Abstract

Bolivia's Indian Revolt

Bolivia, the poorest country in South America in 2004, is the center of a three-year-old indigenous insurrection that has twice routed multinational corporations and nearly achieved the rarest of political successes, election of an openly Indian president in the Americas. What began with the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas in 1994 has surfaced in Ecuador, Guatemala and especially Bolivia, where, almost one-fifth of the population, or 1.5 million Indians, live in autonomous communities where official government structures have virtually faded away. They are not attempting to turn back the historical clock but are becoming "postmodern" and "postnational" bearers of an alternative narrative of the country. El Alto is the largest, most Indian city in Latin America. In 2003, El Alto residents rose against a government plan that allowed foreign investors to exploit Bolivia's natural gas for Mexican and Southern California energy markets. Bolivia has suffered from resource plunder since colonial times, starting with silver and tin. Frightening for U.S. officials and the Bolivian upper class in 2002 was the presidential campaign of Senator Evo Morales, a socialist leader of the Union de Cocoleros, the major target of the U.S. drug-eradication program. The U.S. policies of economic globalization and militarization are both failing and deepening in Bolivia.