Crucial test for Bolivia: Conflict on more rights for Indian majority divides society - Sending of mediators called for

With the object of relaxing the growing crisis in Bolivia the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) called on Wednesday for international mediators and observers to be sent to the South American country. "Bolivia is faced with a crucial test. The battle over the new constitution, in which the rights of the Indian majority are anchored, is dividing society”, declared the GfbV consultant for indigenous peoples, Kerstin Veigt, on Wednesday in the light of the public hearing of the German parliamentary party "Die Linke” (The Left) in Berlin, to which she was called as expert. Kerstin Veigt was sent by the GfbV to Bolivia, where she conducted talks with representatives of the indigenous organisations on the future perspectives of their communities and carried out research on the conflicts and violations of human rights. Her findings are in the 25-page report "Bolivien - Indigene Völker verteidigen neue Rechte gegen alte Machtstrukturen” (Indigenous peoples defend new rights against old power structures), which was also published on Wednesday (download on www.gfbv.de).

The tensions have been escalating in recent months between the poor Indian population living up on the Andes plateau in the west of Bolivia and the rich part of the population down on the plain in the east, which is mainly descended from the European settlers and the mestizos. While the four provinces of the plain have called for a referendum on the matter of autonomy and thus distanced themselves from the policies of President Evo Morales , all the Indian organisations are demanding that the

Constitution be applied in all parts of the country. The central points of their concern are a land reform, the redistribution of the control of the raw materials in favour of the Indian majority and autonomous structures for indigenous communities.

The political and commercial elite of the plain, large land-owners and prefects, want to retain a firm grip of their centuries-old mastery, are defending the land they have acquired and their access to the natural minerals, above all natural gas and oil. They reject a land reform in favour of the poor Indian population. As a result the Guarani in the district of Santa Cruz have been waiting for over ten years for the recognition of their title to the land. Some Guarani communities with about 7,000 members live under slave-like conditions, having to work on their own land without pay for the large land-owners, they cannot move about freely and just receive the food and clothing issued to them.

The indigenous peoples make up 62% of the approximately 9,427,219 inhabitants of Bolivia (figures of July 2003). The two largest, the Quechua (30.7%) and the Aymara (25.2%) live mainly in the highlands. Down on the plain the indigenous are in the minority with 17%. The largest groups here are the Chiquitano (3.6%), Guarani (2.5%) and the Mojeno (1.4%). 82% of the Bolivian people live under the poverty-line (UNDP Report 2004). The native people are often extremely poor. Ten percent of the estates belong to 90 percent of the indigenous people. 90% of the land is in the hands of large land-owners.

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE! On Thursday 26th June 2008 at 6 p.m. the GfbV invites you cordially to a panel discussion with the Vice-President of the Constituent Assembly of Bolivia, Prof. Dr. Roberto Iván Aquilar Gómez, and the indigenous Bolivian Ambassador in Germany, W. Magne Veliz, at the Berliner Rathaus (the "red town hall”), Louise-Schröder-Saal (Room 337), Rathausstr. 15, 10178 Berlin.