GOVERNMENT FACES RISING SOCIAL SECTOR TENSIONS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LA PAZ 001114 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SOCI ELAB PHUM PGOV BL SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT FACES RISING SOCIAL SECTOR TENSIONS REF: A. LA PAZ 1101 ¶B. LA PAZ 1107 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Amid accusations that the government has failed to keep its promises, social sector frustration, including among the MAS's highland support base, is rising. Civil sector leaders in Santa Cruz and Tarija have also stepped up their anti-government pressures. The Government has moved to preempt gathering protests by resurrecting an umbrella social sector group -- "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" -- but this time to defend (not attack) social order. While such tensions feel strangely familiar to Bolivia-observers, absent the MAS and its money, frustrated social groups are not likely to threaten government stability in any serious way -- at least in the short term. End Summary. Rising Tensions -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Bolivia is entering a familiar phase of rising social tension and growing frustration and dissatisfaction with the government. From the start, the confused mix has included pressures from an array of labor unions such as urban teachers, health and transportation workers, micro business representatives ("gremialistas") and others. But it now appears to be gaining steam. Altiplano-based campesino groups and El Alto labor, neighborhood and human rights organizations -- instrumental in bringing down recent governments -- are beginning to join the fray. And the chaotic Bolivian Workers Central (COB) led by Jaime Solares, never one to shirk a confrontation, turned up the volume last week with what turned out to be only a partially adopted general strike. ¶3. (SBU) The sources of growing tensions are as multiple as Bolivia's plethora of social organizations, each with its own set of grievances. But there are also some shared big-picture complaints. The government's failure to "nationalize" the hydrocarbons sector is first on the list. (See ref B for a possible explanation.) Others include the government's failure to double, as it promised, the minimum wage; to repeal decree 21060 (initiating privatization a generation ago); to create new jobs and better living conditions; and to give its innumerable social sector supporters the coveted official positions ("pegas") they had banked on when casting their vote. These confusing, contradictory and mostly impossible demands can be summed up in a growing but still inchoate frustration with a MAS 
government that, in the eyes of many, appears to be behaving with the same arrogance and indifference toward the people as its predecessors did. Media Luna Again -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Civic sector leaders in the lowlands regions of Santa Cruz and Tarija -- the heart of the restive half-moon movement that helped unseat former President Mesa -- have also stepped up their anti-government pressures. After a period of quiescence and nursing of electoral wounds, the pro-Santa Cruz Committee held a special summit April 19 to pressure the government to negotiate a list of key departmental demands. These included the letting of contracts for the Mutun iron reserve (ref A),defense against illegal land invasions, and an increase in the department's set-aside of official positions in the health and education sectors. The Committee announced it would give the government seven days to respond before deciding on next steps, which could include a department-wide strike. Meanwhile, civic leaders in Tarija have given the government ten days to meet the terms of an agreement, signed by VP Alvaro Garcia Linera, that ended a stand-off late last month between the central and regional governments and protestors in the Chaco region calling for the establishment of a 10th Bolivian department. (The proposed new "Chaco" department would take land from the existing departments of Tarija, Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca, and include most of Bolivia's proven gas reserves.) Government Creates Parallel Structure -------------- LA PAZ 00001114 002 OF 002 ¶5. (SBU) The Government has moved to preempt gathering protests by resurrecting an umbrella social sector group called the "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" ("The Peoples Union Committee"). First established in late 2002 to oppose the government of then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and to force a transformation of the neo-liberal economic model, this time around the group's mandate is to defend social order and to protect the current government from the destabilizing attacks of non-official social sector actors. MAS firebrand and campesino leader Roman Loayza has been put in charge of the organization, and has publicly vowed to defend the government by any means necessary. Many observers see the "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" as a canny move by the Morales administration to create a parallel "pro-government" social sector structure that can co-opt or, failing that, destroy those groups that might threaten government stability. Comment: -------------- ¶6. (SBU) While the uneasy feeling of rising social sector tensions is familiar to long-term Bolivia observers, the crucial question is somewhat new: can frustrated social sector groups seriously threaten government stability without the support of MAS's nation-wide infrastructure, organizational skills and cash, and in fact, when faced with the determined opposition of that structure. Given that most of these groups are cash-strapped, undisciplined and still lacking in critical mass, we think not -- at least in the short term. GREENLEE