When asked to describe the first image that comes to his mind when he thinks of January 11th, Boris Rios says that it is a boy—a wounded coca-grower boy who stood by his side during that day’s most violent moments. “It’s because he was a young boy—someone who couldn’t defend himself against an adult man or even against an adult woman. He had been beaten with a stick or something that cracked his skull…his face is clear in my mind because it didn’t express pain, but rather complete terror because of what was happening, because of the total uncertainty that we felt. He was a young boy, completely covered with blood, but not crying.”
Like many young people in Cochabamba, Boris is a political activist that took part in the dozens of marches, demonstrations, mobilizations and political events during the Water War and the insurrection against ex-President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. He is stocky, his eyes are big and dark, his hair long. He is like many young people in cities all over Latin America that this journalist has had the opportunity to get to know and come to admire.
And though Boris could have lost his life on January 11th, (as he recounts in his testimonial available in spanish) he was in the Plaza September 14th the next day—along with thousands others who returned to the streets to demand that Manfred Reyes Villa vacate the Gubernatorial seat that he defended with violence and racism. Perhaps before leaving home that day, the people thought that if they were numerous enough then Reyes Villa might fall and that maybe by being together, the fear and the pain would subside just a little.
Everyone was expecting something big from the social leaders who—for better or for worse—had commanded the mobilizations against the ex-military officer Reyes Villa. The coca-grower boy, Boris, everyone. The violence and the racism deserved a response—Juan Tica Colque’s coffin passing through the crowd receiving flowers, tears and a moment of silence demonstrated that much. But the answers that starting coming from the governing party-aligned leadership, from the Governor’s office and from the government itself were not what the people were expecting.
As the events and actions just days later would show, that Friday January 12th public meeting was neither an advance towards justice nor towards ousting the Cochabamba Governor as the people wanted, at least not in the way that they wanted it.
From Friday the 12th to Monday the 15th, there were various reasons to believe that the Cochabamba conflict would end with a non-violent political solution. That Friday, Governor Manfred Reyes Villa announced that he would not call for a new referendum on autonomy. Reyes Villa made public his decision via taped television address recorded in the city of Santa Cruz where he had sought refuge. But the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) social leaders refused to accept his peace-offering and reaffirmed the demand that he resign. At this point it was clear that Reyes Villa would not immediately return to Cochabamba and that Secretary General Johnny Ferrel would remain in charge until his boss got back.
During these three days everyone began to backpedal slightly, at least away from the more extreme measures that had been taken. Víctor Mitma announced that the State Workers Union (COD in its Spanish initials) and the farming sector led by MAS Senator Omar Fernández would withdraw the highway blockades that were surrounding the city. Though it soon become clear that this was not just to relieve tension but to allow more campesinos access to the state’s capital city so the siege could continue.
The public meeting on the 12th debated various proposals. One, offered by Senator Fernández, was to grant the State Council—a body of 24 members hand-picked by the President which at the time was presided over by the current Justice Minister Celima Torrico—the power to elect a new Governor. The proposal had just one flaw: the Council can only convene when called to order by the Governor himself. Regardless, the multitude accepted the proposal and another public meeting was planned for the following Tuesday, January 16th.
The people did not, however, accept unconditional peace. That day, many spoke out in favor of looting mansions, others declared war. Commercial media journalists were again assaulted, though in isolated incidents, and they were prohibited from covering the public meeting. After the event, about 2,000 people would confront the police and reek havoc on the headquarters of Unitel, a national television network owned by Santa Cruz businessmen and the media outlet that most attacks the Evo Morales government. The primarily student demonstrators yelled: “Death to the channel of the oligarchy! We want the truth!”
The government invited Reyes Villa to resume dialogue that same day, according to Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramon Quintana’s announcement from the Presidential Palace. In an attempt to provide a political solution to the moral conflict between his masses and the Governor, Evo Morales announced that he would send a bill to the National Congress that would call allow for a vote in which the population could revoke the governing power of “the President, Governors and Mayors for crimes of corruption, human rights violations and non-compliance with electoral promises.” That way, Morales said, crises like those that occurred in Cochabamba could be avoided in the future.
Juan Tica Colque’s coffin during the January 16th public meeting.
© Marcelo Becerra Matías.
The three days following the January 12th public meeting were tense but passed without major incident. The district attorney’s office began its investigation into the 11th; the Governor requested security guarantees in order to return to work; the mobilized sectors took a break to grieve and to rest; the government fired the employee who had administered the irregular delivery of food supplies to Senator Leonilda Zurita and everyone readied themselves for the Tuesday January 16th public meeting that many hoped would yield a final solution.
There were also burials during this three day pause. The media’s coverage was one-sided and completely hypocritical: the funeral of Christian Urresti, the young white man, was covered extensively and he was often depicted as an angel. The funeral of the coca-grower who left behind three young children and a pregnant widow was barely mentioned and when it was, it was briefly and without emotion. This occurred in both the television coverage as well as the printed reports in the Cochabamba daily newspapers.
But on Tuesday, a separate issue was at hand. The MAS social leaders announced that they expected the State Council to convene during the public meeting in order to remove Governor Reyes Villa from office. Chapare Councilman and personal friend of Evo Morales, David Herrera, told the press on Monday the 15th that 19 of the 24 Council members had promised to attend and to hold a special session.
This was the scene at 3pm on Tuesday January 16th when the public meeting began. COD leaders (specifically Mitma) and Senator Omar Fernández asked the people for patience for the Council to issue their resolution. So beneath the summer sun, amidst the hum of countless speeches and rallying calls, the people waited for an answer from above. However Oscar Olivera denounces that people were unaware that as they waited, the MAS leadership would use the mobilized forces in order to validate a political line that stretched back to President Evo Morales himself.
That day, “the leaders of the mobilization wouldn’t allow any non-MAS leader to be included in anything,” Olivera commented in an interview with UB. In fact, the executive secretary of the Federation of Factory Workers of Cochabamba also remembers that organizers of the public meeting demanded that the organizations carry blue banners with white lettering (the official MAS colors), homogenizing everything to give the appearance of complete subordination.
While waiting, the people decided to focus the debate on Reyes Villa’s removal from office. Among all of the conclusions that Senator Omar Fernandez pulled out of his hat that day, the idea that Reyes Villa should step down was barely even mentioned. This maneuver enraged the people, especially when Fernández tried to demand that those gathered accept the President’s proposal—to wait for Congress to approve the revocation referendum in order to remove Manfred Reyes Villa from office “legally.”
Fernández, Mitma and others were boo-ed and stoned and eventually fled the scene before the State Council’s special session had even convened publicly, let alone approved any resolution. Witnessing the MAS-led deception from below, Oscar Olivera recounts that it was their intention to place Ferrel, Reyes Villa’s subordinate who was already technically in charge of the state government at that time, as interim Governor.
With the MAS leadership now far from the Plaza and the bases beginning to disperse, the public meeting ended without great accomplishment and a group of radicals (not necessarily those most thoughtful) decided to take control of the event and propose the creation of a “popular government” headed by a Governor to be elected right then and there. Chapare resident Tiburcio Herrada, also know as “Commander Parrot,” was chosen and carried on people’s shoulders through the plaza and onto the balcony.
That same afternoon, Omar Fernández, Vice President Alvaro García Linera and other government personalities refused to recognize the new Governor’s legitimacy, because “it went against the prevailing legality.” The “People’s Governor” himself would soon withdraw to the Chapare given the lack of support for his nomination. And that should conclude the story.
A few weeks later, in an attempt to place blame, Omar Fernández would file a suit against Manfred Reyes Villa charging him with sedition. Reyes Villa would in return launch a suit against Fernández, accusing him of the same crime. The thousands-large mobilization, the more than 200 injured, and the three deaths caused by January 11th seemed to end there —in the “legality” manipulated by a Senator and the Evo Morales government. This interference by the government made invisible the people’s aspirations and words, affirms Olivera.
“I can’t understand how someone can beat a 10 year old boy and leave him there,” Boris Rios wonders in his account of the fateful day’s aggression. But Boris, like many others, did not get the answers they were hoping for from that “meeting of errors” on January 16th. “I look at someone now and I want to recognize his face. I look for the people who were there that day to kick the shit out of them, to kill them, I don’t know,” the young Cochabamba activist explained with restrained anger. This uncertainty remains thanks to Senator Fernánez or Víctor Mitma or the government or Governor Reyes Villa.
Unfortunately, hate continues to thrive in Cochabamba. And the violence unleashed could rear its ugly head again in the streets of the city that in 2000 defeated a transnational to recuperate its water. The wolf has been let loose and the people feel defenseless.
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