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Rebel Currents

Emily Achtenberg

South America has been transformed over the past decade by combative social movements and a new generation of left-leaning governments. This blog explores the challenges facing these governments and movements today, and the sometimes fraught and contradictory relations between them. It looks at major conflict arenas in countries such as Bolivia, where popular organizations are now confronting the government they brought to power, as well as local stories of communities in resistance throughout the region.

Nationalization, Bolivian Style: Morales Seizes Electric Grid, Boosts Oil Incentives
May 10, 2012

On May 1, President Evo Morales seized control of Bolivia's electric grid from one Spanish company and inaugurated a $600 million gas processing plant with another. Two weeks earlier, he boosted incentives for crude oil production in Bolivia's "nationalized" oil and gas sector by 300%, demonstrating an increasingly pragmatic, investor-friendly approach to nationalization.

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Bolivia: TIPNIS Protesters Launch National March, Seek Indigenous-Urban Alliance
April 27, 2012

After a week fraught with tension, the second march to protest the Bolivian government’s proposed highway through the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) is set to depart April 27 from the Amazonian department of Beni, headed towards the highland capital of La Paz. The march seeks to build an indigenous-urban alliance in broad defense of indigenous, environmental, and human rights.

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New Twist for TIPNIS Road: Bolivia Cancels Highway Contract
April 16, 2012

President Evo Morales's surprise announcement that Bolivia will revoke its contract with Brazilian company OAS to build the controversial TIPNIS highway has failed to defuse tensions, but could represent a paradigm shift in the TIPNIS controversy, with an opportunity to return to "ground zero."

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Shifting Alliances in Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict
April 06, 2012

In the run-up to the May-June consulta that will decide the fate of the proposed highway through the TIPNIS Indigenous Territory and National Park, the Bolivian government is signing agreements with lowland indigenous groups and seeking to cancel its contract with Brazilian company OAS to build the TIPNIS road, causing a shift in political alliances around the TIPNIS conflict.  

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Bolivia: TIPNIS Communities Plan National March and Resistance to Government Consulta
March 23, 2012

A majority of community authorities in the TIPNIS indigenous territory and national park have announced plans for another national march, beginning April 20, to protest the government-proposed highway that would bisect their ancestral homeland. They have pledged to simultaneously resist the government-sponsored consultation process.

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Remembering Domitila: Making Bolivian History
March 15, 2012

A tribute to Domitila Barrios de Chungara, long-time Bolivian social activist, feminist, and mine union leader whose 1978 hunger strike is credited with bringing down the dictatorship and changing the course of Bolivian history.

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TIPNIS Conflict Challenges Bolivian Workers Federation
March 02, 2012

The general assembly of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) has declared its support for the upcoming march to defend the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), contradicting the executive committee's position announced just last week. The dispute highlights how growing internal divisions within the COB have been intensified by the TIPNIS conflict.

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Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict: Letting the People Decide?
February 24, 2012

Lowland indigenous leaders say that the vast majority of their communities reject the Bolivian government’s proposed highway through the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). So why do these communities oppose the "prior, free, and informed" consultation process to be carried out by the government, which should allow their views to prevail?

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Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict: In Search of an Alternative Highway Route
February 17, 2012

The new law requiring the Bolivian government to consult with indigenous groups in the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS) about the proposed highway that would bisect the reserve has revived a nagging question: why are alternative routes for the road not being considered?

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Bolivian Congress Adopts Controversial TIPNIS Consultation Law
February 10, 2012

On February 9, Bolivia’s Plurinational Assembly passed a controversial new law mandating a consultation process for indigenous communities in the Isiboro-Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), to redetermine the fate of a government-proposed highway that would bisect the reserve. The next chapter of the TIPNIS conflict is likely to be more contentious than ever.

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