The Triumphs and Struggles for the Indigenous People of Bolivia

Bolivia is a country in South America that is bordered by Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. The many different indigenous groups that have occupied the country for thousands of years establishes Bolivia as the most ethnically diverse country in South America, and this exceptional diversity has enabled many different cultures with distinct values, beliefs and traditions to coexist within the same country. However, since the colonial period, the indigenous people of Bolivia have suffered from severe political suppression, the aftermath of Latin American revolutions, economic disenfranchisement, and the inability to obtain land right titles. Although there are still many challenges, in the past two decades the many indigenous groups of Bolivia have been able to acquire land title rights and financial resources because the groups were able to consolidate their powers, generate influential social movements and utilize the Bolivian political system.

Many different indigenous groups have dwelled on Bolivian territory for thousands of years. Bolivia possesses the highest population of indigenous people in Latin America, as a 2001 report indicated that approximately 4.6 million indigenous people live in Bolivia, which consists of about 62 percent of the population. Large indigenous groups that live in Bolivia include the Aymara and Quechua groups that dwell in the highlands of the Andes, the Chuiquitano culture that resides in the Amazon regions of the country, and the Guarani culture of Santa Cruz that dwells in the eastern lowlands (Gigler). Despite representing the majority regarding the population, throughout Bolivian history the indigenous people have been discriminated against and have experienced extreme difficulties protecting ancestral land, conserving languages, participating in the political processes, or accessing basic services such as education, health, and housing.

Studies indicate that Bolivia is the most poverty-stricken country in all of South America, and many indigenous groups experience a disproportionate level of these excessive poverty rates. For instance, a 1989 study conducted by the World Bank estimated that while the national economy was significantly depleted with high poverty rates, approximately 65 percent of indigenous people in Bolivia suffered from poverty while less than 50 percent of non-indigenous people experienced poverty. Additionally, reports indicate that Bolivia is one of the most financially unequal countries in the world, as the nation experienced a glaringly dramatic income inequality rate in which the richest households in the country possessed over 60 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 20 percent lived in extreme poverty and consisted mostly of Indigenous populations (Gigler). Many scholars assert that the high poverty rates among indigenous groups were caused by the disenfranchisement and lack of land titles that impaired the quality of life and the availability of opportunities for the many indigenous groups across the nation. Because the economic inequality of Bolivia rapidly increased during the 1990s, during the 90s the indigenous groups of Bolivia began aggressively advocating for agrarian reform and for ancestral property rights, political power, and beneficial resources. Thus, the indigenous groups of Bolivia had a significant role in generating the modern agrarian reform movements and attempts to alleviate the incorporation crisis that was spawned in the 1990s.

The disenfranchisement of the Indigenous people of Bolivia was initiated and perpetuated by the Spanish empire and then by the national government. When the Spanish empire asserted dominion over the Bolivian territory during the colonial period, the Spaniards developed a dualistic political system that allowed indigenous communities to establish their own distinct political systems, obtain land titles and manage the resources of their land. In exchange for these powers, the Indigenous groups were required to perform certain labor edicts and pay a tax to the Spanish authorities as a tribute. However, after Bolivia achieved independence and formed an official Government, new laws established in 1874 eliminated Indigenous land rights and indigenous political power while enhancing the political and economic power of non-indigenous people (Gigler). As a result, throughout the 20th century, the Bolivian government diminished the political and social structures of the indigenous groups, deprived the groups of the ability to obtain land titles, and attempted to impel all indigenous groups to conform and assimilate according to the values of a westernized society.

Many of the territories that had been occupied by the ancestors of indigenous tribes are replete with valuable resources, such as natural gas, tin and agricultural resources. During the 20th century, government and corporate interests began aggressively accessing the land of indigenous cultures to obtain those resources and make more profits. However, the agencies accessing the resources often damaged or destroyed sacred land that had historical and cultural significance to the respective indigenous groups. The agencies also commonly deprived the cultures of the ability to manage the land that their ancestors had owned for thousands of years, forced the indigenous people to work as servants, and impaired their ability to preserve their cultural traditions (Postero). Thus, the ability for government agencies and corporate businesses to claim and use indigenous land deprived the indigenous groups of their traditional land prevented them from obtaining land titles and exacerbated the poverty levels of the indigenous cultures by restricting them from using the valuable resources of their land.

However, by the 1990s the drastic poverty levels, the lack of political power, and the inability to acquire land titles encouraged indigenous groups to collectivize their powers and generate social movements to advocate for indigenous rights. For instance, during the 1990s many indigenous social movement organizations were developed to help influence the Bolivian political process and to advocate for the interests of the country’s many indigenous groups. Thus, the many different indigenous groups consolidated into unified and comprehensive social movement organizations, such as CEJIS and CEDLA. These indigenous social movement organizations had significant connections to the government, and this political influence enabled the organizations to effectively represent the interests of the indigenous people, including the right to obtain land title rights, political power, cultural sovereignty and access to resources. The movements eventually formed the SCCIP coalition, which joined diverse indigenous tribes and social movements together into one unified and cohesive group that was capable of using one powerful voice to express the needs and desires of the indigenous people (Bueno and Datta).

The CEJIS, CEDLA, and SCCIP helped strengthen the quality of indigenous rights social movements, as the organizations accumulated and provided evidence to support the claims and demands of the movements, equipped the members of the movements with money and training, and helped facilitate a dialogue between the groups and the government. Additionally, the social movement organizations also developed and implemented strategies to most effectively express the demands of the indigenous people, including massive protests, public demonstrations, worker strikes and civil disobedience actions against national laws (Bueno and Datta). The ability of the diverse indigenous cultures to collectivize into one unified group during the political struggle for indigenous rights helped the social movement achieve success. If there were contentious divisions and hostile disputes among the different indigenous groups, the divisions would have impaired the strength of each movement and would have hindered the ability of the activists to ascertain rights for all indigenous people as a whole. However, by joining forces and uniting the groups into one general movement, the different indigenous groups were able to work together successfully, express unified and coherent messages, and maximize the impact of the movement on the Bolivian government.

The social movements stimulated changed within the Bolivian government and generated the first steps towards modern agrarian reform. In the 1990s, the immense pressure that the social movements placed on the government and the distress that the movements inflicted upon the country impelled the government to form neoliberal policies, and these neoliberal policies were originally intended to help indigenous groups obtain land titles and political power. Sanchez De Lozada was the president of Bolivia from 1993 to 1996, and during his presidency, Lozada changed the constitution to officially recognize that the Bolivian nation was a multiethnic state consisting of many different ethnic groups and indigenous cultures. The neoliberalism of the 90s also entailed many laws established by Lozada to improve the conditions of indigenous people and to provide more effective methods of obtaining land titles. For instance, the Law of Popular Participation provided indigenous groups with the valuable power to participate in political decisions and to help determine municipal development issues. Thus, the Law of Popular Participation provided the groups with more political power on a national and local level (Postero). Lozada’s administration also passed the Intercultural Bilingual Education Law, which supported the teaching of Indigenous languages in school curricula and which strengthened the ability of groups to utilize and preserve their respective languages.

In 1996, the Lozada administration also attempted to help fulfill agrarian reform for indigenous groups in Bolivia by passing the INRA law. The INRA law served to eliminate many previous claims of land ownership so the government can redistribute property and prevent communal land from being divided for government or corporate institutions. The law also established the INRA (National Agrarian Reform Institute) as an official organization to help more effectively redistribute certain qualifying plots of Bolivian land. However, the specific details of the law inevitably failed to equip the INRA with the resources required to provide land titles for indigenous groups, and the arbitrary and contradictory clauses within the law dramatically intensified the violent conflicts that emerged to contest for land ownership (Irahola). Although the indigenous social movements of the 1990s caused Lazoda to initiate the agrarian reform process and to increase land rights of indigenous groups, the groups were still challenged by a lack of land titles, significant political suppression, and devastating economic disenfranchisement. Thus, indigenous groups amplified the agrarian reform social movements in the 2000s and continued to advocate for land title grants, cultural sovereignty and resource accessibility.

The social movements were able to make significant progress regarding indigenous land titles by enabling Evo Morales to become the first indigenous President of the Bolivian government. In the early 2000s, the expanding political and cultural power of the indigenous social movements enabled the movements to remove two presidents from office. After the dramatic removal of two presidents, Evo Morales utilized his ideologies and personality to become a presidential candidate in 2005. Morales was an indigenous Bolivian from the Aymara culture, and Morales had gradually and effectively accumulated support from a wide range of influences both inside and outside of the government. The impressive size of his political support and the abundance of his public attention enabled Morales to run for the presidency in 2005. After campaigning on the platform of constitutional reform and indigenous rights, Morales won the presidential election by a large and decisive margin as a result of indigenous people voting for him in extremely large numbers (Bueno and Datta). Thus, the ability of indigenous groups to consolidate their powers and participate in the political process enabled the social movement to make significant progress by facilitating the election of the first indigenous president of Bolivia.

President Morales has been able to achieve several accomplishments to help indigenous people obtain land titles, cultural sovereignty, and economic progress. According to a report released by the INRA, during the first wave of modern agrarian reform between 1996 and 2005 only 23 million acres of land had been titled by the previous neoliberal governments. In contrast, since Morales took office in 2005 over 134 million acres of Bolivia have been titled, with significantly large portions being granted to indigenous groups. The report also indicates that one-third of the land titles have been granted to indigenous organizations, 22 percent have been granted to individual or family farm plots, and 37 percent of the regularized land have been titled to the Bolivian government. Since the 1990s, approximately 290,000 land titles have been issued, and over 90 percent of those land titles were issued by the Morales government. As of 2013, indigenous communities possess about 55 percent of the titled Bolivian land, which is more than twice as much as indigenous communities owned in 1992 (Achtenberg). Additionally, Morales has expanded the amount of land that is available to become titled by seizing about 25 million acres of land from owners who have not used the land legally or productively, including owners who had committed debt servitude, theft, neglect and fraud. Thus, Morales has alleviated the bureaucratic difficulties that challenged the INRA from granting land titles in the 90s, has increased the amount of land that is available to be titled and has improved the ability of the INRA to grant land titles to indigenous groups.

By maximizing the ability of the Bolivian government to effectively and efficiently grant land titles to indigenous communities, Morales has provided many benefits to improve the various communities. The land titles enable the respective communities that own the land to assert self-governance, cultural autonomy, and the right to exercise freedom in establishing laws or determining the specific political decisions that impact the people. The titles also typically include monetary funds that enable the indigenous groups to invest in community development, such as housing, education, and job training programs. Additionally, the titles permit the indigenous cultures to manage their own land, determine which resources to cultivate, and protect sacred plots of land from being accessed and damaged by corporate or governmental interests (Postero). These benefits have enabled indigenous groups to more effectively maintain and preserve their cultural traditions, utilize valuable resources on their land, and improve the financial stability and economic progress of the communities.

Many studies indicate that the economic condition of indigenous groups and of the country flourished under the Morales government during his first presidential term. Because the majority of people in Bolivia consist of indigenous communities, improving the communities with land titles and resources increased the financial progress of those communities, the indigenous people, and the majority of the country. As a result, during the first four years of the Morales presidency, the economic growth of Bolivia was surging at a higher rate than at any time during the previous 30 years, as the growth during these years was an average of about 5.2 percent each year. This rapid increase in annual economic growth represented the largest growth in South America. The government was also able to overcome the global financial crisis of 2008 successfully by nearly doubling public investment amounts from about 6.3 percent of GDP in 2005 to about 10.5 percent in 2009 (Weisbrot and Ray).

Morales also increased the investments made to poor and indigenous communities, and these investments helped to alleviate the poverty and lack of resources that challenged the communities. For instance, during the first four years of his presidency, Morales provided a significant amount of funds to help improve the quality of education that indigenous children receive, to enhance the efficaciousness of the local health care systems and to increase the employment opportunities in the affected areas. The Morales government also helped improve the conditions of indigenous communities and the national economy by increasing the number of households that had access to household amenities, including electricity, running water and sewage systems. Additionally, the public investments, increased land titles and lower poverty rates enabled Morales to increase the government revenue to an impressive 20 percent during his first term in office (Weisbrot and Ray). Because of the rapid land title grants and the economic progress of Bolivia, Morales was re-elected to the presidency in December of 2009.

However, during his second term, President Morales and the agrarian reform movements have been challenged by several problems that hinder the indigenous communities and the Bolivian nation. One problem is that the pace of providing land titles has distinctly slowed down during the second term of President Morales. Between June 2011 and October 2012, only 11 million acres of Bolivian land were titled, which is less than half of the average annual rate of titling that Morales provided during the first five years of his presidency. Additionally, Morales has also decelerated the pace regarding the number of land titles granted to indigenous communities. As a result, the government is drastically failing to achieve the legal requirements and national expectations of land titling. The Morales government is required to title 262 million acres of regularized Bolivian land by the end of 2013, and so far the government has only issued 60 percent of the total amount of titles that need to be issued. At the current pace of land titling, the INRA asserts that the organization will require at least five more years to complete the process and achieve the titling requirements of the country. The slow pace of titling and the inability of many indigenous groups to obtain titles has also increased the poverty rates and decreased the economic growth of the country (Achtenberg). Although Morales provided land titles at a rapid pace during his first term, in his second term Morales decelerated the titling process to such a languishingly slow pace that he failed to meet the 2013 titling requirement, has been unable to redistribute the vast amounts of lands and territories that still need to be titled, and has neglected the titling needs of many indigenous communities.

Another problem that confronts the Morales administration is that many contentious disputes and intense conflicts are developing regarding certain plots of land. The rapid poverty rates have caused many indigenous groups from the highlands to migrate to the eastern lowlands that are already occupied by other indigenous groups, which in turn caused the groups to compete and fight for the rights and resources of the land. As a result, there is currently a vast portion of land that needs to be distributed and several titles that are being contested by multiple groups (Achtenberg). Thus, Bolivia is currently challenged by many complicated titling issues in which different groups are competing politically and violently for land rights, and the Morales administration must provide INRA with the strategic, political and economic resources required to settle the disputes and adequately distribute the land titles to the various groups.

Another current problem that the indigenous people of Bolivia are attempting to overcome is the TIPNIS highway controversy. In 2011 President Morales proposed the implementation of a construction project that would install a highway that runs directly through the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park. The outrage caused by this announcement immediately caused indigenous social movement organizations to mobilize, express their disapproval of the project and protest the development of the highway. The organizations have also utilized the political process to attempt to obstruct the highway project through legislation with the help of several anti-highway movement leaders, including Fernando Vargas and Adolfo Chavez. However, over the past two years, the battle over the legitimacy of Morales putting a highway on indigenous land has intensified to such a dramatic extent that the conflict has led to political discord, national division and excessive violence (Achtenberg).

The indigenous people of Bolivia are also currently challenged by the Gran Chaco Wilderness issue. The Gran Chaco Wilderness is South America’s second-largest wilderness after the Amazon rainforest, and the indigenous groups who dwell on the land are currently challenged by farmers and cattle ranchers who constantly attempt to access the resources in the wilderness. The habitats of the wilderness have already been damaged by military operations, drug traffickers and gas pipelines (Collyns). Thus, the indigenous people of Bolivia must use their social movement organizations and political power to protect the wilderness from being abused by government or business agencies.

Although there are currently several problems that indigenous communities of Bolivia must overcome, the communities have made significant progress since the modern agrarian reform movements began in the 1990s. The ability of the many indigenous groups to collectivize into one unified group, fulfill momentous social movements, and obtain political power has dramatically enhanced the ability of indigenous groups to ascertain land titles, obtain cultural sovereignty and utilize valuable resources. However, the indigenous groups must now maximize the agrarian reform by impelling Morales to accelerate the pace of the titling process, provide land titles to neglected indigenous groups, and settle disputes regarding land conflicts more effectively. Because the indigenous population represents the majority of the people in the country, the indigenous people of Bolivia can achieve all of their goals by consolidating their powers and by expressing their demands through the media and through the political system.

Works Cited

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Bueno, Rafael and Datta, Ajoy. "The Politics of Evo Morales' Rise to Power in Bolivia." Overseas Development Institute. N.p., 1 Mar. 2011. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/5674-evo-morales-think-tanks-social-movements-mas>.

Collyns, Dan. "Bolivia's indigenous people join fight to save Gran Chaco wilderness." The Guardian. N.p., 9 July 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/08/bolivia-indigenous-people-gran-chaco-wilderness>.

Gigler, Bjorn-Soren. "Poverty, inequality and human development of indigenous peoples in Bolivia." Georgetown University. N.p., 15 July 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. <http://pdba.georgetown.edu/CLAS%20RESEARCH/Working%20Papers/WP17.pdf>.

Irahola, Denis Lucy. Popular participation, decentralisation, and local power relations in Bolivia. 1. Aufl. ed. GoÌttingen: Cuvillier, 2005. Print.

Postero, Nancy Grey. Now we are citizens: indigenous politics in postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007. Print.

Weisbrot, Mark, and Ray, Rebecca. "Bolivia:The Economy During the Morales Administration." Center for Economic and Policy Research. N.p., 1 Dec. 2009. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/bolivia-2009-12.pdf.