Evo Visits Comedy Central and the Daily Show

Some months ago I was invited to chat with a few staff at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz and one of them opened that conversation with an odd disclaimer, "Please understand, we aren't all Bush Republicans. I am a diehard Jon Stewart fan." Well, if the "Daily Show" fans at the U.S.'s highest embassy were watching last night, they saw an unexpected familiar face on the set in New York – Bolivia's President, Evo Morales.

Visiting President's make their marks on the U.S. in different ways during the annual head-of-state extravaganza at the UN. Hugo Chavez, last year, made his famous "Bush is the devil and I still smell the sulfur speech." While the speech did boost books sales for Noam Chomsky, I don't think it helped Venezuela's cause a good deal. Earlier this week the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made a much-publicized visit to Columbia University where he explained that Iran does not have any gay people. That would be except, one supposes, for the ones tortured or jailed by the government for being gay.

Morales is definitely getting and following better advice about U.S. public relations.

As someone who doesn't own a TV, I don't actually watch the Daily Show, except for snippets that come on in hotel rooms while on the road. Nevertheless, from a U.S. public relations point of view Evo couldn't do better. At a time when the President of the U.S. is a joke, and Presidents like Ahmadinejad wouldn't seem to know a joke, Evo has a chance to toss a few– as well as explain what he is up to – in front of millions of U.S. viewers.

"Evo the Likeable" – watch that make his opposition in Bolivia go nuts. Maybe when Ahmadinejad visits Bolivia on Thursday (a move that will make the U.S. go nuts) Evo can show him the tape and give him a few pointers on lightning up. Maybe he can invite some gay people over too.

I am told by a reader that, if you missed it on the tube, you can watch Evo's "Daily Show" appearance on the Comedy Central Web site, here.

We look forward to your reviews.

Conflicts Over Constitutional Reform: A Tentative Truce

Readers:

I am once again on the road, far from Bolivia. In my absence I have asked our great team in Cochabamba to keep Blog readers posted on events as they unfold. Here is their first installment, a report on the recent negotiations between the government, the opposition, and other key groups, aimed at getting the process of constitutional reform back on track.

Jim Shultz

A Tentative Truce

On Wednesday, political leaders from all sides, Assembly representatives, and government members gathered in the Vice-President's chambers for a much-awaited summit on the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly has been suspended since early September, when violent protests over a proposal to move the seat of the executive and legislative branches from La Paz to Sucre ground its sessions to a halt. The summit met for eight hours. At one o'clock in the morning, the political leaders filed out, saying they had reached an agreement that they would sign Thursday morning after some much-needed rest.

The leaders of the fourteen political parties signed the agreement the following day, which consisted of four points. In two points they assured that they would support the continuation of the Constituent Assembly. One point assured that the referendum on departmental autonomy would be respected in the final result (PODEMOS' biggest concern). The final point was a plan for resolving the topics which are still in conflict in the Constituent Assembly.

The plan relies on three arenas for reaching compromise. The first is the Constituent Assembly's Settlement Committee, already scheduled to meet when the Assembly reconvenes on October 8. It will be composed of the leadership of the Assembly, the heads of the political parties, and the leadership of each of the 21 commissions. The second arena for coming to agreements is the group that met on Wednesday and Thursday, mediated by Vice President Garcia Linera. The third is a smaller group created at the summit called the 'Special Committee for Dialogue and Consensus'. It will be composed of six Assembly representatives from MAS, three from PODEMOS, and one from each of the other political parties in the Constituent Assembly. The 'Special Committee' will meet all next week to come to compromises on the most conflictuous issues of the Constituent Assembly, and report back to the group mediated by the Vice President on October 1. Remaining issues will be dealt with by the Settlement Committee when the Constituent Assembly reconvenes.

The other point agreed on in Wednesday's summit was that the Capitalia issue would be discussed in a separate forum. The Interinstitutional Committee of Sucre, which led the demand for Capitalia, and representatives from La Paz met in Cochabamba yesterday, with the understanding that if they came to an agreement, it could be introduced either in the 'Special Committee' next week or in the Settlement Committee once the Assembly resumes. Not surprisingly, they did not come to any such agreement. The La Paz representatives said the Sucreños would not cede on any points, and that they had refused the Paceños' offer to continue the dialogue. Sucre representatives said they would appeal to the 'Special Committee' that meets next week.

The agreement reached by Wednesday's summit to continue the Constituent Assembly came just when many people had given up most hope. One has to wonder what happened on Wednesday to pull all the sides back together. One clue is MAS' proposal for the new Constitution, which came out in the days before the summit. In that proposal, departmental autonomy was to be implemented far less rapidly than PODEMOS wanted. Perhaps in Wednesday's summit, Garcia Linera reminded the conservative political party leaders that want departmental autonomy that the Constituent Assembly represents their only real hope for achieving it.

Make no mistake, this is no end to the conflictuous nature of the Constituent Assembly. It is a tentative truce. Reaching the consensus necessary to finish the work of the Constituent Assembly will be no walk in the park. The Capitalia issue is far from resolved. However, the current moment of truce is backed up by a web of committees, groups, meetings, and timelines both sides have agreed to. It represents the best shot the Constituent Assembly has for dialogue and finding way out of the conflict.

Written by Leny Olivera, Aldo Orellana, and Lily Whitesell

U.S. Embassy Intelligence

I recently discovered that I had been added to the e-mail warning list sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. Every now and then I get forwarded a message to people the Embassy refers to as "wardens' updating me on things that I need, as a U.S. citizen, to be careful about.

A Note: I really wish I had gotten such a warning a few years ago at Christmastime about some tainted 'papa rellenos" at IC Norte – little contaminated devils that left me and my two older kids tied up to I.V. tubes in a local clinic. But I think that is too much to ask of any government.

This week's warning had the following to say abut Cochabamba:

Protests in Cochabamba: The Bolivian press is also reporting that social groups from across Bolivia will gather in Cochabamba on Thursday, September 13, 2007. There may be limited mobility in Cochabamba on this date, as well as the potential for violence between conflicting groups.

We recommend that American Citizens exercise caution and stay away from these demonstrations, as press reports indicate there is the potential for confrontations between opposing groups. Since the timing and routes of marches, protests, and demonstrations are always subject to change, American citizens should monitor local media sources for new developments. We wish to remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence at any time. American citizens are encouraged to avoid areas where mass assemblies and demonstrations are expected to occur.

I have to give the Embassy credit on this one. The streets of Cochabamba are jammed with marchers this morning. The noise outside our downtown office is deafening as I write. The marching crowds have not stopped for hours and must number in the thousands.

One problem – they are carrying glockenspiels. They also seem to be playing an awful lot of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and "From the Halls of Montezuma". Oh yeah, they are mostly all high school students.

Friday is Cochabamba Day, the anniversary of the city. So today downtown is packed with the annual assembly of school marching bands and dour looking civil servants who, for some reason, have a tradition of putting on ties and heels (either one or the other) and marching in between the high school bands. While I like imagining the people who work in the Department of Motor Vehicles or Social Security Office doing this in the U.S., I think it is unlikely.

To be honest, if the Embassy staff had asked, anyone here in Cochabamba could have told them that Thursday would be a lousy day for protests. In a tangle between either Manfredistas or cocaleros versus a hundred marching bands, my money is on the marching bands.

And so much for all the conspiracies about CIA intelligence being gathered through the country. Of course, the report on glockenspiels was probably classified.

New Visa Requirements for U.S. Visitors to Bolivia Take Effect December 1st

On December 1st it is going to get a whole lot more complicated for visitors from the U.S. to get into Bolivia, but how much more complicated remains unclear. Today in La Paz, Bolivia's Foreign Minister laid out the specifics of the long-awaited new entry rules first announced on New Years.

Up until now entry to Bolivia from the U.S. has worked like this. You get off the plane in the bone-numbing cold of dawn in La Paz, adjust to trying to stand at an elevation equivalent to Mt. Whitney, then pass through a swift moving immigration line. There an officer opens your blue passport and gives you a free 90-day tourist stamp and waves you on. To leave costs you $45, but that's another story.

In January, in the name of "reciprocity" (i.e. it sure isn’t that easy for Bolivians to get on the plane going the other way) the Bolivian government announced that it would begin requiring visitors from the U.S. to obtain visas. In the eight months since, anxious tourists-to-be have waited for details to emerge.

In an official announcement, Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca explained:

Citizens of the U.S. that come to the country as tourists now can no longer step on Bolivian soil without a visa, after December 1. We have completed a bi-ministerial resolution that governs the requirements for the entry of foreigners. This deals with citizens of the U.S. and protects tourism.

According to Bolivian news reports, Bolivia will classify the U.S. as a "Category 3" country, subjecting it to the most stringent visa standards of any nation in the world. On paper, for now, those requirements include:

- Filling out a form with your basic personal information
- Providing a 4x4 cm color photograph with a red background
- Presenting a passport good for at least six more months
- Presenting some form of formal police document stating that you aren’t a criminal
- Providing either proof of a hotel reservation for your entire stay or a notarized letter of invitation from someone in Bolivia who promises to pay your costs of being here
- Presenting your round trip airline ticket
- Providing documents demonstrating your financial solvency in the U.S.
- Providing proof of a yellow fever shot

The new visa will also cost $134, which is actually $20 more than the cost of a visa for Bolivians to the U.S. Bolivians, however, pay the fee just for applying, even if their request is denied. "What for us is expensive, for them is economical," added the Foreign Minister.

Obviously this represents a substantial ramping up of the bureaucracy involved in making a visit to Bolivia. But still unclear is the question of whether visitors can do all this here on arrival or must do so beforehand with one of the handful of Bolivian consulates in the U.S. Choquehuanca told a La Paz news conference that the new visa could be obtained directly at the point of entry, be it an airport or a bus station, after previously completing the requirements. But, so far, no official has made it clear whether that means the paperwork all gets done beforehand in the U.S. or not.

One reason for this is probably that Bolivian consulates in the U.S. have already told the government that they are unprepared for the avalanche of paperwork headed their way if the processing happens in their U.S. offices.

There are several possible scenarios here.

1. Tens of thousands of U.S. visitors per year will now swamp Bolivian consulates (those who decide to still come) with visa requests. The result will be a really big mess.

2. Tens of thousands of U.S. visitors per year will now have to complete a complicated visa screening process on arrival at the airport or bus station. The result will be a really big mess.

3. The whole thing will evolve into something much less strict than it looks right now on paper. The result will be that getting into Bolivia will now cost $134 and be more of a hassle.

I can certainly understand, from an emotional standpoint, why many Bolivians, including the leaders of the current government, would want to adopt such a policy. The U.S. makes it very, very difficult to make the trip north, while the road south is cheap and open to all comers. That said, let’s just be clear about the practical implications if the visa rules are implemented in full:

** Thousands of young backpackers, having wrapped up their visit to Machu Picchu will not say to each other, “Hey, Bolivia sounds really cool, let’s go check it out.” They will not cross the border. They will not spend money in Bolivian hotels and restaurants. They will not buy wool sweaters. They will not increase employment and opportunity through tourism. They will not learn something about the country and take that experience and enthusiasm home.

** Hundreds of parents of Peace Corps volunteers, semester abroad students, and other young people here from the U.S. will not decide to take their family’s summer vacation in Cochabamba. They will not buy Aeorsur tickets. They will not book hotel rooms. They will not buy tours to visit the Chapare. They will not tell their friends in the U.S. that they saw first hand what a great country Bolivia is and what a great place it is to travel.

** Hundreds of independent journalists and filmmakers who are interested in what is going on here and who want to spend a few weeks here to help educate audiences abroad will not come here. They will not deepen U.S. understanding of Bolivia.

** Hundreds of young people from the U.S. will not come here to be volunteers in orphanages, hospitals and schools. They will not bring their creativity and goodwill. They will not write to their friends and neighbors to send money to help buy books, medicines, and diapers.

The irony of course, is that the people in the U.S. who are hell bent on making it so difficult for Bolivians to go there are not the people with any interest in visiting here. The people Bolivia will end up losing as visitors are the ones who would end up being some of the country’s biggest U.S. boosters.

I am not a Bolivian. I am a guest in this country, albeit one with a (more appreciated than ever) residency visa. If Bolivians place such a high value on the dignity sought by making it very complicated for people from the U.S. to get into their country, that is Bolivia’s sovereign right to decide. But let’s not pretend it is a policy without real implications for tourism and understanding.

A Note to our Regular Readers: Some readers will recall that we posted an April Fool's Blog on this topic, which some people believed, despite the clear disclaimer at the bottom. Personally, I was disappointed to see that the Bolivian government did not take up my suggestion to include in the price of the visa a new Evo Sweater. So much for all those conspiracy theories about my influence over the Bolivian government. I did hear, however, that our doctored photo of Ambassador Goldberg in an Evo sweater was very popular among U.S. Embassy staff.

In any event, today is 9/11, not April 1, so this post is actual fact based on Bolivian news reports. Just in case you wondered.

Capitol Capers

Gas and oil nationalization, maybe. Land reform, more than likely. Regional autonomy and decentralization, no question. But who, even a month ago, would have imagined that Bolivia would be exploding over a proposal to relocate the nation's capital from La Paz to Sucre? I don't even think that the coca leaves saw that one coming.

Bolivia is once again in a state of turmoil. This week university students in Sucre led violent confrontations with police that have many asking whether September in Sucre will turn into January in Cochabamba – when conflict over the 2/3 vote issue spilled into the streets and left three people dead.

How did we get here? The answer is a mix of political opportunism and political incompetence by all sides.

Si No Podemos, Tampoco Pueden Ustedes

First, there is the political game by the opposition to try to stop Morales and MAS' efforts to rewrite the nation's constitution. PODEMOS and its opposition allies, after getting beaten badly in two back-to-back national elections – for President in 2005 and for delegates to the Constituent Assembly in 2006 – took on a new tactic. They started throwing everything they could think of in the way of the MAS' powerful political train to see what would stick.

It seems that PODEMOS ["We can"] adopted a new slogan: si no podemos, ustedes tampoco pueden – if we can't then you can't either.

They tried the "Evo is Hugo Chavez with a different haircut" tactic, which never caught on. Then they found traction with the demand for a 2/3 vote on everything at the Constituent Assembly in Sucre, because it resonated with public fears that maybe the MAS juggernaut was too powerful and Evo's aims to broad. When that issue ended in compromise the opposition went looking for something new to throw on the tracks. For a while they tried to slow Evo and MAS down with charges that the government was being run by foreign advisors, but that didn’t really work. And then came Sucre.

Okay, I have no evidence other than that we know the demand to move the capital began somewhere within PODEMOS, but I am guessing that it went down something like this:

Hey, have you noticed that the Constituent Assembly actually looks like it might write a constitution.

Well, I have heard about it second hand, but a lot of our delegates don't actually go to any meetings.

We need something new to derail this thing and fast.

[A pause for deep thinking.]

HEY, I HAVE IT! Let's start a demand to have the capital moved to Sucre!

From a purely Machiavellian point of view, you really do have to hand it to these folks. They pulled an issue out of nowhere but old history and in a few weeks have used it to close down the Assembly process completely. While it is certainly arguable whether all this is good for Bolivia (that is not necessarily the opposition's leading concern right now), it has certainly been good for the opposition. I mean, stopping the party in power from doing what they don’t like is what an opposition does. Frankly, I wish that Democrats in the U.S. had demonstrated such insistence and skill when President Bush lied the U.S. into war.

MAS Takes the Bait

I am continually astonished, and disappointed, at how easily MAS takes the bait from these opposition tactics. When the demand went out for autonomy, MAS could have said, "Absolutely, autonomy, we're for it, move government closer to the people, but now let's talk about what kind of autonomy." Instead they let Santa Cruz leaders and others turn it into an anti-MAS rallying cry, and an effective one. When the 2/3 vote issue emerged, MAS could have proposed the same sort of compromise that it eventually agreed to, just absent the massive street protests and absent the deadly conflict in Cochabamba in January.

A friend of mine here who is a shrewd analyst of Bolivian politics – someone sympathetic to MAS' aims but critical of its operations – laid out to me how the same pattern is at play on the Capital-to-Sucre debate. Of course Sucre is free to make such a demand, he argues. MAS dismissed the demand as mere politics. "Of course it is politics," he told me. "It's all politics."

Instead of dismissing the idea of even talking to Sucre leaders about it and instead of closing down the Assembly over the issue, MAS had much better political cards to play. They could have played compromise – offering the region some additional development projects (a big motive for the demand is the assumption that having the capital brings development and jobs) or even a department or two.

They also could have played hardball:

Hermanos, here is what we calculate to be the cost of moving the capital and what that translates out to in terms of the teachers, rural doctors, highways and other goods that each department would have to give up to pay for it. Now, if you are insistent, we'll go ahead and put this to a vote on the same ballot as the new constitution and you can go out and try to convince the rest of the country to vote for it. By the way, a third of the electorate lives in La Paz.

But MAS did none of this, and instead, just as they have before, swallowed the opposition's bait and landed themselves in the midst of a crisis. It is a shame that Morales and MAS do not have the same skill in domestic diplomacy that they have shown in foreign diplomacy. You have to hand it to a government that, in the same week, can send its foreign minister to Iran to build new relations there, and send its Vice President to Washington and win approval from Democrats for extension of Bolivian trade preferences.

…And You Really Want The Capital.

And what of Sucre itself? I have no doubt, despite however 'political' the original demand may have been, that the students and others on the street are sincere in their desires to have the capital moved to their city. I also have to wonder why. Sucre residents might take a look around at the smoke, flying rocks, and violence on their doorstep and ask, "If this is what we bring to our small and peaceful city by just having the Constituent Assembly, what will come with a whole capital?" Maybe they should ask instead for some new schools, some new clinics, and the tax department.

Meanwhile, MAS is now discussing the possibility of moving the Constituent Assembly to Oruro. I've been there, and not during carnival. It's a nice place. Might even make a good capital.

Exactly How Much Attention Does this Man Need?

Cochabamba's governor, Manfred Reyes Villa, apparently feeling left out of the current political turmoil in Bolivia, has returned to the recipe that won him so much national attention in January – provoke the opposition. On Sunday, Reyes Villa called for the resignation of President Evo Morales, setting off a new firestorm of local threats and counter-threats.

Bear in mind that this is the same Manfred Reyes Villa who, in January when faced with demands for his resignation, traveled around the world to trumpet the democratic principle that legitimately elected leaders should not be cowed out of office before serving their full term. Morales was elected by a much higher vote than Manfred in 2005, and a vote that was nationwide.

What did other political actors around the country have to say about Manfred's call for Morales' resignation?

Jorge Quiroga, not known as a Morales backer, called the governor's comments, "unfortunate and not very smart." The Mayor of La Paz, Juan Del Granado, called Reyes Villa's comments racist, seditious, and criminal. A leader of the conservative UN party also called Reyes Villa's comments irresponsible and seditious. Cochabamba's Mayor made similar declarations and Defensor del Pueblo Waldo Albarracin reminded Reyes Villa of his January declarations about respecting the legitimacy of elections.

Morales' spokesman Alex Contreras predictably denounced the governor, with the usual reminders of his role in the dictatorship of Luis Garcia Meza and his alliance with Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada during the ex-president's repressive last six months in office.

Reyes Villa's reaction to all this: the governor repeated his call for Morales' resignation.

A Recipe for Conflict

Readers will recall that last January, Reyes Villa set the original spark of citywide violence, by abandoning his practice of ribbon cutting to jump into the national political fray, declaring that he would organize a re-vote on the autonomy issue in Cochabamba (something he is not constitutionally authorized to do), just six months after the proposal was soundly rejected by voters here. MAS backers and others foolishly took the bait, calling for Reyes Villa to resign and staging a mass blockade of the city that included torching the governor's office. When Reyes Villa backers broke through police lines on January 11, inciting a violent clash with those demanding his resignation, three men were killed and many other people badly wounded.

In the end Reyes Villa withdrew his demand for a re-vote on autonomy and the crowds demanding his resignation retreated from the city center. Nevertheless, the move by Reyes Villa in January accomplished what he most likely intended. The former and future Presidential candidate moved himself from the margins of the national political debate to the center of it, becoming a leading opposition figure to Morales.

Then political events pushed Cochabamba's governor back to the political margins. A compromise was reached on the conflictive 2/3 vote issue before the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly actually started to meet and get some work done on the drafting a new constitution. Then it was PODEMOS turn to try to find an issue that could throw a monkey wrench into the process and came up with the creative proposal to move the nation's capital to Sucre from La Paz.

Once again national politics began to boil and the "Morales Project" seemed stopped in its tracks, but where did that leave Manfred Reyes Villa – governor of a department divided and a man, once again, left out of the national equation. So once more, Manfred is trying the strategy that worked so well before – try to goad militant MAS backers into a battle so that he can put on the mantle of Mr. Opposition.

A Recipe for Peace

First, let's be clear. Manfred Reyes Villa has the right to say anything he wants, no matter how stupid. If he wants to step in front of a battery of microphones and declare that the government should conduct its business in its underwear, let him go ahead and do it. I am a believer in free speech. I wrote in January that it was a mistake to call for his resignation then and I still think the same now.

The issue is not Manfred's new declaration but how his adversaries respond to it, and here they have an opportunity to learn something valuable from January – this time don't take the bait. Here is what I really wish MAS and Morales would say:

Manfred Reyes is a foolish man who thinks that at a moment of national political tension, the best thing a leader can do is try to create more of it. He may be that stupid but we are not and neither are the people of Cochabamba. As far as we are concerned, Bon Bom is free to say any stupid thing he wants.

Oh yes, maybe someone can ask him when he is going to release that evidence he said he had in hand in March that Morales had spies following him around. Or perhaps reporters might want to ask the governor when that delegation from Human Rights Watch is coming to Cochabamba; the one he declared was on its way here last January.

Or better yet, just ignore Manfred Reyes Villa altogether. That will drive him nuts.

When Democracy Spills into the Streets

Here is the question I most get from outside observers to Bolivia these days: Will the violence, such as that in Sucre last month over the 'we want to be the capital" issue, escalate to a point that it overtakes everything else? Is Bolivia headed toward civil war?

I think it would be a good thing if everyone calmed down a bit and looked at the current situation here from a broader perspective.

Bolivia, whatever else one thinks, is going through a historic political transformation that was and is inevitable. It has been – for decades or centuries, pick your starting point – a nation in which a majority that is indigenous and impoverished has been governed politically and economically by a small minority that is different in almost every respect. If you want to see the contrast in a nutshell, think Jorge Quiroga vs. Evo Morales. There is a pretty wide gap between a US-educated, former IBM executive married to a blonde Texan and a coca-growing former llama herder who never set foot in college. I'm not disparaging one or the other, just noting the difference.

It was inevitable that one day political leadership would pass from the old elite to a new majority, and so in December 2005, with Evo's landslide victory over Quiroga, it did. That raised high hopes among those new to power and deep fears among those losing the power they were accustomed to.

Since that election, the real question in Bolivia has been this one: Can a political transformation as profound as this one be contained within the four walls of standard politics or will it spill into the streets? And it if does spill into the streets, will it overwhelm the ability of standard politics to secure a working compromise and way forward.?

When political conflict has spilled into the streets, as it did here in Cochabamba in January or did in Sucre more recently, newspapers and Blogs alike become filled with declarations that the end of democracy is near. But is that so?

First, anyone who anticipated that Bolivian politics would ever stop being played out in the streets is really foolish. People taking to the streets to press their political demands is an integral part of Bolivian culture. While street politics is mostly associated with the left, the right has shown its willingness to play the same game as it challenges Morales. Frankly, a nation with an abundance of street politics is probably a lot more democratic than a nation with an abundance of political apathy.

Second, a good deal of the street protest since Evo's election is about various political forces using 'street heat' to strengthen their negotiating hand in the regular political process. Those who took to the streets to demand a 2/3 vote on all issues before the Constituent Assembly (the full constitution already being subject to a 2/3 vote) did so not to oust the government but to pressure it. Morales and MAS are now organizing big street actions of their own in Sucre for next week. Much of this can be interpreted as muscle flexing by political rivals, still basically committed to resolving the conflict through dialogue – hopefully.

It is also worth noting an interesting study on Bolivian conflict released last week by Fundacion UNIR in La Paz. Researchers there combed through 15 years of Bolivian newspapers and calculated the number of political and social conflicts under each of the most recent Presidential administrations. Under the Morales government, the figure came in at an average of 26 conflicts per month.

That sounds extraordinarily high, but it is actually a lower level of conflict, according to UNIR, than under Carlos Mesa (51 per month), Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in his second term (34 per month) and Hugo Banzer and Jorge Quiroga (29 per month). Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in his first term had the lowest level of conflict (13 per month). UNIR concluded that the current conflicts also last a shorter period than under previous governments and, at the moment, do not pose a threat to democratic governance.

So how will we know when crowds on the street signal something more than muscle flexing or democracy by other means? How will we know if it represents the abandonment of regular politics and Bolivia falling into the dangerous territory of the unknown? I think there are two ways Bolivia could turn this way.

That abyss could come if one or more of the major political forces involved – be it the opposition or the government – decides it has more to gain by abandoning 'regular politics' than the risks that abandonment involves. It is still hard for me to believe that either side is so stupid to believe this. Conspiracy theorists (who seem to abound these days) should keep in mind that both Evo and the opposition benefit a good deal from stability and have a good deal to lose from chaos.

The other way street conflicts could threaten democracy is if the stalemate among the players on the inside becomes so stuck that people lose hope and patience in the process. That is the risk that political leaders are playing with here, on both sides.

In word, democracy has many defenders here in Bolivia. Everyone from the civic committee of Santa Cruz to the highland Aymara proclaim that they are defending democracy. Democracy, however, is also supposed to be a process by which we are able to resolve our differences in peaceful ways. Whether all sides here are committed to that aspect of democracy is the question that remains unanswered.