Natural gas bonanza divides Bolivia
Bolivia’s history has been shaped in large part by its geography of jungles and high mountains, and in modern times by cocaine. But its future may depend on what lies beneath.
A vast bonanza of natural gas has plunged the nation into a political battle that is exposing its fundamental fault lines – rich and poor, Indian and European, socialist and capitalist, plus old nationalist and anti-“gringo” instincts.
It all comes to a head on Sunday with a referendum on what to do with the gas.
The dispute has already cost President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada his job in a popular revolt nine months ago, sparked by his plans to export the gas in liquefied form through Chile to Mexico and California. Nearly 60 people died.
His vice president, Carlos Mesa, took over and promised the referendum. The former TV journalist has won popularity as a blunt-talking political outsider, but whatever the result of the vote, analysts say it’s bound to be complicated and hard to implement.
The ballot asks Bolivians five questions, among them whether the gas should be exported or nationalised. It also asks whether Bolivia should use the gas as a lever to recover the access to the Pacific Ocean that it lost in its 1879-84 war with Chile, rendering it landlocked.
The referendum is unpopular with the Andean Indians in the western highlands as well as with business leaders of European descent in the southern and eastern lowlands.
Both groups have threatened to boycott the ballot, though the highest constitutional court has ruled that participation is obligatory.
Bolivia is one of the poorest nations in South America and has proportionately one of its highest Indian populations – some 55% of the nation’s 8.7 million people.
Subsistence farming dominates the mountainous west, along with coca, the plant used to make cocaine, while the gas lies in the wealthier south-east.
The gas ought to be a huge boost for Bolivia. Lured by privatisation of the industry, some 20 foreign companies have invested $3.5bn (€2.8bn) in exploration, discovering some 55 trillion cubic feet of gas.
That’s enough by some estimates to cover Bolivia’s needs for 1,000 years and raise incomes in a nation where two-thirds of the population make less than $2 (€1.60) a day.
Petrobras, the Brazilian giant, is a big investor and is working with Bolivian authorities on plans to build roads, thermoelectrical plants and a petrochemical complex.
But labour leader Jaime Solares and highland Indian leader Felipe Quispe want to nationalise the gas fields. Quispe also argues that profit-minded companies won’t be eager to pipe gas to remote, impoverished Indians, leaving them dependent on dried dung for fuel.
Then there’s national pride – a reluctance to pump the gas through neighbouring Chile, which seized Bolivia’s outlet to the Pacific, or to sell it to “gringos” in North America.
The referendum is casting question marks over the very existence of Bolivia as a unified republic.
Quispe envisions unifying Indians in present-day Bolivia, Peru and Chile in a land he calls Kollasuyo, its ancient Inca name.
Pro-business groups, deeply dismayed by the uncertainties cast over the gas project, are talking of seceding from the less developed highlands.
One proponent, Zvonko Matkovic, a businessman in the economic capital of Santa Cruz, likens Bolivia and its ethnic fractures to his ancestral country, Yugoslavia.
All this leads political columnist Ramon Rocha Monroy to suggest Bolivians are “bent on committing collective suicide”.
Political analyst Jorge Lasarte says the complex ballot could end up “creating more conflicts and widening the controversy. But I don’t see the country disintegrating.”
Interior Minister Alfonso Ferrufino said this week that ”all of these declarations of war and threats are from a minority that feels impotent and desperate before the failure of its campaign against the referendum”.
The fact that this first Bolivian referendum in 73 years is even being held is a sign of democracy taking root in a country long ruled by dictators.
“Until now, we have only been called on to elect officials. Now we can make a decision about national policy. That is very positive,” said Gabriel Helbing, a factory worker in Santa Cruz.
“The downside is that it could all end up in frustration if the government doesn’t comply with its promise” to abide by the outcome.
In La Paz, the capital, a street vendor who would only identify herself as Senora Estefania found it all confusing.
“I’ll show up to vote because it seems like something good for the country,” she said. “But there are many questions that I just don’t understand.”
