VZCZCXRO3030
PP RUEHLMC
DE RUEHLP #1114/01 1141821
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 241821Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY LA PAZ
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8967
INFO RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUMIAAA/USCINCSO MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEHLMC/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORP  PRIORITY
RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 5789
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 3079
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 6942
RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 4185
RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS 1485
RUEHPE/AMEMBASSY LIMA 1449
RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 3738
RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 8670

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LA PAZ 001114 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SOCI ELAB PHUM PGOV BL
SUBJECT: GOVERNMENT FACES RISING SOCIAL SECTOR TENSIONS 
 
REF: A. LA PAZ 1101 
 
     ¶B. LA PAZ 1107 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary: Amid accusations that the government has 
failed to keep its promises, social sector frustration, 
including among the MAS's highland support base, is rising. 
Civil sector leaders in Santa Cruz and Tarija have also 
stepped up their anti-government pressures.  The Government 
has moved to preempt gathering protests by resurrecting an 
umbrella social sector group -- "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" 
-- but this time to defend (not attack) social order.  While 
such tensions feel strangely familiar to Bolivia-observers, 
absent the MAS and its money, frustrated social groups are 
not likely to threaten government stability in any serious 
way -- at least in the short term.  End Summary. 
 
Rising Tensions 
--------------- 
¶2. (SBU) Bolivia is entering a familiar phase of rising 
social tension and growing frustration and dissatisfaction 
with the government.  From the start, the confused mix has 
included pressures from an array of labor unions such as 
urban teachers, health and transportation workers, micro 
business representatives ("gremialistas") and others.  But it 
now appears to be gaining steam.  Altiplano-based campesino 
groups and El Alto labor, neighborhood and human rights 
organizations -- instrumental in bringing down recent 
governments -- are beginning to join the fray.  And the 
chaotic Bolivian Workers Central (COB) led by Jaime Solares, 
never one to shirk a confrontation, turned up the volume last 
week with what turned out to be only a partially adopted 
general strike. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The sources of growing tensions are as multiple as 
Bolivia's plethora of social organizations, each with its own 
set of grievances.  But there are also some shared 
big-picture complaints.   The government's failure to 
"nationalize" the hydrocarbons sector is first on the list. 
(See ref B for a possible explanation.)  Others include the 
government's failure to double, as it promised, the minimum 
wage; to repeal decree 21060 (initiating privatization a 
generation ago); to create new jobs and better living 
conditions; and to give its innumerable social sector 
supporters the coveted official positions ("pegas") they had 
banked on when casting their vote.  These confusing, 
contradictory and mostly impossible demands can be summed up 
in a growing but still inchoate frustration with a MAS 
government that, in the eyes of many, appears to be behaving 
with the same arrogance and indifference toward the people as 
its predecessors did. 
 
Media Luna Again 
---------------- 
¶4.  (SBU) Civic sector leaders in the lowlands regions of 
Santa Cruz and Tarija -- the heart of the restive half-moon 
movement that helped unseat former President Mesa -- have 
also stepped up their anti-government pressures.  After a 
period of quiescence and nursing of electoral wounds, the 
pro-Santa Cruz Committee held a special summit April 19 to 
pressure the government to negotiate a list of key 
departmental demands.  These included the letting of 
contracts for the Mutun iron reserve (ref A), defense against 
illegal land invasions, and an increase in the department's 
set-aside of official positions in the health and education 
sectors.  The Committee announced it would give the 
government seven days to respond before deciding on next 
steps, which could include a department-wide strike. 
Meanwhile, civic leaders in Tarija have given the government 
ten days to meet the terms of an agreement, signed by VP 
Alvaro Garcia Linera, that ended a stand-off late last month 
between the central and regional governments and protestors 
in the Chaco region calling for the establishment of a 10th 
Bolivian department.  (The proposed new "Chaco" department 
would take land from the existing departments of Tarija, 
Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca, and include most of Bolivia's 
proven gas reserves.) 
 
Government Creates Parallel Structure 
------------------------------------- 
 
LA PAZ 00001114  002 OF 002 
 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The Government has moved to preempt gathering 
protests by resurrecting an umbrella social sector group 
called the "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" ("The Peoples Union 
Committee").  First established in late 2002 to oppose the 
government of then-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and to 
force a transformation of the neo-liberal economic model, 
this time around the group's mandate is to defend social 
order and to protect the current government from the 
destabilizing attacks of non-official social sector actors. 
MAS firebrand and campesino leader Roman Loayza has been put 
in charge of the organization, and has publicly vowed to 
defend the government by any means necessary.  Many observers 
see the "Estado Mayor de Los Pueblos" as a canny move by the 
Morales administration to create a parallel "pro-government" 
social sector structure that can co-opt or, failing that, 
destroy those groups that might threaten government stability. 
 
Comment: 
-------- 
¶6. (SBU) While the uneasy feeling of rising social sector 
tensions is familiar to long-term Bolivia observers, the 
crucial question is somewhat new: can frustrated social 
sector groups seriously threaten government stability without 
the support of MAS's nation-wide infrastructure, 
organizational skills and cash, and in fact, when faced with 
the determined opposition of that structure.  Given that most 
of these groups are cash-strapped, undisciplined and still 
lacking in critical mass, we think not -- at least in the 
short term. 
GREENLEE