Bolivia, and Ecuador, and Peru..Oh my!

Strikes, car bombs, and political infighting, it's all here

Bolivia

November has been a tough month in Bolivia. A major 36-day strike in the largest city, Santa Cruz, finally ended, The strike cost the economy over $1 billion in lost trade. President Arce fired his entire military command structure, for the second time in two years, reportedly over their demand for a written versus a verbal order to break the strike in Santa Cruz. Finally, the Cold War between President Arce and former President Morales is beginning to heat up with Morales strongly criticizing Arce’s handling of the Santa Cruz strike. As you may have noticed, there’s one commonality among those items, the strike in Santa Cruz. So let’s put that into context.

Santa Cruz is not only Bolivia’s most populated city and region, it’s also the economic hub of the country accounting for some 70% of the economy between agriculture and extractive industries. It’s also home to Bolivia’s strongest opposition party, the Committee for Santa Cruz, whose current leader, Romulo Calvo, has been under house arrest since the week prior to the strike’s start. The regional governor, Luis Camacho, happens to be Calvo’s predecessor as the group's leader. The committee also organized the 21-day strike in 2019 that led to Morale’s resignation and flight from the country following his illegal run for a fourth term as President.

The issue driving the strike is the national census. Last held in 2012, it was planned for November 2022. But due to “technical issues” with census planning, President Arce announced in July 2022 that it would be moved to 2024. This is a big deal as the census outcome impacts the population-based allocation of Congressional representatives and government funds for housing and infrastructure. Following President Arce’s announcement, Calvo and his supporters rejected the delay as politically driven and called for a 2023 census in order to ensure any population changes would be taken into account during the 2025 elections. When a 2023 date was rejected by the central government, the strike was called to start on October 22.

According to the Committee, the population of Santa Cruz has surged in the last ten years due to the internal migration of people from the mountains to the lowlands in search of work. They see the delay as gamesmanship on the part of the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) controlled central government to deny Santa Cruz a political benefit in the upcoming election

Earlier this month, President Arce called the Census planners to meet with experts and politicians to determine the soonest the census could be executed. This group determined that the soonest possible date was March 2024 and that if completed by July 2024, the results would be implemented for the 2025 general election. President Arce then issued a Presidential Decree laying out the timeline. Organizers in Santa Cruz rejected the use of a decree as too easily modified and demanded a new law to ensure the process would be followed. The law was passed by the Lower House of Congress on November 26 and the Senate on November 30. Now it only lacks President Arce’s signature. Following the November 26 vote, the leadership in Santa Cruz called a halt to the strike.

So what did the Committee get out of all this? To me, the key issue here was not the date of the census. That was a good hook to hang the strike on and allow for negotiations with the central government. The real issue was the changes to the political allocation for the 2025 general election. The Committee likely only cared that the census results, which they anticipate will be in their favor, are in effect in 2025. Hence the demand for a law versus a decree and acceptance of the 2024 dates without much of a fight. Another benefit is showing the entire country that the conservatives in Santa Cruz have the organization and will to force the MAS central government to meet their demands. This ability to dictate terms may end up being more important in the long run because it shows MAS is not the political monolith it was prior to 2019.

Ecuador

The month started with car bombings and attacks on police in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas. These attacks were carried out by narcotrafficking gangs angered that the government planned to move prisoners in order to reduce prison violence. Following these attacks, President Lasso imposed yet another state of exception and curfews in three Ecuadorian provinces. The prisoner transfers continued as planned with hundreds of prisoners moved to disrupt gang activities and bring a halt to the high levels of prisoner-on-prisoner violence.

Since the attacks, the government has augmented security in prisons, increased police and prison guard training production, and President Lasso took a much stronger tone on security issues, calling the gangs’ actions an “attack upon the State.” It seems these actions had a positive impact as two weeks later the leaders of six major narcotrafficking gangs declared via video that they had reached a “peace agreement” among themselves inside Ecuadorian prisons and that they were not at war with Ecuador. They also took the opportunity to call for improved conditions in Ecuadorian prisons. Two additional groups declared themselves not a part of the agreement but would instead remain “neutral” to any conflicts. Since the agreement, attacks have reduced and prison violence has gone down.

As positive as that reduction is, one shouldn’t read it as an overall improvement in the security situation. Things are still pretty bad, especially in Esmeraldas Province and Guayaquil with near-daily reports of deadly assaults. The problems are moving around too. Last Sunday, the city of Chone in Manabi saw a hospital attacked by seven gunmen who were looking to finish off a wounded rival gang leader. They took hostages and fired weapons as they ordered the staff to show them where to find the 17-year-old. Police responded, freed the hostages, and took the gunmen into custody before they found the target. Chone had not been on anyone’s watch list as a dangerous place for narcotrafficking. It seems it is now.

During my time in the U.S. Embassy and my last visit in 2018, security was a concern but a manageable one. One stayed away from the high-risk areas and kept an eye out for common street crime. Narcotrafficking was a big business but the traffickers kept most activity apart from the majority of daily activities. Those seem like the good old days now with car bombs at gas stations and hospital attacks.

The U.S. government has taken increased notice as well, sending senior Defense and State Department representatives over the last three months to talk to President Lasso and his government about their needs. Ecuador hasn’t been shy about those needs either, President Lasso has reportedly given senior U.S. officials (including President Biden) a $5 billion dollar shopping list of defense and police requirements. To put that into perspective, U.S. funding for Plan Colombia was around $10 billion dollars over 15 years, according to a 2014 report by the Wilson Center. I don’t think $5 billion is in the ballpark for Ecuador. Whatever the U.S. provides (and Ecuador does need help) I hope it includes some new ideas because our efforts in Colombia certainly didn’t get the projected results.

Peru

President Castillo remains subject to six corruption investigations and has just sworn in his fourth Cabinet in 16 months. I think the half-life of his Ministers is about 4 months, not great for policy making. He also has a nationwide trucking strike that has the potential to choke off trade as Peru doesn’t have any other major commercial goods transportation options.

The fight between President Castillo and Congress is nothing new in Peru. Presidents and Congresses have fought and acted against each other for years. The recent visit of the “High-Level Group” of Latin American Foreign Ministers formed by the Organization of American States (OAS) was the third to Peru since 2004. Each visit is based upon an alleged breach of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which allows member nations to ask for support to counter anti-democratic activities. In the most recent case, President Castillo said the impeachment attempts and criminal investigation by Congress were a slow-motion coup.

The eight-member group comprised of current and former Foreign Ministers shows the OAS takes breaches of the charter seriously. However, the group was only on the ground for two days and had 27 meetings with, literally, anyone who had a thing to say about the political situation in Peru. Likely the most important of those 27 were with the President, Congressional leadership, and the Congressional Prosecutor running the various corruption investigations. Having done investigations and interviews as an outside person, I can tell you that the OAS Commission still has little to no idea what’s going on. Or to be fairer, I don’t believe the meetings changed any of the Group member’s minds on the situation. This visit was nothing more than a chance for all parties to air their grievances and for the OAS to say it took action in accordance with the Democratic Charter. It will be insightful to see how or if the Group’s report to the OAS takes a side or tries to split the baby between the President and Congress. If you’re interested, the preliminary report will be presented to the OAS Permanent Council live at 3 PM EST on December 1.

Regardless of the report’s contents, Peru’s politics will continue to be ugly. Just today, only a week after the OAS Group left Lima, Congress proposed a third impeachment against President Castillo. This time for lacking the moral character to serve as President. This one received 67 votes to move forward, up from 55 votes last time. Who knows maybe something will come of this one? The opposition needs 87 votes to remove the President from office.

In other news

Colombia re-started peace negotiations with its sole remaining guerrilla group, the ELN. The negotiations are taking place in Venezuela. Don’t look to see any great breakthroughs here in the near term. The ELN are known as difficult to negotiate with due to their refusal to bend on ideology. Colombia has a long road ahead.

Chile also is experiencing a nationwide trucking strike that has already resulted in bare grocery store shelves. The main issue here is diesel prices and security on the road for truckers. This may turn out to be President Boric’s toughest challenge because of the immediate, widespread impact on Chileans. I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

Thanks for reading. If there’s a pressing issue I’ve missed or you’d like a deep dive into something, let me know in the comments. The first 30-minute phone call is free!