on there CVs.

If the intent of the Morales Administration is to truly have Mr. Goldberg replaced, then demanding it publicly is not likely to work. More likely it will cause the Ambassador and whatever supporters he has left in Washington to dig in their heels. If that is Bolivian government’s actual intent, a strong request in private, followed by a quiet transfer of duty is a more likely road.

In any event, Mr. Goldberg’s two-year term is up later this year, and I am willing to bet all comers a pique entero that he is not interested in a longer stay. New Ambassador appointments are likely to wait until after the new U.S. President is seated 11 months from now, so two things seem certain: First, Mr. Goldberg is likely to ring in yet one more new year in Bolivia, and second, his mistakes piled upon mistakes will give his predecessor a very easy act to follow.

Note: The Democracy Center is in the middle of an investigation of USAID funding in Bolivia, including interviews with both governments, which looks well beyond the charges and defenses aired to date. We hope to have that completed and published shortly.