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This is an article I wrote for a youth magazine a few months ago... |
He sloped casually into the bar, his orange baggy sweater and baseball cap conjuring up images of rappers in the black neighbourhoods of New York. But the bowl of dried coca leaves on the table and the rainbow-coloured indigenous flag on the wall told a different story.
In fact I wasn’t in the States but with a group of musicians and poets in a freezing bar down a dodgy backstreet of El Alto, a poor and rapidly expanding Bolivian city poised above the capital of La Paz at the breathless height of 4000 metres.
It’s a city where 70% of the population are under the poverty line. It’s also a city which has been at the forefront of a series of huge uprisings that have led to the fall of two Presidents in the last two years.
His words forming vapour in the cold Altiplano air, Abraham Bojórquez, a 22 year-old hip-hop musician was explaining how he uses his music to fight for justice: “When you live in poverty, it creates a spirit of rebellion so you have to speak out. Hip-hop gives us a way to express ourselves. We rap in Aymara [indigenous language of the Bolivian highlands] to show our identity and express our culture. We use it as a means to struggle, to educate, to show reasons why we don’t have money, the way we are being tricked.”
One of the biggest tricks in their eyes lay in the simple question expressed by Monica Apasa, a student and activist: “How can a country which is so rich in resources have such high levels of poverty?”
It’s a shocking fact but Bolivia has the second highest reserves of gas and oil in Latin America – the liquids on which the world now run – yet is the poorest country in the hemisphere.
“The situation is clearly fucked,” adds another to general assent. “The reason is that we are being robbed,” explained Monica. “In fact we have been robbed for centuries, firstly it was our gold and silver by the Spanish, later it was our tin and our minerals. Now all we have left is our gas and our water. We can not let ourselves be tricked again,” she says forcefully.
The nature of robbery has changed since the Spanish pillaged the silver mines of Potosi in the 17th Century. Today’s robbery is called “privatisation” and the modern day “conquistadores” are respectable companies like British Gas and British Petroleum.
These multinational companies were given contracts to exploit gas reserves in 1990 after the International Monetary Fund promised the Bolivian Government that it would bring in increased income as a result of additional foreign investment. In fact, government revenue fell – whilst the multinational energy firms raked in unprecedented profits, taking 58% of all the income from gas and oil in straight profits.
In a country where women still die in childbirth due to lack of medical care, anger grew.
It could be increasingly heard in the lyrics of El Alto’s dynamic music scene. "Proud to be born in my Bolivia," goes one rap by Lyrical Urban Movement, "though a land wounded by oppressors who call themselves defenders of my land."
Punk group Scoria in their song, Esperanza (or hope) sang of resistance: “That’s my confession. Five centuries of exclusion without compassion, how much longer do I have to wait? But I will wait and not be impatient for that’s the moment to fight faithful friend for our ideal, united to the end.”
And in October 2003, the anger exploded onto the streets. An announcement by President Sanchez de Lozada of a deal to export gas to the US through Chile was the spark. Thousands took to the streets protesting the deal and demanding nationalization. El Alto and its predominantly young population were at the forefront bringing the city to a halt and cutting of gas supplies to wealthy citizens in La Paz.
The President reacted by sending the army in. 67 people died in the resulting massacre and Sanchez de Lozada was forced to flee the country.
“I remember one Saturday seeing huge lorries of police arriving in my district,” said Monica. “We started throwing stones, young kids were helping us by giving us water to cope with the tear gas, but then they started shooting. Suddenly there were injured people around me, others were dead.”
Monica was lucky, escaping with only three plastic bullets in her shoulder. “October 2003 was a turning point. Up to that point young people hadn’t been involved politically, but in October we were on the frontline facing the army. We knew these were resources that affected our future.”
“Up to then, our reputation as Alteños (people from El Alto) was as alcoholics and robbers. Now we are bloqueadores (road blockers and protestors),” said Percy Manani a youth worker.
As a result of the protests, politicians agreed to a new law on the gas and oil sector. The new law proposed raising taxes significantly which has caused howls of outrage from the international gas and oil companies. But it ignored popular demands for nationalization.
A few days after the law was passed in May, the country was again brought to a standstill by protests and blockades. Forget a one-off march to “Make Poverty History” in Edinburgh. There wasn’t one march, but three weeks of marches that brought the poor from all over Bolivia into the heart of Government: women in bowler hats, weather-beaten men with stripey hats, students in Che Guevara T-shirts, miners in hard hats chewing coca leaves.
La Paz was full of tear gas, fires lit on street corners, people huddled around radios which in between snippets of news blasts out the music of El Alto: "Now we are speaking. Now they will know us. Now we will rise up."
The protests eventually forced another President to flee and elections were announced. Nationalisation of gas remains on everyone’s lips with polls showing more than 70% support. “It’s ours, we need to recover it. It’s about controlling our resources so that they benefit all of us,” says Percy.
However Bolivia’s popular movements are about to face their biggest struggle, because the gas and oil companies have started their fight back.
Several multinational companies, including British Gas, have already announced that they are getting ready to sue Bolivia for loss of income as a result of the new law. The figures quoted go into the billions, a legal action that would bankrupt the nation. Imagine Bill Gates suing a Big Issue Seller. Outrageous given the fact that British Gas profits increased by 22% to £1522 million in the last year.
But with international support, it is a battle that can be won. Because much as multinational companies would like to change the law for their benefit, they can’t afford huge amounts of bad publicity. In 2002, a US water company, Bechtel was forced by an international campaign to back down after suing Bolivia for $25 million. The solidarity with Bolivia will be crucial, not just because of the huge impact it could have on the poor, but because Bolivians especially its young people are trying to build a different kind of Bolivia.
Although our conversation that night was focused on gas, it was clear that the issue went much deeper. In the end it was not about gas, but how wealth and society is organized to ensure everyone shares. It is a fight about values.
“When I see women begging to eat that night, I have to fight against a system that has allowed this for so long,” says Freddy Mamani. “I can’t support a system that only values money which most people here don’t have,” emphasises Monica. “I want to live in a Bolivia that works on a communal system like we used to practice based on solidarity and constructiveness where everyone participates,” she adds.
She says it is a revolution that is going on around the world citing Ecuador and Venezuela which have both seen big uprisings and growing support for alternatives to our world dominated by money: “It starts when we create a revolution in our mind, which allows us to see beyond a model that benefits a few and destroys the lives of many.” It’s a revolution she invites us all to join.
Tags: Bolivia | Hydrocarbons | Hip-hop
Hello: Let me assure you that you all have my support.I am a professor of Psychology at Daytona Beach Community College in Florida.
I am interested in the social and economic changes that are taken place in the Americas.I am also a Disc Jockey here in Florida and I have a variety of Music, I hope
to come to the Americas and open
a Club with all types of dance music.
Let me know if I can be of some
financial and musical assistance to you.
Viva Che
Michael Sylvester
Posted by: Michael Sylvester | September 14, 2006 at 09:52 AM