Santa Cruz de la Sierra, May 6, 2008 | Che Guevara, the icon of the world’s resentful and revolutionary figures, was assassinated in La Higuera in October 1967, not far from here. More than forty years have passed since then, yet a totalitarian project, supposedly pro-Indigenous, which creates and exacerbates racial tensions, has just been metaphorically killed again here. Some might think that these two events are unrelated. However, historically, this department has played a significant role in Bolivian politics, and even though only three locals have ascended to the political Olympus of the country, it’s true that attitudes and initiatives launched here have transformed both the departmental and national landscape. Thus, the approval of the autonomy statute last Sunday not only slaps Evo Morales and his Venezuelan and Cuban patrons in the face but also shows that the joint hegemonic project can’t overcome democratic hurdles.
The propaganda machine serving the governments of Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Cuba worked hard to create a world opinion matrix: war was about to begin. The exercise of democracy through voting would certainly accelerate the apocalyptic outcome. So-called diplomatic missions from the Bolivian government were dispatched to the hemispheric organization to prevent, understand this well, that Bolivians could express their will at the polls, and they didn’t return without making the necessary consultative stops in Caracas and Havana. What democrats! In light of the diplomatic failure, the message was altered: now the referendum was deemed “illegal,” note the conceptual error—unconstitutional was not the term, but illegal. International press bought this notion and repeated it endlessly.
Journalists from around the world flocked to cover what they expected to be the “war” looming over Santa Cruz. Internally, Evo Morales ensured instability by sending in brigades of “social movements” to oppose the referendum. Furthermore, the army chief and several high-ranking officials from his cabinet arrived at the scene.