BOLIVIA: Violent Pro-Autonomy Election Day in Santa Cruz

By Franz Chávez Reprint | | Print |

Franz Chávez

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia, May 4 2008 (IPS) - At least eight people were injured in clashes between backers of the autonomy referendum held Sunday in the eastern Bolivian province of Santa Cruz and supporters of the government of Evo Morales from the country’s western highlands.

Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

In the Plan Tres Mil slum neighbourhood, six km south of the city of Santa Cruz, demonstrators opposed to the referendum took a polling station in a school by storm and seized the ballot boxes and ballots, triggering a violent reaction by the Santa Cruz Youth Union, used as shock troops by right-wing pro-autonomy groups.

The incident, which occurred in the morning, set the tone for the day, which was marked by violent confrontations, while the police attempted to set up barriers to prevent clashes.

Tear gas fired by the police wafted through the streets of the Plan Tres Mil neighbourhood and possibly accentuated the respiratory problems of 69-year-old Benjamín Ticona, who died around noon Sunday.

Santa Cruz Governor Rubén Costas’ calls for a peaceful day of voting and celebration was ignored, and the disturbances continued until 3:00 p.m. local time.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s richest province, is at the head of an autonomy movement that has caught on in six of the country’s nine regions.

Sunday’s referendum ran counter to the constitution, and was considered illegal by the national government and the country’s electoral authorities.

Resistance to the autonomy statute was centred in the rural communities of Yapacaní, Cuatro Cañadas and San Julián, northeast of Santa Cruz, home to large numbers of migrants, mainly indigenous people, from Bolivia’s western highlands.

“Resistance brigades” in those areas drove around, seizing election materials, burning ballot boxes and ballots, and blocking the referendum in some places.

In La Paz, meanwhile, the seat of government, and the neighbouring working-class suburb of El Alto, 1,000 km to the west of Santa Cruz, community, workers’ and indigenous organisations that support President Morales held demonstrations to protest the autonomy referendum as an attempt at separatism and a move aimed at benefiting the landed and business elites.

In Plan Tres Mil, dozens of migrants from other regions held a protest in the central square, denouncing the autonomy statute, defending the country’s territorial unity and announcing their readiness to confront the youth groups used as shock troops by the pro-business Santa Cruz Civic Committee, which is pushing for autonomy.

“The defence of the fatherland begins here today!” teacher Martín Huayllani, a community leader from Plan Tres Mil, shouted over a loudspeaker, addressing a crowd of demonstrators waving Bolivian flags and the red flags of the Revolutionary Workers Party (POR).

The police formed a barrier nearby, blocking, with difficulty, access by buses carrying white-shirted members of the Santa Cruz Youth Union, who insulted the police.

On the dusty streets of Plan Tres Mil, opponents of the referendum attempted to occupy the Boliviano-Alemán school, but members of the Youth Union formed human barriers to allow the ballot boxes and ballots to be replaced in a climate of tension, in which many voters verbally abused people who looked like they were from other provinces – mainly darker-skinned people – and journalists.

In the city centre, six people, apparently supporters of the Morales administration, were nearly lynched by a crowd of pro-autonomy demonstrators after they were found carrying ballot boxes and ballots.

A man identified as Homero Amorín was attempting to denounce in the international press centre in the Santa Cruz Hotel that the provincial electoral court had distributed ballots that were already marked “yes”, which sparked the reaction of the pro-autonomy crowd.

While attempting to flee with five other people, Amorín’s vehicle was pulled over, and ballot boxes were found inside.

According to the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, the ballot boxes were the ones that had been seized in Plan Tres Mil.

In the middle of the crowd determined to take justice into their own hands, a prosecutor and several police officers rescued the six people in question, taking them to a police station.