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Bolivia Index
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of Bolivia, 1989
BOLIVIA'S WEALTH OF NATURAL wonders, colorful Indian
traditions,
and enigmatic ancient ruins make it one of the world's
most
unusual countries. The "Tibet" of South America, Bolivia
is
traversed by three massive Andean ranges, which include
four of
the world's highest eternally snow-topped mountains,
towering to
heights up to 6,550 meters (Sajama). Although the country
is
landlocked, it has Lake Titicaca, lying half in Bolivia
and half
in Peru, the world's second largest inland sea and highest
navigable lake (3,810 meters above sea level), as well as
one of
the deepest (370 meters).
Bolivia is a land of sharp contrasts with climatic
conditions
ranging from arctic to tropical. It is divided into three
distinct ecozones: the bleak, windswept, Tibetan-like
plateau or
"high plain" called the Altiplano (3,600 meters high)
separating
two generally parallel Andean cordilleras; the
intermediary
valley region (often referred to somewhat loosely by
travel
writers as the yunga, meaning warm valleys), which
consists of
both the eastern temperate high valleys and the only
valley that
Bolivians call the Yungas, the steep semitropical valley
northeast of the city of La Paz; and the eastern tropical
flat
lowlands, which make up about 70 percent of the country,
including part of the vast, semiarid Chaco region in the
south.
The first two of these ecozones constitute the highlands.
The central range, or Cordillera Real, forms a
magnificent
snowcapped backdrop for La Paz, which is the seat of
government.
No other major city in the world can boast of a higher,
more
immense mountain overlooking it than La Paz's Illimani
(6,322
meters). Although La Paz is centered at the bottom of a
deep,
bowl-shaped canyon (protected from the chilly Altiplano
winds),
the city is 3,557 meters high, whereas rival Santa Cruz,
the
fastest-growing large city in the eastern lowlands and
Bolivia's
second-largest city, is only 416 meters in elevation.
The poorest country in South America in the late 1980s
(per
capita income was US$640 in 1987), Bolivia also had some
of the
lowest health and other social indicators in Latin
America, but
it did not suffer from one common Third World problem,
namely,
overpopulation. Although larger than France and Spain
combined,
Bolivia had only about 7 percent of their total population
(or
fewer than 7 million inhabitants), one of the lowest
population
densities in the Western Hemisphere. The nation's
population had
more than doubled, however, since 1950, and its
distribution,
slightly more rural than urban, was highly uneven, with
most of
the people living in the highlands. The urban population
was
concentrated in only six main highland cities and Santa
Cruz.
(Bolivia's projected population of nearly 10 million in
2000 was
expected to be more urban than rural.)
With 55 percent of its population Indian, Bolivia has
the
proportionately highest Indian population of any country
in Latin
America, although Guatemala and Peru both have larger
numbers of
Indian inhabitants. Nevertheless, the country was sharply
divided
in its ethnic composition, languages, and modes of living
in
1989. The two principal highland Indian groups, the
Quechua and
Aymara, constituted 30 percent and 25 percent of the
population,
respectively. Cholo or mestizos (those of mixed blood)
made up at
most 30 percent. The Quechua and the Aymara traditionally
had not
intermarried and had always kept their languages, physical
characteristics, and many social traditions distinct,
thereby
adding to the country's deep regional and social
cleavages. (In
addition, very few of either group ever learned Spanish.)
The two
groups also inhabited different areas: the Aymara lived
mainly in
the northern part of the Altiplano and Yungas, and the
Quechua
lived in the two north-south mountain ranges east of the
Altiplano and in the temperate valleys. Whites (mostly
descendants of Spaniards) constituted less than 15 percent
of the
population. Although they inhabited the same cities, the
whites
had little in common with the Indians.
The Quechua, once part of the great Inca Empire
(Tiahuantinsuyo)
centered in Cuzco (Cusco) in present-day Peru, were valley
people
in pre-Incan times who adopted the language of the
conquering
Incas. The origins of the Aymara have remained somewhat
obscure.
The Aymara and the few surviving members of the
Puquina-speaking
Uru and Chipaya tribes, which the Aymara once oppressed,
still
ply Lake Titicaca in totor reed boats, as they have for
almost a
millennium. Archaeologists generally have held that the
Aymara
emerged as a distinct group about A.D. 1100 and that their
ancestors were part of the great Aymara-speaking Tiwanakan
Empire
(or possibly only the Kolla Indians, who constituted its
work
force) that was centered at Tiwanaku (Tiawanaco) at the
southern
end of Lake Titicaca.
Bolivia's largely unknown Tiwanakan prehistory is as
alien as
the Altiplano's topography. The origins of the Tiwanakans
and
their sudden disappearance have remained shrouded in
mystery,
myth, and controversy. Early Spanish chroniclers found
that the
Aymara lacked an ancestral memory or written record of the
Tiwanakans. The Tiwanakans appeared as an already robust
culture
in at least 600 B.C. (although some archaeologists date
them back
to around 1500 B.C.) and developed through at least five
distinct
stages over nearly two millennia, until becoming a lost
civilization around A.D. 1200. During the culture's final
centuries, when it flourished, its religious influence
extended
throughout the Pacific Andean region as far north as
Ecuador.
According to archaeologists, much of the later
Quechua-speaking
Incan civilization was based on inherited Tiwanakan
culture and
technology.
Tiwanaku was the sun-worshiping empire's lofty
ceremonial and
administrative center, located on what was then an island
in Lake
Titicaca. Over the centuries, the lake has receded,
leaving the
ruins some twenty kilometers from its shore (the ruins of
at
least one other ancient city have been discovered
submerged).
Tiahuanaco occupied an area of almost six square
kilometers and
had a population ranging from 20,000 to 100,000. The site,
although still only partially excavated, contains some of
the
most impressive prehistoric ruins in the Western
Hemisphere. Its
immense, open-sky stone edifices, such as the temple of
Akapana
and Palace of the Sarcophagi, are constructed on enormous
foundations and contain polished walls. Pyramidal temples
include
the Sun Temple of Kalasasaya with its striking Calendar
Gate, or
Gateway of the Sun (Puerta del Sol), and another estimated
to
have been as large as Egypt's Great Pyramid. The walls of
these
once brightly painted temples were adorned with
gold-covered
sculptured bas-reliefs. Over the centuries since the
Spaniards
arrived and began to systematically destroy the site,
using it as
a quarry, the ruins have been vandalized to such an extent
that
only the heaviest megalithic vestiges remain.
The Tiwanakan culture was as advanced in many respects
as that
of the ancient Egyptians. The Tiwanakans built an
extensive
system of roads, terraced mountain slopes, and huge raised
terraces surrounded by deep, stone-block irrigation canals
that
made what is today a barren, dry region into fertile
agricultural
land for growing highly nutritious crops, such as a grain
called
quinoa (their sacred "mother grain"). Their buildings
contained
carved stone pipes for plumbing and were constructed of
geometrically cut stone blocks linked with copper pins and
clamps
so tightly that mortar was unnecessary. The Tiwanakans
used
timber-built vessels to ferry andesite stone slabs
weighing more
than sixty tons forty-eight kilometers across the lake
from
quarries at the extinct volcano Kayappia, measured and cut
them
meticulously, and ground and burnished them smooth.
Thousands of
workers transported red sandstone blocks weighing up to
160 tons
from a quarry tem kilometers away by dragging them along
an
embankment covered with wet clay. Tiwanakan sculptors
adorned
their large pillar-like statues of the Sun God (Kon-Tiki
Viracocha) and priest-kings and other slabs with an
elaborately
developed, but as yet undeciphered, iconography. Artisans
created
exquisite golden ornaments and ceramics, the latter
containing
brilliant colors and sculptured figures.
Investigators have postulated various theories to
explain the
mysterious disappearance of the Tiwanakan civilization.
Some
authors have speculated that the Aymara-speaking, warlike
Kollas
liquidated the Tiwanakans. Incan legend also spoke of a
tribe
from the Coquimbo Valley in Peru that attacked and
massacred the
bearded white men in a battle on an island in Lake
Titicaca; only
Kon-Tiki and a few others escaped and fled west. Some
scientists
have hypothesized that a dramatic drop in the water level
of Lake
Titicaca could have debilitated the Tiwanakans and made
them
vulnerable to attack by hostile tribes. Archaeologist Alan
L.
Kolata has determined that Tiwanaku's irrigation fields
were no
longer functional by A.D. 1000, possibly as a result of a
severe
drought lasting for decades. In any event, there seems to
be
general agreement that the scattered megalithic remnants
of
uncompleted projects provide evidence that Tiwanakan life
came to
an abrupt end. From 1200 to 1438, the Kollas assimilated
the
peoples who had lived under the Tiwanankan Empire. Thus,
the
Kollas are presumed to have inherited elements of the
vanished
culture, such as some stone-building skills, but not the
more
advanced aspects of the civilization.
The Incas of Peru emerged shortly after the collapse of
the
Tiwanakans and reached an equally advanced level of
civilization
during their relatively brief history of several hundred
years.
Incan legends also gave accounts of bearded white men who
came
from the shores of Lake Titicaca and brought them
civilization
and then went to the Pacific Coast and disappeared
overseas. The
Incas worshiped Viracocha Inca and the sun and built sun
temples
on the Island of the Sun in Lake Titicaca. Architectural
similarities with Tiwanakan culture included the
trapezoidal
shapes of doors and window openings and the masterfully
cut and
interlocked walls of large stone blocks.
In the late fifteenth century, the Incas, after meeting
stubborn
resistance, finally brought the Kollas under their
control.
According to legend, the Incas were awed by the then still
magnificent ruins of Tiwanaku, which they found occupied
by the
Aymara. Nevertheless, the Incas kept their distance from
the site
as if it were taboo. They imposed only their religion on
the
Aymara and allowed them to keep their social traditions
and
language. The relatively brief Incan culture in Kollasuyo
(present-day Bolivia) produced beautiful ceramics and
brightly
colored rectangular pack cloths (ahuayo), styles that
still
characterize the work of the Quechua and Aymara. Incan
outposts
extended to the fringes of the eastern escarpment (east of
Cochabamba), as evidenced by the important ruins of
Incallacta
and possibly Samaipata, although whether the latter, a
colossal
fortress carved out of solid rock on a mountaintop, is
actually
Incan or Tiwanakan has been disputed.
When Francisco Pizarro arrived in Tumbes (in
present-day Peru)
in 1532, the Incas thought he was Viracocha Inca
returning. After
conquering the Incas, the conquistadors systematically
destroyed
the Incan and other "backward" Indian cultures, including
most of
an estimated seventy species of exotic Incan crops, such
as
quinoa, that are only now being rediscovered and
reintroduced
around the world. For almost three centuries, the
Spaniards
exploited the rich silver mines of what they called Upper
(Alto)
Peru or Charcas (present-day Bolivia). They subjected the
mainly
Aymara Indians on the Altiplano and the Quechua Indians in
the
temperate valleys to a system of feudal peonage in the
mines and
textile mills (obraje) and on the haciendas, denying them
even
the right to learn to read and write their own languages.
Imported African slaves died off so rapidly doing the
strenuous
high-altitude mining work and the Indians feared them so
much
that they were used mainly for domestic work in the
silver-mining
city of Potosí, for many years the richest and largest
city in
the Americas (160,000 residents in 1660). African slaves,
however, became an Aymara-speaking subculture in the
Yungas,
which they colonized for coca cultivation. Chewing coca
leaves
(supposedly the exclusive right of the Incan elite in pre-
Columbian times) enabled the Aymara to cope with the
hardships of
mining by numbing their senses to the cold and deadening
their
appetites.
After becoming an independent republic in 1825 under
the
presidency of its liberator and namesake, Simón Bolívar
Palacio,
Bolivia proved difficult to govern and hold together; its
heterogeneous, illiterate population lacked any sense of
national
self-identity or patriotism. Regional rivalries that
antedated
independence remained rife. Because the Indians remained
culturally and physically isolated and illiterate, most of
them
probably were unaware that they lived in a country called
Bolivia
until well into the twentieth century. The distinctive
heritage
of architecture, painting, and sculpture left by the
Spaniards
was of little use to the Indian masses, whose daily life
was a
struggle to survive. Furthermore, Bolivia was 2.2 million
square
kilometers, or more than twice its present size. During
its first
110 years, the nation lost approximately half of its
territory in
wars and controversial bilateral deals. The most traumatic
loss
resulted from the War of the Pacific (1879-83), in which
Chile
seized Bolivia's seacoast and rich nitrate fields in the
Atacama
Desert.
Bolivia has suffered from the rule of numerous despotic
and
incompetent caudillos during its history as an independent
nation. None was crueler and more depraved and ignorant
than
General Mariano Melgarejo Valencia (1864-71), whose many
victims
included the conspiratorial General Manuel Isidoro Belzú
Humérez
(1848-55), murdered on being received in the presidential
office
after returning from exile. Melgarejo, a mining baron,
squandered
the country's treasury on his mistress, ceded an immense
rubber-
farming territory to Brazil in exchange for the right to
use the
Amazon River as a waterway, and initiated the government's
seizure and sale of Indian communal lands. Belzú's
frequently
quoted valedictory, however, that "Bolivia is totally
incapable
of being governed," created an enduring stereotype. In
Belzú's
era, moreover, Bolivia's caudillos were so busy fighting
for
power among themselves that they had little time or energy
left
to govern the country effectively.
A number of exceptional leaders also have governed from
the
Palacio Quemado, or Burnt Palace (the unofficial name
given the
rebuilt Palace of Government after it was burned by a mob
in
1875). In 1983 the La Paz newspaper Última Hor polled
thirty-nine
prominent Bolivians in various professions on which seven
presidents they considered "most significant." The final
list (in
chronological order) consisted mostly of historical
figures:
General Antonio José de Sucre Alcalá (1825-28), General
Andrés de
Santa Cruz y Calahumana (1829-39), Belzú, Melgarejo (who
received
a record fifteen negative votes, as well as two positive
ones),
Aniceto Arce Ruíz (1888-92), Ismael Montes Gamboa (1904-09
and
1913-17), and Víctor Paz Estenssoro (1952-56, 1960-64, and
1985-
89). Those garnering the most favorable votes were Santa
Cruz and
Paz Estenssoro (thirty-three and thirty-two,
respectively). The
next highest-rated president, Belzú, curiously garnered
twenty-
one favorable ballots and no negative ones, despite having
ruled
Bolivia with a reign of terror.
Other well-regarded nineteenth-century leaders included
José
María Linares Lizarazu (1857-61) and General José
Ballivián y
Segurola (1841-47). Linares had widespread support when he
seized
power as the first civilian president but lost it as he
became
dictatorial. Ballivián, although widely popular, resigned
after
tiring of putting down insurrections. His urbane and
European-
educated son, Adolfo Ballivián (1873-74), seemed to have
the
potential of becoming an outstanding president and
probably would
have changed Bolivia's involvement in the War of the
Pacific had
a mortal illness not forced him to resign suddenly.
Elected to
the office (unlike his father), Adolfo Ballivián briefly
restored
honesty, tolerance, and liberty to government.
During the period of Conservative Party rule (1880-99),
silver-
mining magnates, such as Gregorio Pacheco Leyes (1884-88)
and
Arce Ruíz, followed the precedent set by Melgarejo of
occupying
the presidency, but did so legally. During the relatively
stable
Liberal Party era (1899-1920), when the tin industry
boomed, the
three tin-mining moguls--Simón I. Patiño, a Bolivian chol
who
became one of the world's richest men; Carlos Aramayo, a
Bolivian; and Mauricio Hochschild, an Austrian-born
Argentine--
intervened in politics more indirectly by employing
politicians
and lawyers
(la rosc--see Glossary) to represent the
oligarchy's
interests. The mining and landowning elite kept the mine
laborers
and landless peasant migrants in a system of neofeudal
peonage
called pongaj and intensified the despoilment of the
Indian
communities of their ancestral land.
The disastrous war with Paraguay, the Chaco War
(1932-35), cost
Bolivia 65,000 lives, hundreds of millions of dollars, and
most
of its vast Chaco territory. Although the Chaco was nearly
uninhabitable, it was of strategic importance as Bolivia's
only
access to the Atlantic Ocean, by way of the Paraguay
River. By
discrediting the traditional oligarchy because of its
inept
civilian and military leadership, the Chaco War served as
a
turning point in Bolivia's military, political, and
cultural
life. It opened the way for a series of coups by reformist
military officers, none of whom fared well in office, the
creation of new political groups, and political activism
by the
Indians. The Nationalist Revolutionary Movement
(Movimiento
Nacionalista Revolucionario--MNR) emerged as Bolivia's
first
party of the masses.
Economic decline and social unrest during the
post-World War II
years came to a head in the form of the 1952 Revolution
led by
the MNR's Paz Estenssoro and Hernán Siles Zuazo (1956-60
and
1982-85). One of Latin America's three most significant
agrarian
revolutions of the century and the least violent of the
three, it
was aimed at the 6 percent of the landowners who fully
controlled
92 percent of all cultivated land in the republic. In
addition to
sweeping land reform measures, including an end to the
pongaj
system, it returned to the Indians most of the land on the
Altiplano taken from them in the past. The 1952 Revolution
also
resulted in civilian government, universal suffrage, and
primary
education in rural areas. It thus increased identification
by the
Indian peasants (campesinos) with the national society
rather
than simply their isolated village or hacienda. Moreover,
the
1952 Revolution destroyed the mining interests by
nationalizing
the tin mines and creating the Mining Corporation of
Bolivia
(Corporación Minera de Bolivia--Comibol) and Bolivian
Labor
Federation (Central Obrera Boliviana--COB). After the
first
years, however, the 1952 Revolution, dubbed by political
scientist James M. Malloy as the "uncompleted Revolution,"
lost
its momentum; land reform in the highlands soon stagnated,
and a
new elite emerged.
In 1964 the military, having been rebuilt by the MNR
government
with United States assistance, reverted to its old ways of
staging coups and remained in power for most of the next
eighteen
years. During that period, ten military dictators held
office,
and some relied heavily on the army to suppress labor
protests by
miners and peasants. In October 1967, the army defeated an
ill-
fated attempt by Cuba's Ernesto "Che" Guevara to start a
Cuban-
style revolution in the politically apathetic Bolivian
countryside. The news that the charismatic Cuban
revolutionary
hero, who had not been seen in public for two years, was
leading
an insurgency in Bolivia received worldwide publicity; his
capture and summary execution earned Bolivia the enmity of
the
international left (the military officer in charge of the
counterinsurgency operation was later assassinated in
Paris).
In 1979-80 the country enjoyed a brief respite from
military
rule under Lidia Gueiler Tejada, the country's first woman
president, whom the National Congress (hereafter,
Congress)
appointed for a one-year mandate. Siles Zuazo, leader of
the
Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the Left (Movimiento
Nacionalista Revolucionario de Izquierda--MNRI), who had
been
democratically elected in 1980, was supposed to succeed
Gueiler,
but General Luis García Meza Tejada (1980-81) staged a
bloody
military coup in July 1980.
García Meza seized power with the help of cocaine
traffickers
and European mercenaries recruited by Klaus Barbie,
longtime
resident and former Gestapo chief in Lyons. As García
Meza's
internal security adviser, Barbie gave his paramilitary
unit, The
Newlyweds of Death (Los Novios de la Muerte), free rein to
practice neo-Nazi tactics of arbitrary arrests, torture,
and
disappearances. The regime's brutal repression and deep
involvement in cocaine trafficking isolated the country
internationally and discredited and demoralized the
Bolivian
military, compelling it to oust García Meza and allow a
transition to democracy.
The optimism engendered by the return to civilian rule
under
Siles Zuazo soon turned to widespread discontent and
nationwide
strikes called by the COB because the virtually bankrupt
Siles
Zuazo government failed to salvage the foundering economy.
As the
government printed money to cover growing budget deficits,
inflation skyrocketed out of control, at one point
reaching an
accumulated rate of about 24,000 percent, Latin America's
first
recorded hyperinflation. For the most part, barter
replaced the
money economy. As a result of a 60 percent drop in the
price of
tin in late 1985, mining, which had dominated the Bolivian
economy since colonial times, decreased radically. The
Siles
Zuazo government also alienated the United States by
opening
close relations with Cuba and criticizing United States
policies
toward Latin America.
Having failed completely to stabilize the economy,
Siles Zuazo
cut short his term of office by one year so that
presidential and
congressional elections could be held in July 1985. Paz
Estenssoro's third presidency (1985-89) was notable not
only for
being completed without a military coup but also for his
successful, albeit economically harsh, efforts to bring
hyperinflation under control and to restore a measure of
economic
and political stability, as well as good relations with
the
United States. Acting on the advice of a Harvard professor
and
several Chilean economists, Paz Estenssoro quickly applied
orthodox free-market policies to cure Bolivia's sick
economy,
which was choking from decades of state intervention. He
implemented an austere stabilization program, the New
Economic
Policy (Nueva Política Económica--NPE), which slashed the
government's budget deficit, imposed a wage freeze and a
tenfold
increase in the price of gasoline, eliminated all price
subsidies, laid off thousands of workers at inefficient
state-
owned companies, including three-quarters of the miners
employed
by Comibol (about four-fifths of its work force),
liberalized
trade, allowed the peso to float against the United States
dollar, and loosened disclosure requirements for the
Central Bank
(Banco Central). He also enacted a state of siege to deal
with
the resulting labor unrest.
In a remarkable accomplishment, the government reduced
inflation
to nearly zero within weeks of the NPE. Other fiscal
achievements
included cutting the budget deficit from 36 percent of the
gross
domestic product
(GDP--see Glossary) to 4 percent,
retiring more
than US$600 million of the country's burdensome foreign
debt
through an innovative buy-back and debt-equity swap
program, and
modernizing the complex, ineffective tax system. Bolivia
enjoyed
exceptional price stability during the rest of the decade,
with
inflation running at an annual rate of only 6 percent in
late
1989.
The 1989 presidential elections, although characterized
by
widespread apathy, were peaceful, widely regarded as fair,
and
free of any threat of military intervention. As such, they
affirmed Bolivia's progression along the democratic path
and
growing political maturity. According to political
scientist
Eduardo A. Gamarra, the key political question in 1989 was
governability. In the first round in May, Jaime Paz
Zamora, the
social democratic candidate of Bolivia's center-left
Movement of
the Revolutionary Left (Movimiento de la Izquierda
Revolucionaria--MIR), placed third behind Hugo Banzer
Suárez
(1971-78), candidate of the right-of-center Nationalist
Democratic Action (Acción Democrática Nacionalista--ADN),
and the
MNR's Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Because no candidate
received a
majority in the May elections, it once again fell on
Congress to
choose the president from among the three principal
candidates.
Paz Zamora and his longtime political adversary,
Banzer, who had
once jailed Paz Zamora for six months, joined forces in an
unlikely alliance, called the Patriotic Accord, thereby
outmaneuvering front-runner Sánchez de Lozada of the MNR
in the
congressional lobbying. Congress subsequently chose Paz
Zamora to
be the country's seventy-sixth president. It also selected
Banzer's running mate, Christian Democrat Luis Ossio
Sanjinés, to
be vice president. Many Bolivians, remembering Paz
Zamora's
tumultuous record as vice president in 1983, initially
viewed
with anxiety and uncertainty the prospect of the one-time
revolutionary assuming the presidency. On receiving the
presidential sash and medal of 1825 from his uncle, Paz
Estenssoro, in August 1989, Paz Zamora vowed to maintain a
free-
market economy, develop agriculture and small and
medium-size
industries, and continue the NPE. Paz Estenssoro was
Bolivia's
first democratically elected head of state to complete his
term
of office in twenty-five years and to turn over power to
an
elected successor. Considering that Paz Zamora was
Bolivia's
third successive democratically elected president and that
almost
half of Bolivia's governments had been de facto military
regimes,
this democratic trend was no small accomplishment.
Despite its exaggerated image as one of Latin America's
most
unstable and violent countries, Bolivia appeared at the
end of
1989 to have decidedly put two of its traditional
maladies--coups
and inflation--behind it. Furthermore, Bolivia was
relatively
free of the rampant terrorism, insurgency, and criminal
violence
that afflicted the larger Andean nations of Colombia and
Peru.
With the main exception of the García Meza period, its
politics
in the twentieth century were not exceptionally violent.
Only
three presidents--Pedro Blanco Soto (1828-29), Augustín
Morales
Hernández (1871-72), and Gualberto Villarroel López
(1943-46)--
all of whom were military men who had seized power, were
assassinated while in office (the deranged Morales by his
own
nephew).
Among the formidable challenges confronting Bolivia's
new
democratic government in the 1990s was the
export-dependent
economy, which was stagnant and prone to crises. Despite
Paz
Estenssoro's considerable economic achievements,
agricultural
production was down, the unemployment rate was running at
about
22 percent, and the
terms of trade (see Glossary) had
declined by
almost 50 percent since 1985. Bolivia's growth prospects
were
constrained by its dependence on Argentine payments for a
large
share of its export revenues, poorly diversified exports,
low
domestic savings, and high levels of foreign debt. In
addition,
Argentina had run up more than US$250 million in arrears
for its
purchases of Bolivian natural gas, causing havoc in
Bolivia's
balance of payments and fiscal accounts. Nevertheless, the
economy grew by 2.2 percent in 1987 and 2.8 percent in
1988,
spurred by a resurgent mining sector, which accounted for
44
percent of the country's export income in 1988.
In mid-November 1989, Paz Zamora responded to his
country's
first crisis, a strike by the 80,000 state teachers who
were
supported by the COB, by the usual method of imposing a
state of
siege (which banned strikes, public meetings, and
demonstrations
for ninety-days), arresting more than 850 union members,
and
banishing some 150 of them to internal exile. The teachers
were
demanding a special wage bonus of US$100 to supplement
their
meager monthly wage of about US$45. He brought the
troublesome
strike to an end the following spring, however, by
offering them
a 17 percent pay increase and paying them an already
negotiated
annual bonus.
Growing national security, social, and economic threats
from
cocaine trafficking and addiction also confronted the Paz
Zamora
government. About one-third of the work force of 1.6
million in
1989 was engaged in an underground subsistence economy
based
mainly on coca cultivation and contraband and estimated to
be
larger than the formal economy. The coca/cocaine industry
posed a
dilemma for Bolivia, the world's second largest source of
cocaine, because of the trade-off between its economic
benefits
and its political, social, and cultural costs. On the one
hand,
exports of unrefined coca paste and cocaine generated an
annual
income of US$1.5 billion, of which some US$600 million
remained
within the country in 1989. The cocaine industry had
become
Bolivia's biggest employer, employing some 500,000 people
in the
production of coca and the transportation, sale, and
manufacture
of cocaine, according to Cochabamba's Institute of Social
and
Economic Studies. The majority of the dismissed Comibol
workers
entered the coca trade, many of them joining the Chapare
region's
approximately 200,000 workers and peasants involved in
cutting
and burning the rain forest and in growing coca bushes,
whose
leaves were processed into coca paste and cocaine.
On the other hand, the cocaine industry enabled cocaine
traffickers--nationals and foreigners alike--to threaten
the
national sovereignty and institutions with occasional acts
of
terrorism and increases in corruption at all levels of
public
institutions. Other by-products of the cocaine business
included
increased coca-paste addiction among Bolivia's
skyrocketing
numbers of abandoned children, decreased production of
relatively
unprofitable traditional food crops, and a widening income
disparity between the wealthy minority and the poor, who
constituted the overwhelming majority. Moreover, Bolivia,
known
for centuries for its minerals--first silver and then
tin--had
become synonymous with cocaine.
In the late 1980s, Bolivia's coca/cocaine industry
dominated
relations with the United States, the principal
cocaine-consuming
country. One of the most difficult challenges facing Paz
Zamora
was complying with a controversial coca eradication law in
order
to continue to qualify for United States economic aid.
Although
Bolivia was attempting, with United States support, to
implement
a program combining cocaine interdiction and coca
eradication and
substitution, its efforts were hampered by strong
resistance from
the increasingly militant and politically powerful peasant
unions
of coca growers, inadequate enforcement, constant
expansion of
coca fields, and corruption. Coca production actually
increased
by more than 20 percent in 1988, according to the United
States
Department of State.
Bolivia ruled out other more drastic eradication
methods, such
as repression of the coca farmers or herbicidal spraying
of coca
fields. A more effective approach than using coercive
methods
against the coca-growing small farmers, in the view of
social
scientist Kevin Healy, would be, in addition to reducing
world
demand for cocaine, to provide agricultural price supports
for
the otherwise unprofitable substitute crops, such as
bananas,
coffee, and cocoa.
December 1989
In March 1990, the United States Department of State
reported
that progress in antinarcotics operations in 1989 was
uneven and
that coca eradication in Bolivia again had failed to keep
pace
with new production. It found, however, that the situation
had
begun to improve during the last quarter of the year as a
result
of the Paz Zamora government's cooperation with the United
States
in preparing for the Andean Summit in mid-February 1990,
its
stepped up coca-eradication efforts, and its decision to
allow
the United States to extradite notorious cocaine
trafficker Luis
Arce Gómez.
During the first five months of 1990, moreover, the Paz
Zamora
government appeared to have stemmed the annual trend of
expanding
production. With coca production no longer profitable for
many
small farmers in the Chapare because of a drastic drop in
the
price of coca paste, the farmers reportedly had eradicated
more
than 3,200 hectares of the region's estimated 54,000
hectares of
coca plants, more than in all of 1989. Chapare coca
farmers were
beginning to substitute alternative crops, such as fruit
and
spices. Coca's precipitous, albeit temporary, fall from
bonanza-
to-bust status in Bolivia was attributed largely to a
combination
of Colombia's crackdown on major drug traffickers and the
Paz
Zamora government's vigorous enforcement of its policy to
destroy
coca-paste laboratories and crack down on wholesale buyers
of
coca paste.
Bolivia's move away from a cocaine-based economy was
expected to
have significant economic costs. The Paz Zamora government
estimated in early 1990 that US$627 million would be
needed for
crop substitution and rural development over the 1990-95
period.
Without substantial assistance, the prospects that coca
farmers
could earn a living by producing alternative crops without
a
guaranteed market were uncertain at best. During his
official
visit to Washington in May 1990, Paz Zamora appealed for a
major
increase in financial aid to help extract the Bolivian
economy
from the cocaine business. In addition to financing the
operations of Bolivia's antinarcotics police and the
Bolivian
operations of the United States Drug Enforcement
Administration
(DEA), the United States provided US$78 million in
development
aid and economic support in the 1990 fiscal year
(FY--see Glossary).
A small Peace Corps program was reestablished
in
Bolivia in March 1990.
Chapare coca farmers were not the only inhabitants of
the
eastern lowlands making their complaints known in 1990. In
September more than 700 Indians representing ten tribes in
Beni
Department staged a 643-kilometer "march for dignity and
territory" from Trinidad to La Paz. The Indians were
protesting
the destruction of the 560,000 hectares of the Chimane
Forest
that the government legally handed over to logging
companies in
1987. In addition to ruining the forest's flora and fauna,
the
Indians claimed that the loggers were threatening their
culture.
Critics faulted the logging companies for not reforesting,
as
required by Bolivian law. The government attempted to
strike a
balance between the interests of the Indians and loggers
by
offering to rezone the logging region, but not to revoke
all
timber rights.
Paz Zamora's continuation of his predecessor's
successful free-
market policies, as well as the new government's success
in
taming Bolivia's inflation, settling its foreign debts,
and
adopting pro-business and pro-foreign investment policies,
persuaded the Paris Club (see Glossary)
creditor countries
to
grant the country a special debt-rescheduling package in
March
1990. The government also hoped to increase GDP growth
from
1989's meager 2 percent to 5 percent per year. To that
end, it
planned, under a five-year program, to sell off 100 of its
157
state-owned companies and use the estimated US$500 million
in
revenues for health, education, and public works.
In addition to its privatization program, the Paz
Zamora
government began to encourage foreign investment. In 1989
it
opened a stock exchange in Bolivia and rewrote the
Investment Law
and Mining and Hydrocarbons codes to make them more
favorable to
foreign investment. Bolivia also joined with four other
South
American countries--Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and
Uruguay--in
a joint effort to call the attention of the world's
investors,
business people, and lending agencies to investment
opportunities
in the region. In the first quarter of 1990, a number of
foreign
companies expressed interest in joint-venture projects to
tap
Bolivia's vast mineral reserves, and several signed on to
such
undertakings. By September, however, Paz Zamora had had to
retreat from his neoliberal, economically orthodox program
under
pressure from COB unions that had staged strikes and
mobilized
popular support against privatization of "strategic" state
companies and foreign mining contracts.
November 1990
The question of "governability" under the Paz Zamora
government
that Gamarra raises in Chapter 4 was put to the test in
December
1990 when the country's fledgling democratic system
experienced
what the daily La Razó somewhat hyperbolically described
as its
"worst political crisis" in a struggle over separation of
powers.
Quintessentially Bolivian, the constitutional crisis arose
over
the seemingly minor matter of the state's overturning a 15
percent increase in the levy a company was expected to pay
on
beer sales. On the initiative of the Paz Zamora
administration's
parliamentary majority in the lower house, Congress
suspended
eight of the twelve members of the Supreme Court of
Justice on
grounds of incompetence. In response, the opposition MNR
charged
that the impeachment proceedings were a Kangaroo court and
intended to concentrate all three state powers in the
hands of
Paz Zamora and his political partners. Ironically, the
president
of the Supreme Court of Justice called on the military to
intervene. The spectacle, which Paz Zamora dismissed as "a
tempest in a teacup," tarnished the international image of
Bolivia's new democracy. On the positive side, however,
the
military's inaction seemed to reaffirm the democratic
system.
Indeed, the armed forces commander, General Jorge Moreira
Rojas,
appealed to government and opposition politicians to
remain calm
"for the good of the image of Bolivian democracy."
In one area at least, Bolivia's economy made a better
impression
of stability in 1990 with an annual inflation rate well
below 15
percent, the lowest in Latin America. In other areas,
however,
economic prospects were less encouraging. A study found
that
during the 1980s the informal sector of the economy
increased 10
percent, to 55 percent of all jobs, while unemployment
increased
drastically and real wages sharply. Growth of GDP in 1990
was
expected to be less than 2.5 percent. Moreover, some
observers
expected 1991 to be a year of conflict between the workers
and
the administration as a result of higher fuel prices and
the
government's intention to proceed with plans to privatize
most
state-run enterprises and to allow foreign companies to
develop
natural resources.
March 1991
Rex A. Hudson
Data as of December 1989
- Bolivia-The United States FOREIGN MILITARY ASSISTANCE IN THE 1980s
- Bolivia-Mission and Organization THE ARMED FORCES
- Bolivia-Natural Regions
- Bolivia-Mountains and Altiplano
- Bolivia-Attitudes Toward Antinarcotics Forces
- Bolivia-Altiplano, Yungas, and Valley Indians
- Bolivia-Rural Society SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
- Bolivia-RELIGION
- Bolivia-The Private Sector
- Bolivia-Revolutionary Nationalism: Ovando and Torres
- Bolivia-Informal Sector
- Bolivia-Radical Military Government PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION, 1935-52
- Bolivia-Lowlands
- Bolivia-Struggle for Independence INDEPENDENCE FROM SPAIN AND THE EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD, 1809-39
- Bolivia-The Rise of New Political Groups
- Bolivia-The Media
- Bolivia-Migration MIGRATION AND URBANIZATION
- Bolivia-Petroleum and Natural Gas
- Bolivia-General Procedures
- Bolivia-The Middle Class
- Bolivia-GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
- Bolivia-Regional Civic Committees
- Bolivia-Whites
- Bolivia-MINING
- Bolivia-Transition to Democracy
- Bolivia -COUNTRY PROFILE
- Bolivia-Electricity
- Bolivia-The "Sexenio," 1946-52
- Bolivia-Civic Action
- Bolivia-Formal Sector LABOR
- Bolivia-The Economy of Upper Peru
- Bolivia-Radical Reforms THE BOLIVIAN NATIONAL REVOLUTION, 1952-64
- Bolivia-The Banzer Regime
- Bolivia-State, Church, and Society
- Bolivia-HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY
- Bolivia-War of the Pacific FROM THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC TO THE CHACO WAR, 1879- 1935
- Bolivia-Chapter 1 - Historical Setting
- Bolivia-Mestizos and Cholos
- Bolivia-Reorganization of the Armed Forces, 1952-66
- Bolivia-Livestock
- Bolivia-The United States
- Bolivia-Other Foreign Military Ties
- Bolivia-Chapter 5 - National Security
- Bolivia-TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
- Bolivia-Fiscal Policy ECONOMIC POLICY
- Bolivia-The Military
- Bolivia-Coca
- Bolivia-Foreword
- Bolivia-Narcoterrorism
- Bolivia-Political Forces and Interest Groups
- Bolivia-Regional Police Structure
- Bolivia-Land Use
- Bolivia-Chapter 3 - The Economy
- Bolivia-Construction of Bolivia: Bolívar, Sucre, and Santa Cruz
- Bolivia-BOLIVIA
- Bolivia-The Peasantry
- Bolivia-SOCIETY
- Bolivia-Cash Crops
- Bolivia-Democracy and Economic Stabilization
- Bolivia-Military Justice
- Bolivia-Chapter 4 - Government and Politics
- Bolivia-Narcotics Corruption
- Bolivia-Early History EVOLUTION OF THE MILITARY ROLE IN SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT
- Bolivia-MANUFACTURING AND CONSTRUCTION
- Bolivia-Foreign Trade FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS
- Bolivia-The Presidency of Barrientos MILITARY RULE, 1964-82
- Bolivia-Revenues
- Bolivia-The Republican Party and the Great Depression
- Bolivia-POLITICAL INSTABILITY AND ECONOMIC DECLINE, 1839-79
- Bolivia-The 1989 Elections
- Bolivia-AGRICULTURE
- Bolivia-Crops
- Bolivia-Family and Kin
- Bolivia-The Counterinsurgency Decade
- Bolivia-NATIONAL SECURITY:
- Bolivia-The Unfinished Revolution
- Bolivia-Subversive Groups
- Bolivia-Land Reform and Land Policy
- Bolivia-Urbanization
- Bolivia-ETHNIC GROUPS
- Bolivia-Reconstruction and the Rule of the Conservatives
- Bolivia-POPULATION AND REGIONAL DISTRIBUTION
- Bolivia-Communications
- Bolivia-The Criminal Justice System CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- Bolivia-PRE-COLUMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS
- Bolivia-Conscription MANPOWER AND TRAINING
- Bolivia-CONSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND
- Bolivia-ECONOMY
- Bolivia-Special Police Forces
- Bolivia-EDUCATION
- Bolivia-Departmental and Local Government
- Bolivia-Farming Technology
- Bolivia-The Penal System
- Bolivia-Recruitment and Training
- Bolivia-The Third World
- Bolivia-Forestry and Fishing
- Bolivia-GEOGRAPHY
- Bolivia-Expenditures
- Bolivia-Acknowledgments
- Bolivia-Military Schools
- Bolivia-Organized Labor
- Bolivia-Air Force
- Bolivia-Foreign Assistance
- Bolivia-Preface
- Bolivia-Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies
- Bolivia-ENERGY
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-Civil Aeronautics
- Bolivia-Land Tenure
- Bolivia-Defense Budget
- Bolivia-Narcotics Trafficking THREATS TO INTERNAL SECURITY
- Bolivia-The Electoral System
- Bolivia-The Legislature
- Bolivia-Conquest and Settlement CONQUEST AND COLONIAL RULE, 1532-1809
- Bolivia-Incidence of Crime
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-The Legacy of the 1952 Revolution POLITICAL DYNAMICS
- Bolivia-Extradition
- Bolivia-The Judiciary
- Bolivia-Tin and Related Metals
- Bolivia-Transportation
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-Army
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-Structure of the Mining Industry
- Bolivia-Other Metals and Minerals
- Bolivia-Balance of Payments
- Bolivia-Banking and Financial Services SERVICES
- Bolivia-The Executive GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURE
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-The Soviet Union
- Bolivia-Military Intervention in Politics, 1970-85
- Bolivia-Bilateral and Legislative Antinarcotics Measures
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-Yungas and Other Valleys
- Bolivia-GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE ECONOMY
- Bolivia-Chapter 2 - The Society and Its Environment
- Bolivia-The Legacy of the Chaco War
- Bolivia-Neighboring Countries
- Bolivia-The Chaco War
- Bolivia-GEOGRAPHY
- Bolivia-Lowland Indians
- Bolivia-Urban Society
- Bolivia-Navy
- Bolivia-INTRODUCTION
- Bolivia-The Liberal Party and the Rise of Tin
- Bolivia-FOREIGN RELATIONS
- Bolivia
- Bolivia-Debt
- Bolivia-The Upper Class
- Bolivia-Climate
- Bolivia-Impact of Narcotics Trafficking
Background | | Bolivia, named after independence fighter Simon BOLIVAR, broke away from Spanish rule in 1825; much of its subsequent history has consisted of a series of nearly 200 coups and countercoups. Democratic civilian rule was established in 1982, but leaders have faced difficult problems of deep-seated poverty, social unrest, and illegal drug production. In December 2005, Bolivians elected Movement Toward Socialism leader Evo MORALES president - by the widest margin of any leader since the restoration of civilian rule in 1982 - after he ran on a promise to change the country's traditional political class and empower the nation's poor, indigenous majority. However, since taking office, his controversial strategies have exacerbated racial and economic tensions between the Amerindian populations of the Andean west and the non-indigenous communities of the eastern lowlands. In December 2009, President MORALES easily won reelection, and his party took control of the legislative branch of the government, which will allow him to continue his process of change.
|
Location | | Central South America, southwest of Brazil
|
Area(sq km) | | total: 1,098,581 sq km land: 1,083,301 sq km water: 15,280 sq km
|
Geographic coordinates | | 17 00 S, 65 00 W
|
Land boundaries(km) | | total: 6,940 km border countries: Argentina 832 km, Brazil 3,423 km, Chile 860 km, Paraguay 750 km, Peru 1,075 km
|
Coastline(km) | | 0 km (landlocked)
|
Climate | | varies with altitude; humid and tropical to cold and semiarid
|
Elevation extremes(m) | | lowest point: Rio Paraguay 90 m highest point: Nevado Sajama 6,542 m
|
Natural resources | | tin, natural gas, petroleum, zinc, tungsten, antimony, silver, iron, lead, gold, timber, hydropower
|
Land use(%) | | arable land: 2.78% permanent crops: 0.19% other: 97.03% (2005)
|
Irrigated land(sq km) | | 1,320 sq km (2003)
|
Total renewable water resources(cu km) | | 622.5 cu km (2000)
|
Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural) | | total: 1.44 cu km/yr (13%/7%/81%) per capita: 157 cu m/yr (2000)
|
Natural hazards | | flooding in the northeast (March-April)
|
Environment - current issues | | the clearing of land for agricultural purposes and the international demand for tropical timber are contributing to deforestation; soil erosion from overgrazing and poor cultivation methods (including slash-and-burn agriculture); desertification; loss of biodiversity; industrial pollution of water supplies used for drinking and irrigation
|
Environment - international agreements | | party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification, Marine Life Conservation
|
Geography - note | | landlocked; shares control of Lago Titicaca, world's highest navigable lake (elevation 3,805 m), with Peru
|
Population | | 9,775,246 (July 2009 est.)
|
Age structure(%) | | 0-14 years: 35.5% (male 1,767,310/female 1,701,744) 15-64 years: 60% (male 2,877,605/female 2,992,043) 65 years and over: 4.5% (male 193,196/female 243,348) (2009 est.)
|
Median age(years) | | total: 21.9 years male: 21.3 years female: 22.6 years (2009 est.)
|
Population growth rate(%) | | 1.772% (2009 est.)
|
Birth rate(births/1,000 population) | | 25.82 births/1,000 population (2009 est.)
|
Death rate(deaths/1,000 population) | | 7.05 deaths/1,000 population (July 2009 est.)
|
Net migration rate(migrant(s)/1,000 population) | | -1.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
|
Urbanization(%) | | urban population: 66% of total population (2008) rate of urbanization: 2.5% annual rate of change (2005-10 est.)
|
Sex ratio(male(s)/female) | | at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female 15-64 years: 0.96 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.79 male(s)/female total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2009 est.)
|
Infant mortality rate(deaths/1,000 live births) | | total: 44.66 deaths/1,000 live births male: 48.56 deaths/1,000 live births female: 40.57 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.)
|
Life expectancy at birth(years) | | total population: 66.89 years male: 64.2 years female: 69.72 years (2009 est.)
|
Total fertility rate(children born/woman) | | 3.17 children born/woman (2009 est.)
|
Nationality | | noun: Bolivian(s) adjective: Bolivian
|
Ethnic groups(%) | | Quechua 30%, mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian ancestry) 30%, Aymara 25%, white 15%
|
Religions(%) | | Roman Catholic 95%, Protestant (Evangelical Methodist) 5%
|
Languages(%) | | Spanish 60.7% (official), Quechua 21.2% (official), Aymara 14.6% (official), foreign languages 2.4%, other 1.2% (2001 census)
|
Country name | | conventional long form: Plurinational State of Bolivia conventional short form: Bolivia local long form: Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia local short form: Bolivia
|
Government type | | republic; note - the new constitution defines Bolivia as a "Social Unitarian State"
|
Capital | | name: La Paz (administrative capital) geographic coordinates: 16 30 S, 68 09 W time difference: UTC-4 (1 hour ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time) note: Sucre (constitutional capital)
|
Administrative divisions | | 9 departments (departamentos, singular - departamento); Beni, Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, La Paz, Oruro, Pando, Potosi, Santa Cruz, Tarija
|
Constitution | | 7-Feb-09
|
Legal system | | based on Spanish law and Napoleonic Code; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction; the 2009 Constitution incorporates indigenous community justice into Bolivia's judicial system
|
Suffrage | | 18 years of age, universal and compulsory (married); 21 years of age, universal and compulsory (single)
|
Executive branch | | chief of state: President Juan Evo MORALES Ayma (since 22 January 2006); Vice President Alvaro GARCIA Linera (since 22 January 2006); note - the president is both chief of state and head of government head of government: President Juan Evo MORALES Ayma (since 22 January 2006); Vice President Alvaro GARCIA Linera (since 22 January 2006) cabinet: Cabinet appointed by the president elections: president and vice president elected on the same ticket by popular vote for a single five-year term; election last held 6 December 2009 (next to be held in 2014); note - per the new constitution, presidents can serve for a total of two consecutive terms election results: Juan Evo MORALES Ayma elected president; percent of vote - Juan Evo MORALES Ayma 64%; Manfred REYES VILLA 26%; Samuel DORIA MEDINA Arana 6%; Rene JOAQUINO 2%; other 2%
|
Legislative branch | | bicameral Plurinational Legislative Assembly or Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional consists of Chamber of Senators or Camara de Senadores (36 seats; members are elected by proportional representation from party lists to serve five-year terms) and Chamber of Deputies or Camara de Diputados (130 seats; 76 members are directly elected from their districts [7 or 8 of these are chosen from indigenous districts] and 54 are elected by proportional representation from party lists to serve five-year terms). elections: Chamber of Senators and Chamber of Deputies - last held 6 December 2009 (next to be held in 2015) election results: Chamber of Senators - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - MAS 26, PPB-CN 10; Chamber of Deputies - percent of vote by party - NA; seats by party - MAS 89, PPB-CN 36, UN 3, AS 2
|
Judicial branch | | Supreme Court or Corte Suprema (judges elected by popular vote from list of candidates pre-selected by Assembly for six-year terms); District Courts (one in each department); Plurinational Constitutional Court (five primary or titulares and five alternate or suplente magistrates elected by popular vote from list of candidates pre-selected by Assembly for six-year terms; to rule on constitutional issues); Plurinational Electoral Organ (seven members elected by the Assembly and the president; one member must be of indigenous origin to six-year terms); Agro-Environmental Court (judges elected by popular vote from list of candidates pre-selected by Assembly for six-year terms; to run on agro-environmental issues); provincial and local courts (to try minor cases)
|
Political pressure groups and leaders | | Bolivian Workers Central or COR; Federation of Neighborhood Councils of El Alto or FEJUVE; Landless Movement or MST; National Coordinator for Change or CONALCAM; Sole Confederation of Campesino Workers of Bolivia or CSUTCB other: Cocalero groups; indigenous organizations (including Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia or CIDOB and National Council of Ayullus and Markas of Quollasuyu or CONAMAQ); labor unions (including the Central Bolivian Workers' Union or COB and Cooperative Miners Federation or FENCOMIN)
|
International organization participation | | CAN, FAO, G-77, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICCt, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO (correspondent), ITSO, ITU, LAES, LAIA, Mercosur (associate), MIGA, MINUSTAH, MONUC, NAM, OAS, OPANAL, OPCW, PCA, RG, UN, UNASUR, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNFICYP, UNIDO, Union Latina, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNOCI, UNWTO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO
|
Flag description | | three equal horizontal bands of red (top), yellow, and green with the coat of arms centered on the yellow band note: similar to the flag of Ghana, which has a large black five-pointed star centered in the yellow band; in 2009, a presidential decree made it mandatory for a so-called wiphala - a square, multi-colored flag representing the country's indigenous peoples - to be used alongside the traditional flag
|
Economy - overview | | Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in Latin America. Following a disastrous economic crisis during the early 1980s, reforms spurred private investment, stimulated economic growth, and cut poverty rates in the 1990s. The period 2003-05 was characterized by political instability, racial tensions, and violent protests against plans - subsequently abandoned - to export Bolivia's newly discovered natural gas reserves to large northern hemisphere markets. In 2005, the government passed a controversial hydrocarbons law that imposed significantly higher royalties and required foreign firms then operating under risk-sharing contracts to surrender all production to the state energy company. In early 2008, higher earnings for mining and hydrocarbons exports pushed the current account surplus to 9.4% of GDP and the government's higher tax take produced a fiscal surplus after years of large deficits. Private investment as a share of GDP, however, remains among the lowest in Latin America, and inflation remained at double-digit levels in 2008. The decline in commodity prices in late 2008, the lack of foreign investment in the mining and hydrocarbon sectors, and the suspension of trade benefits with the United States will pose challenges for the Bolivian economy in 2009.
|
GDP (purchasing power parity) | | $43.38 billion (2008 est.) $40.88 billion (2007 est.) $39.08 billion (2006 est.) note: data are in 2008 US dollars
|
GDP (official exchange rate) | | $16.6 billion (2008 est.)
|
GDP - real growth rate(%) | | 6.1% (2008 est.) 4.6% (2007 est.) 4.8% (2006 est.)
|
GDP - per capita (PPP) | | $4,500 (2008 est.) $4,300 (2007 est.) $4,200 (2006 est.) note: data are in 2008 US dollars
|
GDP - composition by sector(%) | | agriculture: 11.3% industry: 36.9% services: 51.8% (2008 est.)
|
Labor force | | 4.454 million (2008 est.)
|
Labor force - by occupation(%) | | agriculture: 40% industry: 17% services: 43% (2006 est.)
|
Unemployment rate(%) | | 7.5% (2008 est.) 7.5% (2007 est.) note: data are for urban areas; widespread underemployment
|
Population below poverty line(%) | | 60% (2006 est.)
|
Household income or consumption by percentage share(%) | | lowest 10%: 0.5% highest 10%: 44.1% (2005)
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Distribution of family income - Gini index | | 59.2 (2006) 44.7 (1999)
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Investment (gross fixed)(% of GDP) | | 18% of GDP (2008 est.)
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Budget | | revenues: $8.039 billion expenditures: $7.5 billion (2008 est.)
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Inflation rate (consumer prices)(%) | | 14% (2008 est.) 8.7% (2007 est.)
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Stock of money | | $3.998 billion (31 December 2008) $3.032 billion (31 December 2007)
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Stock of quasi money | | $6.339 billion (31 December 2008) $4.729 billion (31 December 2007)
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Stock of domestic credit | | $5.433 billion (31 December 2008) $4.759 billion (31 December 2007)
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Market value of publicly traded shares | | $NA (31 December 2008) $2.263 billion (31 December 2007) $2.223 billion (31 December 2006)
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Economic aid - recipient | | $582.9 million (2005 est.)
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Public debt(% of GDP) | | 45.2% of GDP (2008 est.) 46.3% of GDP (2007 est.)
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Agriculture - products | | soybeans, coffee, coca, cotton, corn, sugarcane, rice, potatoes; timber
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Industries | | mining, smelting, petroleum, food and beverages, tobacco, handicrafts, clothing
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Industrial production growth rate(%) | | 10.6% (2008 est.)
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Current account balance | | $2.015 billion (2008 est.) $1.984 billion (2007 est.)
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Exports | | $6.448 billion (2008 est.) $4.49 billion (2007 est.)
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Exports - commodities(%) | | natural gas, soybeans and soy products, crude petroleum, zinc ore, tin
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Exports - partners(%) | | Brazil 60.1%, US 8.3%, Japan 4.1% (2008)
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Imports | | $4.641 billion (2008 est.) $3.24 billion (2007 est.)
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Imports - commodities(%) | | petroleum products, plastics, paper, aircraft and aircraft parts, prepared foods, automobiles, insecticides, soybeans
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Imports - partners(%) | | Brazil 26.7%, Argentina 16.3%, US 10.5%, Chile 9.5%, Peru 7.1%, China 4.8% (2008)
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Reserves of foreign exchange and gold | | $7.722 billion (31 December 2008 est.) $5.318 billion (31 December 2007 est.)
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Debt - external | | $5.931 billion (31 December 2008) $5.385 billion (31 December 2007)
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Stock of direct foreign investment - at home | | $5.998 billion (31 December 2008)
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Stock of direct foreign investment - abroad | | $NA
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Exchange rates | | bolivianos (BOB) per US dollar - 7.253 (2008 est.), 7.8616 (2007), 8.0159 (2006), 8.0661 (2005), 7.9363 (2004)
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Currency (code) | | boliviano (BOB)
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Telephones - main lines in use | | 690,000 (2008)
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Telephones - mobile cellular | | 4.83 million (2008)
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Telephone system | | general assessment: privatization begun in 1995; reliability has steadily improved; new subscribers face bureaucratic difficulties; most telephones are concentrated in La Paz and other cities; mobile-cellular telephone use expanding rapidly; fixed-line teledensity of 7 per 100 persons; mobile-cellular telephone density slighly exceeds 50 per 100 persons domestic: primary trunk system, which is being expanded, employs digital microwave radio relay; some areas are served by fiber-optic cable; mobile cellular systems are being expanded international: country code - 591; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2008)
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Internet country code | | .bo
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Internet users | | 1 million (2008)
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Airports | | 952 (2009)
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Pipelines(km) | | gas 4,883 km; liquid petroleum gas 47 km; oil 2,475 km; refined products 1,589 km (2008)
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Roadways(km) | | total: 62,479 km paved: 3,749 km unpaved: 58,730 km (2004)
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Ports and terminals | | Puerto Aguirre (inland port on the Paraguay/Parana waterway at the Bolivia/Brazil border); Bolivia has free port privileges in maritime ports in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay
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Military branches | | Bolivian Armed Forces: Bolivian Army (Ejercito Boliviano, EB), Bolivian Navy (Fuerza Naval Boliviana, FNB; includes marines), Bolivian Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Boliviana, FAB) (2009)
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Military service age and obligation(years of age) | | 18-49 years of age for 12-month compulsory military service; when annual number of volunteers falls short of goal, compulsory recruitment is effected, including conscription of boys as young as 14; 15-19 years of age for voluntary premilitary service, provides exemption from further military service (2009)
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Manpower available for military service | | males age 16-49: 2,295,746 females age 16-49: 2,366,828 (2008 est.)
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Manpower fit for military service | | males age 16-49: 1,666,697 females age 16-49: 1,906,396 (2009 est.)
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Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually | | male: 108,304 female: 104,882 (2009 est.)
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Military expenditures(% of GDP) | | 1.9% of GDP (2006)
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Disputes - international | | Chile and Peru rebuff Bolivia's reactivated claim to restore the Atacama corridor, ceded to Chile in 1884, but Chile offers instead unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access through Chile for Bolivian natural gas and other commodities; an accord placed the long-disputed Isla Suarez/Ilha de Guajara-Mirim, a fluvial island on the Rio Mamore, under Bolivian administration in 1958, but sovereignty remains in dispute
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Electricity - production(kWh) | | 5.495 billion kWh (2007 est.)
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Electricity - production by source(%) | | fossil fuel: 44.4% hydro: 54% nuclear: 0% other: 1.5% (2001)
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Electricity - consumption(kWh) | | 4.665 billion kWh (2007 est.)
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Electricity - exports(kWh) | | 0 kWh (2008 est.)
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Electricity - imports(kWh) | | 0 kWh (2008 est.)
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Oil - production(bbl/day) | | 51,360 bbl/day (2008 est.)
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Oil - consumption(bbl/day) | | 60,000 bbl/day (2008 est.)
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Oil - exports(bbl/day) | | 10,950 bbl/day (2007 est.)
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Oil - imports(bbl/day) | | 6,172 bbl/day (2007 est.)
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Oil - proved reserves(bbl) | | 465 million bbl (1 January 2009 est.)
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Natural gas - production(cu m) | | 14.2 billion cu m (2008 est.)
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Natural gas - consumption(cu m) | | 2.41 billion cu m (2008 est.)
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Natural gas - exports(cu m) | | 11.79 billion cu m (2008)
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Natural gas - proved reserves(cu m) | | 750.4 billion cu m (1 January 2009 est.)
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HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate(%) | | 0.2% (2007 est.)
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HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS | | 8,100 (2007 est.)
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HIV/AIDS - deaths | | fewer than 500 (2007 est.)
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Major infectious diseases | | degree of risk: high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: dengue fever, malaria, and yellow fever water contact disease: leptospirosis (2009)
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Literacy(%) | | definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 86.7% male: 93.1% female: 80.7% (2001 census)
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Education expenditures(% of GDP) | | 6.4% of GDP (2003)
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