Opinion: food shortages already being felt in Bolivia due to socialist siege of Santa Cruz

By Mauricio Ríos García

(Opinion) Yesterday, Thursday, began the thirteenth day of a civil strike in Santa Cruz demanding that the population and housing census be conducted in 2023 and that the results be available in time for, among other things, an urgent redistribution of resources in times of economic crisis and to serve as a basis for calling legislative elections in 2025.

The duration and intensity of these mass protests are becoming increasingly difficult to bear as the Arce regime, Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) members, and related movements crack down on the citizens of Santa Cruz.

Read also: Our coverage of the Santa Cruz census 

However, with the Arce cabinet convening a technical roundtable with representatives from all of the country’s governor’s offices, mayor’s offices, and public universities, to be attended for the first time by representatives of international organizations, the beginning of the end of the conflict may be in sight.

According to Sergio Cusicanqui, the development minister in charge of the census, the authorities and Santa Cruz city leaders were not invited “because dialogue must take place without conditions.”

In the meantime, there are essential elements that cannot be overlooked because they make it possible to identify the main features of the conflict and the role of some of its main actors.

THE ROLE OF MORALES AND THE INTERNAL CONFLICTS OF MAS

Morales and Arce are distancing themselves due to conflicts in the power struggle, and to the extent that the figure of Arce Catacora is weaker than ever since he assumed the highest office in the country.

The leader of the coca farmers can take advantage of this to present himself as the only alternative, not only as the unchallenged leader of the party but also of the country. However, the actual chances of achieving his goal are minimal.

In this sense, Morales’ role in the specific conflict over the census has been irrelevant, even though, at certain moments, he has tried to appear conciliatory, calling on the Arce government to “exert effort and political will” to resolve the conflict in Santa Cruz. However, legislators who follow his line are constantly reminded that MAS has divisions.

Leonardo Loza, a coca farmer senator, recently said that the one who generates division and confrontation within the Movement to Socialism is definitely comrade David Choquehuanca.

“For me, it is clear that he is the one who is at the head of the innovators and subliminally always talks about attacking Evo Morales.”

Morales, Arce, Choquehuanca (who keeps his distance and remains suspiciously silent), and MAS have their own problems. The outcome of the census conflict will likely help determine which actors will accumulate the most power.

NOT A GLIMMER OF INSTITUTIONALITY

Unlike any country with a solid democratic institution with a long tradition that guarantees some stability and far from a warning or stopping the confrontations, the police in Bolivia have acted as escorts for MAS and Arce regime supporters who come from the interior and use violence in cities like La Guardia against those defending the 2023 census goal.

Likewise, the Prosecutor General’s Office should have already acted ex officio in cases that constitute crimes against humanity.

Among others seizing private businesses, cutting off industrial gas supplies, blocking landfills, and threatening to seal off the city “to the point of creating a famine.”

But they are also blocking the passage of ambulances in emergencies, death threats against civil society leaders and departmental authorities, and, more recently, threats by trade unionists to incite a civil war.

The latter was an infamous call remembered by people in El Alto before the fall of Morales in 2019. Still, not even Juan Lanchipa, Bolivia’s prosecutor general, has spoken out since the conflict began.

THE OPPOSITION, WEAK AS EVER

Carlos Mesa, president of the bench with probably the most significant opposition representation in the legislature, limits himself to writing on his social networks calling on Arce to end the conflict and gives a small number of interviews in various media.

However, it is difficult not to recall Mesa’s attitude during the administration of former President Jeanine Áñez regarding managing the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

And it is noticeable that he does not address Arce with the same vigor and intensity as in the videos he issued from the garden of his house against the former president and her government.

Likewise, the deputies, albeit with laudable exceptions, are actively involved in various blockades of streets and avenues in the city of Santa Cruz, formally and concretely denouncing severe crimes committed by pro-government figures for state terrorism.

A few members of the Legislative Assembly are speaking out sporadically to voice what everyone already knows, and even fewer have warned of a hunger strike if the Arce regime announces this Friday that the census will be in 2024 and not 2023, even if they do not try to prevent it.

THE RECONCILING ROLE OF THE CHURCH

Although Álvaro Ruiz, the Deputy Minister of Autonomy, disqualified him as a mediator because he has “no experience with censuses,” the Catholic Church has not ended its calls to the Arce regime to end the violence and begin a dialogue without conditions.

The Catholic Church spoke out at a press conference, warning of an increasing escalation of violence and calling on authorities to seek solutions to restore peace in the country.

At that press conference, Monsignor Giovani Arana, secretary general of the Bolivian Episcopal Conference, said, “We live in a state governed by the rule of law, so the government must protect the human rights of all Bolivian citizens and also solve social problems by respecting the dignity of every Bolivian.”

THE IMPACT OF THE CENSUS CONFLICT ON THE ECONOMY

As the Cámara Agropecuaria del Oriente (CAO) warned in a communiqué on Wednesday, food shortages have occurred throughout the country due to the siege of Santa Cruz by MAS in light of the civil strike.

Likewise, the CAO asserted that “the food security of the country is at risk in the present and the future, and is in no way the responsibility of producers, who at all times seek a timely supply for the entire population.”

The consequences, of course, can be seen in the increased prices of products such as beef, chicken, eggs, cereals, milk, vegetables, etc.

Among some other details, this will no longer allow the Arce regime to boast of low inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

In its place will be Ecuador, which, according to the IMF, will be the country with the lowest inflation in South America for both the rest of 2022 and 2023.

Even though the official target of 5.1% GDP growth in 2022 was hard to believe since forecasts by various organizations had agreed on a figure of around 3.5% long before the civil strike, Arce has stated that growth will be lower, and how could it be otherwise, he blames Santa Cruz.

DOCTORS DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY AND GO ON STRIKE

To make matters worse, the scenario is getting darker by the day, prompting the Bolivian Medical Association to call a press conference for this Wednesday to denounce that MAS supporters who surround the city against the civic strikes are blocking the way, slashing tires or demanding tolls from ambulances that urgently need to transport patients and medical personnel.

For this reason, the Medical Association has decided to go on a nationwide sit-in strike next Friday if the harassment of health workers in Santa Cruz does not stop.

Otherwise, the first statewide strike of emergency services will begin for 24 hours on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Santa Cruz, which is fighting for something that every Bolivian, department, and region needs, is not alone.

They will no longer tolerate what the Masallian hordes are doing, which is not even reflected in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

ESCALATION TOWARD A NATIONAL CIVIL STRIKE

In a sign that the conflict is escalating and tensions are sure to rise if Arce and his cabinet do not renounce the date of the census, the country’s remaining eight citizens’ committees released a statement Thursday afternoon by Roxana Paz, president of the Potosí Citizens’ Committee, warning that they will announce a national strike that will begin on Monday, Nov.7, if the demands of the citizens’ committees are not met.

Paz made it clear that the pressure measures are fundamentally motivated because they “promote physical and psychological violence against the people of Santa Cruz, violate the human rights of Bolivians and promote a climate of violence on the part of the state itself, whose organs for the protection of civil society are subject to the whim and intolerance of ministers.”

EXPECTATIONS OF A NEW RAPPROCHEMENT AND ARCE’S MESSAGE

Conflict over the census erupted in mid-July when Arce Catacora approved Supreme Decree No. 4760, setting a new date for the census for May or June 2024.

The norm left ineffective another decree, Supreme Decree No. 4546, which declared the census a “national priority” to be conducted on Nov. 16 of this year.

On Thursday afternoon, former Development Minister Gabriela Mendoza said that the census was guaranteed for 2022 but that due to the appearance of “a black hand” within the Autonomous Council, the only thing that had harmed the country was that a process that had been in full swing until then and continues to be carried out was put in the spotlight.

Therefore, there are expectations about what will begin in this meeting at 6:00 pm this Friday in the city of Trinidad, Beni, since the government’s goal is to determine that the census will be conducted in 2024 “to maintain the quality standards that lead to 2024,” said Cusicanqui.

He also reiterated that they are inclined to change the date depending on what the technical teams decide about whether it is possible to shorten some of the deadlines in the National Statistics Institute (INE) schedule.

In this regard, Arce Catacora said on his social networks at 12:53 pm Thursday, “We always call for dialogue, and the invitation remains open because we are convinced that this is the best mechanism to resolve conflicts.”

He added: “With the establishment of the technical committee that will decide on the census date, we give the population certainty about the implementation and quality of the census process. We urge them to refrain from any pressure that jeopardizes the reconstruction of Santa Cruz.”

Vicente Cuéllar, the rector of the Autonomous University Gabriel René Moreno and spokesman for the Inter-Institutional Committee for the 2023 Census, said, “We are here, the technical team members. If we are invited, we will be there.”

“We continue to maintain that the census can be conducted in 2023. The legal analysis has been completed, and we have the elements that support our proposal.”

For the first time, representatives of international organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Population Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) will also be present at this meeting, and they are expected to contribute to the beginning of the end of the conflict.