I had an amazing experience today. A moment where my time here in Bolivia, if not on earth, made complete sense.I was sitting in a cafe, working on my laptop, listening to some Seattle hip-hop, the Blue Scholars. A lustrebote approached me and asked to shine my shoes. I declined, but he stuck around, trying to strike up a conversation, as they often do. After chatting for a bit he pointed to my laptop and demanded "Let me listen”. He put on the headphones, listening tentatively at first, then smiling at the strange words, slowly swaying back and forth. ”What does it mean?” he asked when it was finished. So I translated:
50k deep, and it sounds like thunder when our feet pound streets. ● Cincuenta mil profundo, y suena como trueno cuando nuestros pies golpean las calles. ● Still demanding a share, refrigerator’s bare, they wanna see trade get free and not fair. But we are not far, we are not there, we don't got time left to spare, to not care.
His face lit up. “Are they talking about El Alto?” he asked. “What?” I replied, a little taken aback. As it turns out he was referring to the 2003 Gas War, and the overthrow of Goni, the hated neo-liberal puppet president.
A bit more background:
Like the Water War before it, the Gas War was by and large about neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, especially privatization. In 1996 President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, or Goni, privatized YPFB, the state hydrocarbons authority. It was broken up and auctioned off to private investors, who were required to pay 50% royalties. In the late 1990s he renegotiated many of these contracts by reclassifying them, lowering royalty rates to 18%. The cost of finding and developing a barrel of gas averaged $8.58 worldwide, $5.66 in Latin America, and just 40¢ in Bolivia. Gas revenues, the primary government revenue, decreased seven-fold. Paradoxically, privatization and structural adjustment widened budget deficits in Bolivia.
In 2003 Goni supported a $6 billon plan to build a pipeline through Chile, where the gas would be processed and shipped to California. There is a lot of bad blood between Bolivia and Chile because Chile permanently annexed Bolivia’s only coastline in the 1880 War of the Pacific.
Anger over petroleum privatization, the pipeline, US imposed coca eradication policies, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), the suspension of community justice and representation systems, the absolute poverty and inequality and other injustices came to a head in October 2003.
My small friend and his family, along with thousands of other campesinos, industrial and mining unions members, indigenous ayllu members, urban alteños and university students marched on La Paz, demanding the repeal of the 1996 Hydrocarbons Law, a popular referendum on hydrocarbon revenues, and the convocation of a constitutional assembly. When Goni refused to negotiate with their leadership, they escalated the situation.
Blockading the roads to the south in El Alto and the north in Villa Fatima, they besieged the La Paz. In one instance, hundreds of men, women and children dragged train cars several kilometers, before shoving them off the tracks and onto the main La Paz’s-El Alto arterial. Not even tanks could get through. The uprising spread to the countryside. In the altiplano Aymara community militias, armed with slingshots and guns from the 1952 National Revolution drove the army and police out of Sorata, Achacachi and Warisata. Eventually, over 300,000 people marched on La Paz, and hunger strikes numbered in the hundreds. In a country of only eight million people (and four million llamas) this is astounding.
In response, Goni declared a state of siege. In El Alto twenty-eight unarmed civilians, including a number of children, were massacred. In the ensuing protests, another thirty-nine were martyred, on civilian and state sides.
Eventually the protests became so large and state control so small that the security forces refused to suppress the populace. The Vice President, most of the cabinet and all of the neighbouring countries withdrew their support. With the US as his only ally, Goni was forced to resign and flee to Miami, where he still lives in impunity.
In 2003 Goni supported a $6 billon plan to build a pipeline through Chile, where the gas would be processed and shipped to California. There is a lot of bad blood between Bolivia and Chile because Chile permanently annexed Bolivia’s only coastline in the 1880 War of the Pacific.
Anger over petroleum privatization, the pipeline, US imposed coca eradication policies, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), the suspension of community justice and representation systems, the absolute poverty and inequality and other injustices came to a head in October 2003.
My small friend and his family, along with thousands of other campesinos, industrial and mining unions members, indigenous ayllu members, urban alteños and university students marched on La Paz, demanding the repeal of the 1996 Hydrocarbons Law, a popular referendum on hydrocarbon revenues, and the convocation of a constitutional assembly. When Goni refused to negotiate with their leadership, they escalated the situation.
Blockading the roads to the south in El Alto and the north in Villa Fatima, they besieged the La Paz. In one instance, hundreds of men, women and children dragged train cars several kilometers, before shoving them off the tracks and onto the main La Paz’s-El Alto arterial. Not even tanks could get through. The uprising spread to the countryside. In the altiplano Aymara community militias, armed with slingshots and guns from the 1952 National Revolution drove the army and police out of Sorata, Achacachi and Warisata. Eventually, over 300,000 people marched on La Paz, and hunger strikes numbered in the hundreds. In a country of only eight million people (and four million llamas) this is astounding.
In response, Goni declared a state of siege. In El Alto twenty-eight unarmed civilians, including a number of children, were massacred. In the ensuing protests, another thirty-nine were martyred, on civilian and state sides.
Eventually the protests became so large and state control so small that the security forces refused to suppress the populace. The Vice President, most of the cabinet and all of the neighbouring countries withdrew their support. With the US as his only ally, Goni was forced to resign and flee to Miami, where he still lives in impunity.
My new friend, Calixto, was just a little kid during the 2003 protests, six or seven years old. But he remembered the experience so vividly, and recounted his role passing out cups of coffee with so proudly.
Eventually, I explained that the song was about a protest in Seattle, in solidarity with Bolivia. "People in America care about Bolivia?" He asked, amazed. I was so pleased that I could honestly answer that some of us care. I even found a photo of the WTO protests. "It looks a lot like El Alto" he told me. And while Seattle is usually a world apart from El Alto, they sure felt close together today, while we sat, listening to the Blue Scholars, having lunch and talking about our lives.
Eventually, I explained that the song was about a protest in Seattle, in solidarity with Bolivia. "People in America care about Bolivia?" He asked, amazed. I was so pleased that I could honestly answer that some of us care. I even found a photo of the WTO protests. "It looks a lot like El Alto" he told me. And while Seattle is usually a world apart from El Alto, they sure felt close together today, while we sat, listening to the Blue Scholars, having lunch and talking about our lives.
This famous photo was borrowed from Reuters.
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