A
fragile government in La Paz is further weakened as more and more
indigenous
people rise up and take control of their villages.
http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-bolivia31mar31,1,1759958.story
SORATA,
Bolivia - The police won't return to this village in the Andes
unless
the peasants promise not to throw rocks at them.
The
peasants rose up and chased the police out months ago, along with
the
local representative of the provincial government, the judges and
even
the army. The authorities fled Sept. 20 in the face of a crowd of
Aymara
Indians armed with little more than sticks and stones, enraged by
an
insult uttered by an army general hours earlier, and moved by
centuries
of pent-up frustration.
Since
the uprising, this corner of Bolivia - where the dry Altiplano, a
high
plateau, around Lake Titicaca meets lush tropical mountains - has
become
a kind of an Indian liberated zone......
"Before,
they were the bosses. They made us work, they would run
everything,"
said Felix Puña Mamani, a resident of the neighboring
village
of Viacha, referring to the people of European descent who have
dominated
Bolivian society since the 16th century Spanish conquest. "But
people
realize what's going on now. It's not like it was before."
As
many as 1.5 million people - almost a fifth of Bolivia's population -
live
in areas where indigenous authorities have replaced at least some
government
functions, said Alvaro Garcia Linera, a university professor
in
La Paz who has studied the popular movements of Bolivia's two main
indigenous
groups, the Aymara and the Quechua.
"Since
2000, we have seen an enormous, continual uprising of indigenous
people,
with a strong element of Indian nationalism," Garcia Linera
said.
"In many places, the institutions of the Republic of Bolivia have
begun
to fade away."
...........more
[Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times]