COCA LEAF CENTRAL IRONY OF THE SPLIT IN BOLIVIA

TAUBATE, Brazil -- This week's civil strife in Bolivia was a clear example
of the complexity of Latin American societies, and the difficulties
attending development. Constant factors such as race and class inhibit
attempts to address the country's widespread poverty.

Bolivia is not only landlocked and underdeveloped, it continues to be
plagued with poverty despite a land reform dating from the 1950s and
despite having substantial oil and a huge quantity of natural gas reserves
(727- billion cubic metres, of which only four billion are exported per
annum). These the population wants developed, but on their own terms. And
nowhere else in Latin America have people used the ballot box so resolutely
as well as violent protests to overturn more than 500 years of exploitation
and injustice.

During the colonial period, Bolivia supplied the world with tin, but the
profits never stayed. Instead, underpaid and overworked native miners,
overcome by hunger and exhaustion, found comfort in chewing the traditional
coca leaf to alleviate their misery. That practice is now at the centre of
the latest disputes over development, royalties and transnational companies.

Society

The coca leaf is, in fact, the central irony of the divide in Bolivian
society. It represents traditional Bolivian society and must be retained;
On the other hand, its eradication may be necessary to please the U.S. and
for the continued receipt of the development funds Bolivia so desperately
needs in order to exploit its natural resources.

Two men are currently on either side of this divide: they are the
president, Carlos Mesa, and his major opponent in the Congress, Evo
Morales. Mesa took over the presidency last year when the elected
incumbent, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, was forced to resign under heavy
protests from the native community. At least 60 people died in the
protests. Mesa represents the mestizos (mixed-blood) and white Bolivians,
and a conventional liberal approach to politics. Although not beholden to
the transnationals he takes the position that if Bolivian nationalism is
too demanding, developmental funds will not be forthcoming. Second, he sees
the expansion of coca production as a hindrance to development, since the
supply of cocaine, mainly to the United States, incurs the wrath of that
northern neighbour.

Morales, congressman and leader of the cocaleros (coca-leaf growers) and of
the left, shares neither of those positions. Son of an Aymaran father and
Quechan mother (the two major indigenous groups comprising 55 per cent of
Bolivia's population), Morales knows the poverty of the native people; he
also knows that it was coca production which lifted them out of it.

Development

His argument is that in the absence of development, it is only through coca
cultivation that a majority of the population survives. Some of this
production is even legal, as chewing the coca leaf is a traditional
practice, and some land has been approved for coca growing. There is also
the legal coca trade: For example, 60-70 tons per annum are exported to
North America. The rest of the production, however, is illegal, and feeds
the cocaine producers mainly in Colombia, whose product ends up on the
streets of North America and Europe.

Morales argues consistently that unless Bolivia receives increased
royalties from transnational companies exploiting oil and gas, coca
production will continue to expand. He has demanded, for example, that
transnational companies be forced to pay 50 per cent royalties on their
exports, a measure which was passed by referendum last July.

Mesa, on the other hand, proposed a bill that would have companies pay only
18 per cent, plus an additional 32 per cent in negotiable taxes. The bill
was supported by some of the traditional parties but opposed by Morales and
his followers, and the roadblocks were raised by popular protest movements.
Mesa then threatened to resign. He refused, he said, to try to govern amid
57 different roadblocks that had paralysed a good sector of the country.
His strategy almost worked. Although the Congress rejected his resignation,
this week they passed a compromise bill which kept the royalties at 18 per
cent but imposed an irreducible tax which would guarantee receipts of $600
million US instead of the $150 million Mesa had envisaged. The roadblocks
came down.