[NYTr] Bolivia's 'capital war' stokes fear of civil conflict

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Simon McGuinness 


[Moving a capital to a secondary city can be a major political act of
refocusing development and can have enormous social, economic and
political spin offs. Underdeveloping countries typically have a highly
unbalanced urban demographic with one very large city and several small
backwater cities.  Moving the administrative capital can help to relieve
development pressure from the largest city and refocus investment in to
a poorer region.  Good governments limit the size of their cities to
ensure balanced regional development.  Moving a capital is a good way to
balance regional development and is always resented by the city
inhabitants losing their capital status.  These are usually the sources
the foreign press have greatest contact with.  Urban planners would
generally regard this as evidence of enlightened government thinking. -
SMcG.]


The Irish Times - Aug 8, 2007
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2007/0808/1186424879836.html

Bolivia's 'capital war' stokes fear of civil conflict

by Oscar Ordonez and Patrick J McDonnell in La Paz, Bolivia

BOLIVIA: Bolivia has endured popular uprisings in recent years dubbed
the "gas war'" and the "water war". Now it faces the "capital war".
Multitudes have taken to the streets in recent weeks over a proposal to
switch the capital from bustling La Paz to sleepy Sucre, a colonial city
that lost its capital status in a bloody struggle more than a century
ago.

It is the latest fissure in a nation where bitter regional rivalries
have stoked fears of fragmentation and civil conflict. All agree Bolivia
doesn't need more division.

"What matters to me is that there is no bloodshed, massacres or calls
for social convulsions," Silvia Lazarte, president of Bolivia's
Constituent Assembly told reporters.

The capital rivalry has further extended the odds against lawmakers
meeting a Monday deadline for drafting a new constitution. The date
probably will be extended to December, officials say.

Here in high-altitude La Paz, where a boisterous crowd, stretching for
miles and reported at more than one million people, marched last month
to reject the idea of moving the capital, the proposal is viewed as a
ploy by rebellious lowland provinces to wrest control of this
impoverished but resource-rich nation of nine million people.

"They want to divide the country!" Nazario Ramirez, a civic leader, told
the assembled masses.

Proponents of moving the capital say Sucre, a city of 250,000 near the
country's geographic centre, is in a better position to foster national
reconciliation than La Paz, which is situated in the western Andean
highlands, the stronghold of the president Evo Morales.

"Bolivia is now on the verge of violent confrontation," Jaime Barron, a
leader of the pro-Sucre movement, warned during a rally in that city,
about 430 miles southeast of La Paz. "We propose to establish a centre
of national equilibrium in Sucre . . . erasing at once the grave danger
that our homeland will fragment."

The move would be an economic and social boon to Sucre, which was the
site of Bolivia's founding in 1825 and was the sole capital until losing
a short-lived civil war to La Paz in 1899. The two cities have
maintained a rivalry ever since.

Bolivia's judiciary is based in Sucre, while the much larger legislative
and executive branches of government reside in La Paz.

But "pacenos", as La Paz residents are known, say the switch would
devastate the economy of the country's major metropolis, home to about
1.7 million people, including La Paz and the adjoining, fast-growing
suburb of El Alto. Sucre lacks a major airport and other infrastructure.

The idea of relocating the government seat has further slowed the
nation's 255-delegate constitutional convention, which convened in Sucre
a year ago.

The work of crafting a new constitution for South America's poorest
country has devolved into a struggle between left-wing supporters of
Morales and conservative adversaries from the so-called "half-moon"
lowlands, to the east, north and south. Much of the nation's resource
wealth, including Bolivia's vast natural gas deposits, is found in the
subtropical half-moon expanses.

Advocates of the four half-moon provinces have been pushing for
constitutional autonomy from the central government in La Paz. Some have
formed an alliance with Sucre-as-capital advocates.

Morales calls autonomy for those provinces a prelude to the outright
break-up of Bolivia.

The president's supporters view the proposed capital transfer as a means
to derail the new constitution and split the country.

"La Paz is at the forefront of national unity," Morales declared last
month following the capital's massive mobilisation, which he labelled
the country's largest gathering.

Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, derides opponents in the
half-moon regions as oligarchic remnants of the white and mixed-race
elite who long dominated, and plundered, Bolivia.

The president is pushing for a constitution to benefit the highland
indigenous masses and coca-leaf growers who compose his base.

Representatives of the half-moon provinces call Morales a race-baiting
autocrat and dictator-in-waiting like his patron, Venezuela's Hugo
Chavez. They want a greater share of hydrocarbon and other revenues.
Officials from gas-rich southern Tarija province have threatened to
declare unilateral autonomy next week if the new constitution doesn't
grant it.

Despite the tumult and a turbulent history of military coups, Bolivia
has demonstrated a certain resiliency in recent years.

A fragile democracy has held even after "wars" over water rights in 2000
and gas exports in 2003 shook the nation. They eventually paved the way
for Morales's election in December 2005. Many predict Bolivia also will
withstand its current crisis.

"We have this uncanny ability to go to the edge and not fall off," said
Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian-born political scientist at Florida
International University. "We're at the edge again, but I think we'll
see some compromise."

C 2007 Washington Post