Riots in Sucre

Bolivians are passionate and emotional people and they care greatly about what happens in their country. There seem to be protests every other day about something or other, and mild disturbances in the streets are not uncommon. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a number of protests, ranging from issues such as the abuse of animals, the rights of disabled people, to political protests against the current Bolivian government and their decisions.

So when I saw on the television that there were protests in Sucre, I paid scant attention, and planned to arrive the next day. But as I was preparing to get on the bus the next morning, I was eavesdropping on some Australian travellers’ conversations when I discovered that things were a little more serious than I had anticipated. Not only were there protests in Sucre, but apparently the city had been blockaded and no traffic was allowed in or out… Clearly this was news that I should have been paying more attention to.

But the travellers didn’t seem to know much more than that, and weren’t much help to me when I tried to find out more, so I went to the local people in search of information… But this was easier said than done, especially with my limited Spanish vocabulary. I couldn’t get any kind of agreement as to what the conflict was about, let alone what was the situation regarding the blockades. Some people told me it was a conflict between students and police and another person told me it was a dispute about indigenous issues, and the Aussies seemed to think it was about industrial relations…

Although I couldn’t quite work out what was going on, the one thing everyone did agree on was that something bad was happening in Sucre and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be going there. I didn’t fancy being turned away at the city outskirts if there was a blockade, or walking into town with my heavy backpack, nor did I fancy arriving into a war zone, so I decided to get off the bus about halfway to Sucre, at a smaller city called Potosi.

Potosi itself was a charming city with an interesting past, and well worth a visit. Most people that go to Potosi do an interactive mine tour. Although there is little silver left in the mine, there are plenty of other mineral deposits, and it is still a working mine. A number of companies offer tours, where you go down into the mine with a miner. The conditions down the mine are truly horrendous. Temperatures are between below zero to over 45 degrees C, and the hours are long. The gases are poisonous, and many miners have a lifespan of 10 years after they enter the mines, thanks to a condition called silicosis pneumonia.

Now, I’ve been in caves before and I’m not claustrophobic, so the fact that you need to crawl on all fours through some of the spaces in the mine didn’t really bother me, but I was more than a little perturbed by the fact that they take you down to 3 out of the 4 working levels, to over 100 metres below the surface. All of these facts combined literally scared the stuffing out of me, especially having seen the footage of the miners trapped in the cave-in in Tasmania which dominated the Australian media for a few weeks last year. ‘If such a thing can happen in a mine in a developed country with modern safety standards, what could happen to me in this one?’ I thought to myself. And in addition to all this, a day earlier I had heard a second-hand story of an Irish guy travelling who was left behind in the mine by his tour group, with no idea how to get out….

So needless to say, I chickened out of the mine tour… I wasn’t so keen to see the mine to make the risk worth it in my mind… If it had been scuba diving in a cave for example, I could have justified putting myself at risk for a little adventure, but for a dirty, smelly, old mine? Actually, I don’t think you could have paid me to go down there!

So I wandered around Potosi, went to a few museums, sat in the park, drank some coffee… Mostly though, I was just hanging out and biding my time till I could get to Sucre, so I spent the bulk of my time trying to find out what was going on there. You could feel the tension in the air, even in Potosi… Everyone knew that something big was happening in their country. There was an incredible number of police in the streets, and everywhere I went I saw people with radios at their ears, listening to updates, and televisions showing footage of civilians clashing with police. I often overheard snippets of conversations about Sucre, enough to know that most people seemed to strongly support the civilians in their struggle… Occasionally there were marches in the streets of Potosi, with people supporting the protesters in Sucre, and each time I witnessed a gathering of people I held my breath, wondering if the same thing was going to happen there as well, but thankfully all these were peaceful… But I still couldn’t work out what the whole struggle was about. I figured if I was planning on launching myself into the middle of a civil war I should at least try and figure out what the whole thing was about.

So I spent hours on the internet trying to find more information about the situation, but found the English language media had very little coverage of the situation… And by very little coverage I mean none. Zip. Not even the oh-so-global BBC. I was alternatively disgusted by our Anglo-centric view of the world and frustrated that I couldn’t get any information, and relieved that at least no one at home would have heard about the riots and be worried about me. In the end, I gave up on the internet idea altogether in favour of a more classic form of news reporting. I bought my first newspaper in Spanish, and attacked the seven-page lift-out with my dictionary to try and find out what on earth was going on…

From the newspaper I worked out that during the previous week there had been a big government meeting in Sucre about the constitution, and there were large anti-government protests in the streets, which disintegrated into violence, with police firing on unarmed civilians and using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Three people had died in the clashes between police and students, and more than 100 people had been injured, some seriously. Most of the protesters were students.

And what was so important that they were willing to give their lives for, you might ask?

Well, that is an incredibly complicated question, one that I have spent the last two weeks trying to work out the answer to. The short answer is the constitution. From the newspaper I could work that much out, but with my little Australian brain and Western way of looking at the world I really, really could not understand what on earth was so important about the constitution that made it worth dying for. So I have been begging any local person that would talk to me to explain it, but I have been trying to piece it all together in a second language, and although I understand a bit more about what caused the riots in Sucre, I feel like I have little more understanding about why the new constitution is proving to be so unpopular than I did in the first place.

The constitution specifies that Sucre is the capital of the country. But a few decades ago, the government up and moved the three of the four compartments of government to La Paz. The parliament, the treasury, and the military are based in La Paz, only the judiciary remains in Sucre. Nevertheless it is still the constitutional capital. That is, the constitution defines Sucre as the capital. But the new constitution aims to change this. The people in Sucre, however, want Sucre to stay the capital and they are incredibly passionate in their defence of their city.

One day when I was chatting over Skype with my family in Australia, they asked me where I was at the moment. I told them, ‘Sucre, it’s kind of the capital of Bolivia. La Paz is kind of the other capital, but I’m in Sucre at the moment.’ A local man overheard me, and must have understood English very well, because he interrupted and assured me ‘No, Sucre IS the capital of Bolivia, not La Paz...’ He clearly wanted to say more, but I stopped him, as I was chatting with home. But in short, this is the first of the reasons for the conflict and one that is concrete and easy to pinpoint. A lot of the graffiti that remains in the city is related to Sucre as the capital city.

Learning this didn’t help me much to understand the conflict, however, because to an Australian, fighting over which city is the capital is plainly absurd. But to a developing nation like Bolivia, this is a significant issue. Firstly, there is a lot of corruption in Bolivia, and much of this is centred around La Paz. Of the highest positions in all sectors of government, there are no representatives from any other province other than La Paz. All the government officials, all the people in power in Bolivia are from La Paz, and nepotism is rife, meaning that if you are born elsewhere, you have little chance of getting into a position where you can make a difference. Also, decisions are made for what is best for the people of La Paz, not what is best for those in other provinces.

Also, Sucre, despite being the capital city, is located in the poorest region in all Bolivia. There are no jobs, especially for young men. The military is a very good career here in Bolivia, but it is almost impossible to get into the army, navy (it makes me laugh a little that land-locked Bolivia has a navy) or air force unless you hail from La Paz. So for young men in Sucre, in particular, there is a sense of hopelessness that comes with limited employment prospects, and the unfairness of knowing that where you are born limits your prospects even more.

Also the new constitution seems to allow for greater powers for the government over the people. Many people assert that the constitution is like a communist manifesto for Bolivia, and that Evo Morales is trying to turn Bolivia into a socialist state, one in which his control is strong and absolute, not dissimilar to Chavez in Venezuela. I have heard talk of a range of human rights violations that have happened since the conception of the Evo Morales government. The newspapers described those that were killed or injured in the fighting as ‘defenders of democracy’, and there has been a lot of discussion in the media over the country being at a crossroads between socialism and democracy. The country seems split into two groups, and those protesters from Sucre fervently believe they were fighting for the survival of democracy in their country.

But one of the things that really brought the issue to a head was the constitutional assembly itself. The special assembly to draft a new constitution has representatives of the people. However, initially, the governing party appointed more than half the seats on the committee to its own party, thereby making whatever changes they want to pass automatic. The process would be somewhat a rubber stamp. This was strongly opposed and protested about in itself. Then, a couple of weeks ago, when the assembly was convened, it held meetings without the presence of the opposition. I don’t know why the opposition weren’t at the meetings, I don’t understand why it would matter if they were there, given that the governing party has more than half the representatives anyway, but for whatever reason, they weren’t there and this infuriated many people of Bolivia even more. The process was described as illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional. There have been huge protests and public discontent with this issue in particular.

Therefore, listening to his constituents, the governor of Sucre went to the constitutional assembly, and from what I understand he announced that his people did not want the proposed changes, that convening the meeting without the opposition was just bad, and that the whole thing was bad. He announced he would refuse to agree to it, or something like that… The head of the committee, Silvia Lazarte, a middle-aged indigenous lady who wears traditional Bolivian dress and her hair in plaits, ordered a gun to his head, and insisted that he leave the meeting or he would be executed then and there. This really riled up the people of Sucre, who felt quite defensive of their governor, who essentially had gone there on their behalf. Anyway, the governor was escorted from the constitutional meeting, but this wasn’t the end of the issue.

Added to this, police from La Paz, fiercely supportive of Morales, had arrived en masse to be ‘security’ for the city throughout the constitutional assembly. The rumour is that some of these police, dressed in civilian clothes, ransacked the residence of the governor and his family, trashing his computer, setting fire to his belongings. Meanwhile, actual civilians had tried to stop the destruction… Students, passionate in their support of their city, their governor, and of freedom, stood up to the plain clothes police and threw rocks to try and pry them away from the house. Other students ran for the Sucre police to try and get them to intervene, but the local police refused to get involved. The police then tried to blame the students for the violence against the governor’s house, supposedly to show that not everyone supported the anti-government protesters… Only what they didn’t know was that the whole thing had been captured on camera by local newspaper and television reporters. Basically, the result was a huge amount of anti-police sentiment amongst the people of Sucre.

When I learnt this I started to understand how the situation could have gotten so out of control… It sounded like something that could only happen in a Hollywood production. But it got worse. The government was determined it was going to pass the new constitution, so police were given the order to disperse the protesters using whatever means necessary. So they used tear gas, and other chemicals to try and attain control, and when that didn’t work, they fired their weapons into the crowd. As well as the three young students that died, the cost of the violence also included several hundred injured, with a number of amputations, one student in a coma with head wounds, and one student who lost his eyesight. Also, I read that there was a police officer that died in the confrontation as well. He was captured by a group of civilians and lynched, by an angry mob demanding justice for the murders of the cities ‘children’.

By Sunday afternoon it became apparent that the people of the city could not be oppressed. Despite the tear gas and gunfire, they continued their resistance against the police, with increased fervour thanks to the anger they felt at the deaths of the students and the grossly immoral acts of the police in setting up the conflict. Without declaring martial law and sending it the army nothing could be done. So the government ordered the withdrawal of the police, and late on Sunday afternoon they left the city.

But with their departure, the Police also opened the doors to the cities jail, setting free all of the prisoners, including many of the protesters. However, hundreds of other prisoners serving sentences for a variety of crimes were also able to escape, into a city without a police force to protect them! It was announced that the students had broken free on their own and let the other prisoners out, but this was once again contradicted by video evidence collected by the media.

So when I arrived on Monday morning, I arrived into a city that was almost like a ghost town. Hardly any shops were open, and the streets were bare. Banks refused to open their doors without a police force, and without money, many of the business in the city could not operate. There were signs of the conflict everywhere, from people with injuries, to graffiti, to a multitude of camera crews hanging around willing to interview anyone with an opinion.

Without police, volunteers organised impromptu community security measures and a ‘volunteer community police force’. None would carry arms, however, so they used measures such as whistles to try and prevent crime. Interestingly, over the three days the city was without its police force, there were fewer crimes reported than average. It was almost like even the criminals were in mourning for the lost and wounded and out of respect chose not to make trouble. The police returned late Wednesday night, but I was told that these police were all from Sucre. The people would not stand for La Paz police being back in their city, Patricia, my language teacher assured me.

In the couple of weeks since the conflicts, Sucre itself has been almost deadly silent. With the exception of the two public funerals for the students and the thousands that marched with their coffins to the cemetery there have been no public demonstrations and no clashes since. But other parts of the country have rallied in support of Sucre in opposition to the centralisation of power in La Paz and the corruption of the current Bolivian administration. Seven of the nations ‘departments’ (Bolivian states or provinces) held a general strike to support the anti-government protests, and in certain other cities clashes between police and protesters also occurred.

There is now a DVD that is being sold on the streets with a compilation of news reports and coverage of the Sucre riots… Crowds of people gather to watch snippets around DVD shops. It is illegal, however, and as soon police appear in the street, the television is turned off and the people disperse again. I tried to get a hold of the DVD, but didn’t have much luck, and now that I am in La Paz I doubt I’ll hear much more about it. Still, it was a fascinating couple of weeks for a number of reasons. I think it was an historical confrontation, that will be recorded in the history books as the beginning of the end for the new constitution, and I was there for it. If I hadn’t chosen to go to Sucre, despite the disturbances and the blockades, I would never have learnt about the issue. And while I am still very confused about many things about the constitution, I think I have been able to learn more about the mentality of the Bolivian people. They are passionate, strong-willed, idealistic, loyal, and fierce.

Despite the conflicts, I had a wonderful time in Sucre, and I loved the people that I met there. It was the perfect place to learn Spanish and hang out for a couple of weeks. It is such a laid back place, beautiful buildings, parks, views, nature, and history. I have no idea what is going to happen over the next couple of months, with the proposed constitution going to a vote mid-December, and it will be presented to the public early January. Without a more moderate approach the proposed constitution will likely not be approved by the people, but what Evo Morales and the government choose to do then is anyone’s guess. We can only hope than whatever the result, it is without violence and bloodshed, and the will of the people, whatever it may be, will be respected and honoured.