What's legal and illegal in Bolivia?

A Bolivian police officer points a tear-gas cannister launcher at an anti-autonomy protester yesterday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Photo: Boris Heger/MCT

As yesterday's chaotic day of voting in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, showed, trying to figure out who's on the right side of the law in this politically divided country is tricky business.

Leaders of Santa Cruz province, Bolivia's richest and second most-populous, organized a referendum that, if approved, would declare the province autonomous from the country's central government.

That means enjoying powers equivalent to a U.S. state such as forming state police and electing a state legislature and governor as well as winning some other powers no U.S. state has, such as the ability to negotiate foreign treaties. According to exit polls, the referendum passed overwhelmingly yesterday. Read my story about the vote here.

President Evo Morales has called the referendum illegal and unconstitutional because the country's electoral court didn't schedule the vote and because it conflicts with current law, which doesn't allow such autonomies, and with a draft constitution he wants to make law that emphasizes autonomy for this country's many indigenous communities.

For their part, Santa Cruz leaders say they're within the law because the province's voters approved a July 2006 referendum granting such provincial autonomies although the referendum was rejected nationally. Morales says the province is still outside the law because of that national rejection, which means individual provinces can't pursue autonomy on their own.

The lines were blurred even further yesterday when anti-autonomy activists, many of them Morales supporters, rampaged in several towns in Santa Cruz province and on the outskirts of the city of the same name, destroying ballot boxes and attacking suspected pro-autonomy voters.

The protesters said they were within the law because they were obstructing an illegal vote, even if that meant physically attacking people on their way to vote. Morales congratulated the protesters Sunday night, saying they were protecting the country's sovereignty.

Santa Cruz leaders, or course, called the protests and attacks illegal attempts to obstruct a democratic process.

And if the exit polls are confirmed and the referendum passes, Bolivians will be pitched into the mother of all legal limbos, as its richest province possibly implements an autonomy statute that the the central government says is illegal.

If this happened in the United States, let's say if Missouri unilaterally declared itself autonomous from Washington, D.C., federal troops would be sent in pretty quickly to restore order. Morales, on the other hand, refused to send troops for fear of causing bloodshed but instead dispatched his activists to block the vote.

Although U.S. readers may find this all hard to fathom, it doesn't faze people in Bolivia, where protester roadblocks and invasions of government offices are tolerated and are in fact considered simply part of the political dialogue. The rule of law is notoriously absent in much of the country, and acting outside the law is normal and even expected.

So I guess when you constantly live on the legal edge, those are the rules or lack of rules you play with. The problem is when there are no rules, everyone's making up their own and calling it law.

Comments

[Jerome Melgar]

As much as I would like Santa Cruz to have autonomy it's the law of the country that it's not allowed, and it should be respected!