Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces by Raúl Zibechi offers an exciting account of why social movements in Bolivia are so resilient and powerful, making the publication of this book timely; it focuses on the most vibrant social movements that preceded the election of one of the most dynamic and intriguing presidents among the region’s new left.
I met up with Luis Macas in his office at the Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas (Scientific Institute of Indigenous Cultures, ICCI) in Quito, on July 14, 2010. Macas, arguably the most renowned indigenous leader in Ecuador, was born in 1951 in Saraguro, in the Province of Loja. A lawyer by training, he is currently executive director of ICCI. Macas is an ex-President of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), and former congressional deputy (in the late 1990s) and presidential candidate (in 2006) for the Movimiento Pachakutik (Pachakutik Movement, MP) party.
Tensions are high in Costa Rica following the announcement of the impending arrival of US military vessels. In the past year alone, a sudden expansion of United States military presence around Latin America has alarmed many in the region. Now it is spreading to the one nation which had previously been known for the absence of any standing permanent army, foreign or national.
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One year since the tragic events at Bagua in northern Peru, when armed police attacked indigenous Awajún and Wampis protesters, it is clear Peru’s government has no intent to change its hostile relationship with the country’s indigenous population. In a move that has provoked outrage in many quarters, President Alan Garcia recently blocked a law, voted by Congress, that would have recognized indigenous people’s right to consultation about projects affecting their land – precisely one of their demands when protesting the year before. […]
“There has been a series of very interesting processes in Latin America – in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. However, none of these new processes have managed to overcome the economic structures of extractivism,” said Alberto Acosta, ex-President of Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly.
On June 19 hundreds of barrels of oil were spilled in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon, leading to calls for a ‘state of emergency’ to be declared and an appeal to the United Nations to intervene. Tragically, this is nothing new in northern Peru where oil has devastated indigenous land and lives for decades.
Bolivian social movements have practiced two different paths of social change: by taking government power as Evo Morales and his political party MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) have done, or change from below proposed in the past visionary movement-wide proposal for a Constituent Assembly, and in the well-organized, directly democratic and strategic practices of the movement organizations and mobilizations. Neither model fit’s into simplistic old ideological boxes—anarchist, socialist or progressive.
The people of Oaxaca swept away 81 years of misrule by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) with a massive voter turnout for the election on Sunday. For all state offices—governor, mayors and state legislators—the Coalition United for Peace and Progress (CUPP) won more than 90 percent of the posts.
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