Born to an Aymara family of subsistence farmers in the Oruro Department in the Andean highlands, the Bolivian president Evo Morales comes from a humble background. After a high school education and military service, he spent his early years as a coca grower in Chapare province, and first rose to prominence through leading the union of coca growers to protest against the forced eradication of coca cultivation in Bolivia led by the U.S.
In 1998, he founded the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo; MAS), a left-wing party that later became the major political opponent of the neoliberal government. His discourse of indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, nationalization of the oil and gas sector, and environmentalism were a refreshing development in Bolivian politics, gaining him popularity especially among the indigenous people, who accounted for over 60% of the population. In 2005, he was elected as the first indigenous president of the country. In his inaugural speech, he announced the end of the colonial and neoliberal era, stating that “the 500 years of Indian resistance have not been in vain. From 500 years of resistance we pass to another 500 years in power.”
Indeed, indigenous people’s rights have gained more recognition and visibility in the political realm since Evo Morales’s presidency. In 2007, Bolivia became the first country to approve the U.N. Declaration of Indigenous Rights. The new constitution passed in 2009 included comprehensive indigenous rights. And in 2010, Bolivia passed the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth (La Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra), declaring that Mother Earth and her life systems, including humans and ecosystems, are entitled to specific rights such as life, diversity, water, air, and freedom from pollution.
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However, to Daniel, this pro-indigenous and pro-nature image of Evo Morales had many loopholes. First of all, the two goals stated in Morales’s speech—expanding extractive industry and protecting Mother Nature—were hard to reconcile. While Bolivia opposed the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) mechanism for its “monetization of nature,” it embraced the extractive industry without hesitation. In 2014, the oil and gas sector contributed to 8.7% of GDP and 55% of total export value.○
Another issue for Daniel was the expansion of the country’s agricultural frontier, a major driver of deforestation. According to the government, the expansion of agriculture was needed to ensure the nation’s food security. But living in an agricultural frontier area, Daniel knew that most newly cleared lands were used to cultivate soy, a crop mainly intended for export. In contrast to the strong support for the extractive industry and agroindustry, more sustainable economic activities such as forestry received little attention or policy support from the state.
“We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.”— The Peoples Agreement of Cochabamba
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Perhaps it was impossible to live up to the anti-neoliberalism promises—after all, Bolivia was not isolated from the capitalist world system powered by fossil fuels. But what angered Daniel more was how the self-proclaimed “indigenous” government often neglected and even sacrificed the rights of certain indigenous peoples in the country. The president was still popular among Andean highland indigenous groups such as the Aymara and Quechua, who felt represented and supported by the administration. However, the more marginalized lowland indigenous groups, including the Guarayos, who had supported this government during its early years in power, were now losing faith.
Daniel often thought of a relatable struggle of another indigenous territory, the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS).○ The government proposed a highway that would cut through TIPNIS, facilitating hydrocarbon exploitation and connecting Pando and Beni departments with the rest of the country. The indigenous communities living within the park protested the road proposal as a violation of indigenous rights, with temporary success—in 2011, Law 180 was passed to reaffirm protection of TIPNIS as an indigenous territory and protected area. But in August 2017, Evo Morales shepherded another law that nullified the park’s untouchable status, enabling the construction of the highway once again. Daniel feared that if the government could easily change the law and take away the permanent status of another indigenous territory, they could do the same to the Guarayos region, if needed. After all, with a population of only 23,910 people,○ the Guarayos were not contributing many votes in the presidential elections.
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