Pubdate: Sat, 07 Oct 2000
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2000 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190
Fax: (408) 271-3792
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author: Clifford Krauss, New York Times

BOLIVIA BUCKLES AGAIN TO PROTEST MOVEMENTS

Government Agrees To Indians' Demands

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The Bolivian government agreed Friday to a broad range 
of demands by Indian peasant leaders, buckling under the pressure of three 
weeks of road blockades that paralyzed the economy, caused food shortages 
and threatened to force the resignation of President Hugo Banzer.

The government met the most important demands of the Aymara-speaking 
peasants after Indian leaders threatened to surround La Paz and starve the 
capital in a replay of a bloody Indian rebellion in 1781. Government 
ministers agreed to prop up corn prices, reverse a land-titling process 
that would have raised taxes and revert government water rights back to 
Indian peasants.

It was the second time in six months that Banzer had been forced to retreat 
on government initiatives in the face of massive protests to avert a 
collapse of his authority and the shaky Bolivian economy. Political 
analysts said his growing signs of weakness will probably invite more 
costly protests in the coming months by the restive labor and peasant 
movements.

Shortly before reaching an agreement in the pre-dawn hours Friday, the 
economic-development minister, Jose Luis Lupo, said this country of 8.1 
million people had suffered losses of at least $120 million in damages to 
roads, lost foodstuffs and interrupted exports during the past three weeks. 
"This is the worst crisis Bolivia has faced since 1985, when we had a 
24,000 percent inflation rate," he said.

Despite all the concessions, the government has refused to accept demands 
by coca growers in the Chapare region to stop short of the government goal 
of eradicating all coca plants by Feb. 1, 2001, and allow peasant families 
to grow small private plots. The Chapare coca growers, who continue to 
block roads between the cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz with stones and 
logs, agreed to resume separate talks with the government.

With funding and technical help from the United States and United Nations, 
the Bolivian government as of Thursday had reduced coca plantings in the 
Chapare region, the main cultivation area for Bolivian cocaine exports, to 
4,050 acres from 70,400 acres in 1998, according to the U.S. Embassy.

In previous negotiations with the coca growers, the government agreed last 
month to forgo plans to build three new army bases in the Chapare area. But 
Banzer has pledged that he will not back down on his vow to destroy the 
remaining coca crops in the Chapare region in the next three months, and 
then destroy 6,000 acres of illicit coca cultivation in the Yungas region 
early next year.

"We say illegal coca cultivation will be zero in 2002, and we intend to 
keep to that goal," said Lupo, the economic development minister, in an 
interview.

Congressman Evo Morales, the leader of the coca growers, said Friday that 
his movement would continue to march and block roads until the government 
backs down. But Morales appears to be in an increasingly isolated position 
now that the larger peasant confederations have agreed to halt their 
protests. He is widely expected to give up the road blockade in the next 
few days or face military action.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager