The previous week Bolivia’s congress selected the country’s chief Supreme Court Justice, Eduardo Rodríguez, to become a “caretaker” president after Carlos Mesa resigned in face of sustained protests demanding nationalization of gas and oil. The Bolivian Workers Federation (COB), coca farmers, the Neighborhood Committees of El Alto, and other groups had carried out a month-long blockade of the capital city of La Paz, accompanied by strikes, marches, and oilfield takeovers.

Mesa himself took office 18 months ago after President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned in face of a popular upheaval fueled by an acute economic and social crisis. Working people revolted against what they widely viewed as a giveaway of the country’s natural gas resources to foreign energy monopolies. They demanded increased royalty payments on gas and oil exports. Since then, the demand for nationalization has come to the fore.

In choosing Rodríguez, a nervous Congress bypassed two other legislators in line for the presidency according to the constitution, because of their close association with Mesa’s hated “free market” policies.

Hours before Rodríguez swore in his cabinet, some 7,000 trade unionists and contingents of Indian groups marched in the capital chanting, “The oil is ours!” and “Early elections!”

At the ceremony Rodríguez pledged to hold presidential elections within five months. But organizers of the protests insisted the elections must include legislative and local posts. Aymara- and Quechua-speaking Indians make up more than half of the country’s 8 million people but are grossly underrepresented in the government.

Protest organizers announced a truce. They warned, however, that a national blockade of the capital could be reimposed if their demands are not met. Following a meeting between Rodríguez and opposition groups, Abel Mamani, head of the Neighborhood Committees of El Alto, said there had been a “rapprochement” with the new government. Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) leader Evo Morales said Rodríguez “would be given time to act.”

The mass protests began after Bolivia’s Congress narrowly approved a bill that raised taxes on foreign energy monopolies from 10 percent to 32 percent, in addition to existing royalties of 18 percent. The MAS, one of the main opposition parties in parliament and a leader of the protests, has called for a 50 percent tax on the energy monopolies. The COB and the Federation of Neighborhood Committees of El Alto are demanding nationalization.

Bolivia has the second-largest oil reserves in Latin America after Venezuela, yet 64 percent of the population lives below the official poverty level.  
 
 
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