In the 1990s, Bolivia’s indigenous population mobilized to claim new political roles, and in the process, directly challenged the privileged position of economic elites within national political institutions. In response, business associations in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s most prosperous region, began to demand regional autonomy—in contrast to the demand for authoritarianism that characterized prior generations of business elites when confronted with threatening political change. After examining Santa Cruz’ past relationship with the national government, this article explores the challenges that led economic elites in the department to seek autonomy and the strategies that they have adopted in pursuit of this goal.
Donna Lee Van Cott, The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
2.
and Donna Lee Van Cott, “Party System Development and Indigenous Populations in Latin America: The Bolivian Case,”Party Politics6, no. 2 (2000): 155-174.
3.
Deborah Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
4.
David Collier and Ruth Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
5.
and Donna Lee Van Cott, “Explaining Ethnic Autonomy Regimes in Latin America,”Studies in Comparative International Development35, no. 2 (2001): 30-58.
6.
Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena, 16-16.
7.
Yashar, Contesting Citizenship.
8.
See Kent Eaton, Politics beyond the Capital: The Design of Subnational Institutions in South America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004).
9.
Mitchell Seligson, Auditoría de la Democracia: Bolivia 2002 (La Paz: Universidad Católica Boliviana, 2003).
10.
Yashar, Contesting Citizenship.
11.
Roberto Laserna, La democracia en el Ch’enko (La Paz: Fundación Milenio, 2004), 57-58.
12.
Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).
13.
and Rosendo Ardaya Jiménez, Historia del Desarrollo Socio-económico de Santa Cruz hasta 1952 (Santa Cruz: Editorial Universitaria, 1995), 30.
14.
In addition to these agricultural activities, revenues from natural resources including timber, petroleum, and gas became increasingly important in the second half of the twentieth century.
15.
and Grupo de Estudios Andrés Ibañez, Tierra, Estructura y Poder en Santa Cruz (La Paz: Centro de Estudios Andrés Ibañez, 1983), 29.
16.
See John Vargas, “Introducción,” in La Reforma Agraria desde las Regiones, ed. John Vargas (La Paz: CIDES, 2004), 17.
17.
For more on Santa Cruz’ participation in the cocaine industry, see Lesley Gill, Peasants, Entrepreneurs and Social Change: Frontier Development and Lowland Bolivia (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987), 183-193.
18.
On the dominance of large firms within the agricultural chamber, see Diego Marquina, “La Regionalización de la Reforma Agraria,” in Reforma Agraria, ed. Vargas, 177-78.
19.
According to Father Mauricio Bacardit, there is broad support in Santa Cruz for this type of political autonomy, even among individuals and groups who are suspicious of the intentions of Santa Cruz’ business elites. Interview with Mauricio Bacardit, Pastoral Social Cáritas (PASOC), October 24, 2005, Santa Cruz.
20.
As Hugo Carlos Molina argues, “the struggle over autonomy in Bolivia today is really a struggle for control over rents from natural resources.” Interview with Hugo Carlos Molina, ex-Prefect of Santa Cruz and chief author of the 1994 Law of Popular Participation, October 28, 2005, Santa Cruz.
21.
and Ismael Serrate, businessman and member of the CPSC committee that formulated its autonomy proposal, October 28, 2005, Santa Cruz.
22.
See also Roland Aparicio, “Santa Cruz contra el Racismo,”Artículo Primero8, no. 16 (2004): 187-188.
23.
In a workshop that I attended in La Paz organized by the Catholic Church to promote dialogue on constitutional reform issues, participants with a variety of political perspectives and from a range of socioeconomic groups expressed deep fears about what autonomy would mean for the rest of the country. Several participants worried that most departments are too poor to function autonomously, while others accused Santa Cruz of turning its back on departments such as Oruro, whose silver wealth helped finance public investment in Santa Cruz in the past. Notes from the “Autonomy” Workshop of the “Camino a la Asamblea Constituyente” sponsored by the Comisión Episcopal de Pastoral Social Cáritas Boliviana, October 21, 2005.
24.
José Luis Roca, Fisonomía del Regionalismo Boliviano, 2nd ed. (La Paz: Editores Plural, 1999), 39.
25.
The mobilization of civil society in opposition to authoritarian rule in Latin America is certainly not unique to Bolivia, but the Bolivian case stands out for the strongly regional quality of this mobilization.
26.
Laurence Whitehead, National Power and Local Power: The Case of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 221-221.
27.
See Gill, Peasants, 44-44.
28.
Interview with Carlos Bohrt, ex-Prefect of Oruro Department, October 18, 2005, La Paz.
29.
This shift in the economy accelerated with the discovery in 1997 of natural gas deposits in eastern Bolivia that are the largest in Latin America outside Venezuela.
30.
CAINCO, “Análisis de las Recaudaciones Tributaries Regionales,”Estudios, July 2005.
31.
In this period, cruceño cabinet members often behaved more like ambassadors from Santa Cruz than like national ministers. Interview with Gerardo Velasco.
32.
Paula Peña, La Permanente Construcción de lo Cruceño (La Paz: Fundación PIEB, 2003), 94.
33.
Carmen Dunia Sandoval, ed., Santa Cruz: Economía y Poder (1952-1993) (La Paz: Fundación PIEB, 2003), 97.
34.
Ibid., 101. See also Mario Arrieta, Agricultura en Santa Cruz: De la Encomienda Colonial a la Empresa Modernizada (La Paz: ILDIS, 1990), 113-15.
35.
Sandoval, Santa Cruz: Economía y Poder, 114.
36.
See also Peña, La Permanente Construcción, 106.
37.
See also Guillermo Capobianco, Santa Cruz: Corazón de Bolivia y de América del Sur (La Paz: Bolivia Dos Mil, 2004).
38.
Sandoval, Santa Cruz: Economía y Poder, 69.
39.
Gill, Peasants, 36-41.
40.
Catherine Conaghan and James Malloy, Unsettling Statecraft (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).
41.
Ibid., 57.
42.
James Dunkerley, Rebellion in the Veins: Political Struggle in Bolivia, 1952-1982 (London: Verso, 1984), 223-223.
43.
Sandoval, Santa Cruz: Economía y Poder, 121.
44.
Mario Arrieta, Agricultura en Santa Cruz: De la Encomienda Colonial a la Empresa Modernizada (La Paz: ILDIS, 1990), 195.
45.
Catherine Conaghan, James Malloy, and Luis Abugattas, “Business and the ‘Boys’: The Politics of Neoliberalism in the Central Andes,”Latin American Research Review25, no. 2 (1990): 21-21.
46.
Kathleen O’Neill, Decentralizing the State: Elections, Parties, and Local Power in the Andes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 126-126.
47.
Roca, Fisonomía, 23.
48.
and Merilee Grindle, Audacious Reforms: Institutional Invention and Democracy in Latin America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 120-120.
49.
According to Hugo Carlos Molina, a chief concern that motivated the design team was that if the government decentralized to the department level, the departments would not in turn decentralize to the municipal level. Interview with Hugo Carlos Molina.
50.
See also Juan Carlos Urenda, La Descentralización Deficiente (Santa Cruz: Urenda Abogados Sociedad Civil, 1999).
51.
and Paula Peña, October 24, 2005. All interviews in Santa Cruz.
52.
and Juan Carlos Urenda, Autonomías Departamentales: La Alternativa al Centralismo Boliviano (La Paz: Editorial Los Amigos del Libro, 1987).
53.
As Mario Viveros argues, the law gave departments a managerial role rather than a political role. Interview with Mario Viveros, Assistant to the President of the Decentralization Committee, Chamber of Deputies, October 19, 2005, La Paz.
54.
Urenda, La Descentralización Deficiente, 67.
55.
Bert Gustafson, “Paradoxes of Liberal Indigenism,” in The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States, ed. David Marbury-Lewis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 292-292.
56.
See also Jonathan Hiskey and Mitchell Seligson, “Pitfalls of Power to the People: Decentralization, Local Government Performance, and System Support in Bolivia,”Studies in Comparative International Development37, no. 4 (2003): 64-88.
57.
On the effects of Bolivia’s electoral reform, see René Antonio Mayorga, “The Mixed-Member Proportional System and Its Consequences,” in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? ed. Mathew Shugart and Martin Wattenberg (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
58.
Interview with Moira Zuazo, Decentralization Coordinator, Instituto Latinoamericano de Investigación Social (ILDIS), La Paz, October 21, 2005.
59.
and Robert Barr, “Bolivia: Another Uncompleted Revolution,”Latin American Politics and Society47, no. 3 (2005): 82-82.
60.
Interview with Mario Viveros.
61.
Laserna, La Democracia en el Ch’enko, 51-55.
62.
Interview with Carlos Bohrt.
63.
Interview with Daniel Castro, Media Coordinator, CPSC, October 27, 2005, Santa Cruz. Representation in congress may have been less critical in the decade following the 1952 Revolution, but since 1982, the Bolivian congress, with its prerogative to choose the president in the absence of a majority winner, has been one of the most important in Latin America.
64.
According to one Santa Cruz leader, “the troubles of the traditional parties mean that businessmen must enter politics to fill the vacuum left by their decline.” Interview with Oscar Antonio Franco, ex-Vice President of FEPB-SC, October 25, 2005, Santa Cruz.
65.
Mayorga, “Bolivia’s Democracy,”156-156.
66.
According to the Bolivian constitution, Congress is authorized to pick the president from among the top two vote getters if no candidate wins a majority in the presidential election. In the words of one anonymous business leader, “When we felt that Evo could be president, it was just natural for us to demand autonomy.” Interview with Oscar Antonio Franco.
67.
Carlos Romero, “Las Jornadas de Octubre: Levantamiento Popular en Bolivia,”Artículo Primero8, no. 16 (2004): 16-16.
68.
By this point, “the MNR had essentially converted itself into the party of Santa Cruz’ economic elites,” despite the extreme conflict between Santa Cruz and the then left-leaning MNR in the 1950s and ’60s. Interview with Mario Viveros.
69.
Rossana Barragán, “ ‘La Media Luna’: Autonomías Regionales y Comités Cívicos,”T’inkasos7, no. 16 (2004): 56-56.
70.
Interview with Vladimir Ameller, Expert in Municipal Development, UNICEF, October 20, 2005, La Paz.
71.
See Alfredo Rada, “Octubre y la Tierra,”Artículo Primero8, no. 16 (2004): 157-157.
72.
Eduardo Gamarra, “Hybrid Presidentialism and Democratization: The Case of Bolivia,” in Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America, ed. Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Shugart (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 392-392.
73.
As one critic of the CPSC within Santa Cruz argued, “after hundreds of years of being governed by non-Indian politicians, Indians are not likely to de-mobilize anytime soon.” Anonymous interview, Santa Cruz, October 27, 2005.
74.
Interview with José Antonio de Chasal. According to Marco Antonio Aimaretti, businesses affiliated with the CPSC spent approximately US$400,000 on the production of the Second Great Open Town Hall meeting, including the transport of individuals from the provinces to the city of Santa Cruz. Interview with Marco Antonio Aimaretti, Researcher, Centro de Estudios Jurídicos e Investigación Social, October 27, 2005, Santa Cruz.
75.
Interview with Juan Carlos Urenda, one of Bolivia’s foremost experts on departmental administrative law, October 25, 2005, Santa Cruz.
76.
Interview with Paula Peña.
77.
“Las FFAAs Estaban Preparadas para Todos,” La Razón, June 24, 2005.
78.
“Bolivians Split Three Ways Over How to Reconcile Three Sets of Elections,”Latin American Weekly Report, April 12, 2005.
79.
Juan Forero, “Bolivian Offers Reform Plan to Protestors Seeking Autonomy,”New York Times, June 3, 2005.
80.
Interview with José Bailaba (MAS, Santa Cruz), October 28, 2005, Santa Cruz.
81.
For example, many of my interviewees in La Paz highlighted the hypocrisy of the CPSC’s pro-autonomy position when it is opposed to proposals by Bolivia’s Guaraní population to create a new tenth department in the country’s gas-rich Chaco region, which would be carved out of the departments of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, and Tarija. Interviews with Vladmir Ameller and Moira Zuazo.
82.
Jeffrey Frieden, Debt, Development and Democracy: Modern Political Economy and Latin America, 1965-1985 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 34-34.
83.
Ben Ross Schneider, Business Politics and the State in Twentieth Century Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 36-69.
84.
Interview with Oscar Antonio Franco.
85.
According to Juan Armando Antelo, one of the main tensions between CAO and CAINCO resulted from the fact that while the former is dominated by domestic firms, 80 to 90 percent of CAINCO’s operating budget comes from foreign energy companies. Interview with Juan Armando Antelo, ex-President of CAO, October 24, 2005, Santa Cruz.
86.
and Daniel Sánchez, President, Departmental Chamber of Industry of La Paz, October 18, 2005, La Paz.
87.
The CPSC called on voters to boycott this referendum. Interview with Raúl Kleiffer, President, Bolivian Chamber of Hydrocarbons, October 26, 2005, Santa Cruz.
88.
See, for example, “A un Año del Referendum: Inequívocamente Atroz,” Petroleo y Gas, no. 43 (July 2005).
89.
Interview with Raúl Kleiffer.
90.
As Juan Armando Antelo argued, the May 2005 law was particularly bad for firms in Santa Cruz that provide services to the gas transnationals, but all businesses were troubled by the direction that Morales’ indigenous party was taking. Interview with Juan Armando Antelo.
91.
Simón Yampara, “Descentralización y Autonomía desde la Visión de los Pueblos Originarios,” in Visiones Indígenas de Descentralización, ed. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (La Paz: FES-ILDIS, 2005), 48.
92.
see also Alejandro Almaraz, Tierras Comunitarias de Origen: Saneamiento y Titulación (Santa Cruz: Centro de Estudios Jurídicos e Investigación Social, 2002).
93.
According to Oscar Antonio Franco, “only departmental control over land titling will give investors the juridical security (seguridad jurídica) they need to invest in agriculture.” Interview with Oscar Antonio Franco.
94.
“Ejecutivo Asegura Que FFAA Actúan de Forma Preventiva,”Opinión, July 12, 2006.
95.
In 2005, the MST conducted an invasion on land owned by CPSC President Ruben Costas. Interview with Mario Viveros.
96.
According to Marco Antonio Aimaretti, evidence of human rights abuses by these groups are a good reason not to grant extensive forms of regional autonomy. Interview with Marco Antonio Aimaretti. See also Barragán, “Media Luna,” 31.
97.
As a result, the FEPB-SC successfully forced Mesa to remove Molina from the prefecture the following month. In addition to his perceived leniency vis-à-vis the MST, Molina was broadly critical of the CPSC’s autonomy project. Interview with Hugo Carlos Molina.
98.
Interview with Patrica Hurtado, Legal Adviser, CAINCO, October 26, 2005, Santa Cruz.
99.
Interviews with Juan Armando Antelo and Oscar Antonio Franco.
100.
Interview with Sergio Antelo, Founder, Movimiento Nación Camba, October 25, 2005, Santa Cruz.
101.
One business leader in La Paz alleged that Santa Cruz representatives had sought to gauge the likely response by external actors such as the Organization of American States to the possible secession of Santa Cruz but were rebuffed. Anonymous interview, October 20, 2005, La Paz.
102.
Interview with Gabriel Dabdoub. Ismael Serrate concurs that autonomy, not independence, remains the consensus goal. Interview with Ismael Serrate.
103.
Juan Carlos Urenda, “De Cómo el Anhelo Autonomista Puede Derivar en Otra Cosa,” El Deber, October 6, 2005. Interview with Juan Carlos Urenda.
104.
“Los Empresarios se Dividen: Santa Cruz Retira de la CEPB,” La Razón, February 26, 2004.
105.
Conaghan and Malloy, Unsettling Statecraft, 63-64, 89-91.
106.
Ricardo Sanjinés, Biografía de la Empresa Privada Boliviana, vol. 1 (La Paz: Confederación de Empresarios Privados de Bolivia, 2004), 8.
107.
According to Godofredo Sandoval, “in contrast to Santa Cruz, a candidate with the profile of an economic elite would no longer be politically viable as the prefect of La Paz.” Interview with Godofredo Sandoval, director, PIEB, October 20, 2005, La Paz.
108.
Interviews with Juan Armando Antelo, Gerardo Velasco, and Daniel Sánchez.
109.
In the words of one business leader, “vivían de la extracción y no de la producción.” Anonymous interview, October 24, 2005, Santa Cruz.
110.
See also “Bolivia: Unexpected Coming Together of Opposites,”Latin American Weekly Report, August 2, 2005.
111.
According to Max Gastelú, claims by Santa Cruz business associations that they were underrepresented within the CEPB are hard to reconcile with the reality that—at the time the FEPB-SC left the organization—both of the CEPB’s previous presidents had been cruceños. Interview with Max Gastelú.
112.
Interviews with Gerardo Velasco and Oscar Antonio Franco.
113.
Barragán, “Media Luna,” 58.
114.
Animosity within the CEPB certainly ran both ways. La Paz-based members of the CEPB, for example, criticized attempts by the FEPB-SC to lure investments away from other Bolivian departments and to lobby for the relocation of the headquarters of national sectoral chambers from La Paz to Santa Cruz. Interview with Max Gastelú.
115.
“Marchas Campesinas en Santa Cruz Terminan con Enfrentamientos,” El Diario, October 18, 2003.
116.
See Yashar, Contesting Citizenship, ch. 4.
117.
In the words of one business leader, “In the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, we’ve got them all: Indians, workers and peasants.” Anonymous interview, October 27, 2005, Santa Cruz.
118.
“La COD sin Solución y los Militares Custodian Locales,” El Deber, July 6, 2006.
119.
Interview with Elio Pedraza, COD leader, October 25, 2005, Santa Cruz.
120.
“La COD sin Solución,” El Deber.
121.
“Helbing Será el Primer Plurinominal de Tuto,” El Nuevo Día, September 4, 2005.
122.
“En Santa Cruz no Todos Estan de Acuerdo con la Autonomía,” El Diario, May 25, 2005.
123.
Interview with José Bailaba. In January 2005, several days after the CPSC’s Second Great Open Town Hall Meeting, the CPESC organized a counter protest to criticize the oligarchic content of the committee’s autonomy proposals.
124.
See “Alertan sobre la Manipulación de Organizaciones Indígenas en Santa Cruz,” http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/bolivia/doc/cpesc9.html.
125.
“Pueblo Guaraní se Decepciona con Barrientos,” El Mundo, October 11, 2005.
126.
“Dirigente Indígena Está Inscrita como Candidato en Tres Listas,” El Deber, September 9, 2005.
127.
As Patricia Hurtado argues, “the role of the CPSC in winning oil royalties for the department in the 1950s generated tremendous loyalty to the committee by all institutions in civil society.” Interview with Patricia Hurtado.
128.
Speech by Ruben Costas, former president of the CPSC and current Prefect of Santa Cruz, at the celebration of the group’s fifty-fifth anniversary, CPSC headquarters, Santa Cruz, October 28, 2005.
129.
By 2001, 25 percent of Santa Cruz’ population was born in another department. Pastoral Social Cáritas, “La Migración Interna y Externa en Bolivia,” documento no. 18, 2005.
130.
Interview with Daniel Castro.
131.
See Xavier Albó, “222 Años Después: La Convulsionada Bolivia Multiétnica,” Artículo Primero 8, no. 16 (2004): 66.
132.
See also Pastoral Social Cáritas, “Las Autonomías Departamentales para Bolivia: Un Análisis Crítico,” documento no. 14, 2005.
133.
Interview with Paula Peña.
134.
Yashar, Contesting Citizenship.
135.
Edward Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties: Argentina in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 26-26.
