Tue 20 Jul 2004
Today is our last day in Bolivia. Our flight home leaves at 6:45 tomorrow morning.
Don´t worry though, we´ve got more coming. Pictures soon and whatever other drivel we can think up.
For the last 4 days we´ve been killing time in La Paz. We wanted to make sure that we were here before the referendum so we weren´t stuck and miss our flight.
If you´ve been watching the news on Bolivia it´s been hard to miss the uproar over a referendum that was held on Sunday to determine the fate of Bolivia´s enormous natural gas reserves.
The history is sort of interesting: there is a law on the books that is along the lines of American-style resource ownership and management. The government owns the gas until it comes out of the pipe and firms buy rights to develop certain reserves. When this was was passed Bolivia thought it had 5 trillion cubic feet of gas. Some, but not a lot. Now they know they have around 54 trillion cubic feet, more than any S. American country except Venzuela. One only has to look at their heating bill from last winter to remember that natural gas prices are extremely high. So this represents a lot of money to on of S. America´s poorest countries.
The referendum came about because of huge riots and protests in October. The president had pressed a very moderate nationalization plan for the gas industry, while the protesters demanded full nationalization of gas and the nullificaition of current contracts with international gas companies (mostly Canadian, American, and British). After bloodshed, their president was forced from office and the Vice-President took over. The new president promised to offer a referendum to allow Bolivians to determine the gas policy for the country.
This same issue was cause for several weeks of strikes and road blockades in the end of May. Clearly, July 18 was not the best time to be in La Paz. Not to mention, we we´re staying half a block from the house of the President and the Congressional building. Yikes!
We´ll the day before the referendum was more scary than the day before. We left the house to see that every corner a block from the governmental plaza there were 5 national policemen with shotguns, tear-gas guns, and submachines guns at the ready. All vehicular access to the governmental plaza was blocked.
For the day of the election nothing was supposed to be open, there were laws banning carrying weapons, sale of alcohol, all trasportation was closed. Needless to say, we prepared for the worst, lots of food and water and were ready to spend the day inside. Only when we peeked outside it was the most beatiful Sunday morning. Peaceful, people walking their dogs, feeding pigeons with their kids in the plaza. La Paz has never been so quiet.
It was a wonderful experience to watch a country that so clearly is struggling to peacefully manage its difficult questions find a peaceful (mostly) way to do it without violence. Good luck to bolivia.
Oh, and the vote came out in favor of a moderate nationalization plan applied to new contracts and the old ones will remain valid.
This is a good article on the new political life of the indigenous peoples of S. America.