Hello reader,

My name is Isaac, I’m a student at Saint Mary’s University, in Halifax, NS. Right now I am two and a half weeks into a three month internship in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where I’m working for the Centre of Information and Documentation of Bolivia (CEDIB). For the past few weeks I have been gathering information on how the mining industry in the Southern states of Bolivia have affected domestic food security. It is interesting work and I enjoy it.

Bolivia was an interesting country before 2005, but in that year Evo Morales, was elected as the country’s first Indigenous president. Evo rode in on a platform based on the rights of Pachamama (mother earth), on ending discrimination against the indigenous (who make up about 60% of Bolivia as a whole) and on the promise to reorganize the economy towards socialist principles.

Big things were expected of Evo, and to his credit he has done quite a bit. Most notably, in 2009 his party brought in a new constitution which gave the indigenous populations the option of autonomy, changed the official name of Bolivia to the Plurinational State of Bolivia and limited the amount of land a person could hold to 5000 hectares.

On the other hand though, mining companies are still making huge profits while the federal government continues to receive relatively little compensation. The same mining companies employ 13 500 children* to work in horrible, pay their workers next to nothing, and continue to dump waste into the environment.

Evo took another hit over the past few weeks because of his plans to build a highway through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park (Tipnis). Tipnis, is a national park that was created to protect the biodiversity of the region andto give 50 000 indigenous people from three different groups (the Chiman, Yurucare and Moxos.) autonomous control over their lands. The highway would clearly threaten the biodiversity of the area and the Indigenous way of life. But on the other hand it would provide greater access to markets for small producers in the Beni region and would give them increased access to basic services.

So there are arguments for and against the highway, however at the beginning of last week, everything got more intense. On Monday, protesters that were marching toward La Paz (the capital) in opposition to the highway, were stopped by the police. The police than fired tear gas into the crowd and surged into them. A baby died in the teargas from suffocation and several children have still not been found after running into the surrounding jungle to escape the violence.

Since then a handful of cabinet ministers have resigned from the federal administration, most notably the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defense have left their posts. In an attempt to save face, Evo has stopped construction of the road and announced that a referendum is to be held in the two states the highway will run through (Beni and Cochabamba). The referendum will decide whether or not the construction of the highway is a go. However, critics argue that the referendum is unconstitutional too, since Tipnis is suppose to be completely autonomous, meaning that those who live outside of Tipnis should have no say what happens in the territory. Check out the link below for a more complete story.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15144719

On a completely different note, Cochabamba is a great city. The people are friendly here and my roommate, Ben, and I have met some pretty cool locals. The city has a huge market called La Cancha where you can find pretty much anything. It sure as hell is way better than Walmart. There are very few chain stores/restaurants here so there is a wide verity of local foods and lots of nice small locally owned shops. The nightlife is great as long as you bring your dancing shoes and everything is pretty affordable by Canadian standards.

Its also great as a political science student to be in a country where people actually care about their governance, instead of being in Canada where nearly one third of eligible voters can even find the time to cast a ballet.

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/voter-turnout-canada

Anyway thank you all for reading, I’ll probably be blogging every week or two so stay tuned.

Adios,

IG.

*most children that continue to work in the mines die from silicosis before reaching 45 years of age. The average life expectancy is 40.

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