Bolivia Gallops Away Under the Soft Grip of Its President

The man who rules Bolivia has a gentle soul.

Before he became president, Carlos Mesa wrote a dozen books, and some here say he still has the temperament of a historian.

Last month, as protesters took to the streets over his decision to raise fuel prices, Mesa said he would not use force to restore order. In a televised address, the president solemnly declared he did not want blood on his hands.

Mesa begged the demonstrators to stop. They did not. And in the days and weeks since, he has given in to many of their demands.

“The president goes in the direction of whoever is protesting,” political analyst Carlos Valverde Bravo said. “He makes agreements and promises according to the size of the protest. If it’s a big protest, he’ll give in a lot; if it’s a small one, a little less.”

A former vice president who was brought to power by an Indian-led revolution in October 2003, Mesa is fast earning a reputation for retreating in the face of barricades and raised fists.

In recent weeks, the Indian-dominated leadership in Bolivia’s western Altiplano and the eastern elite in the oil-rich city of Santa Cruz have both used pressure tactics -- regionwide “civic strikes” and road blockades -- to wrench concessions from Mesa.

The government agreed to terminate the contract of a French-owned water utility in the Indian city of El Alto, a suburb of La Paz, the administrative capital, that has become a hotbed of Indian militancy and nationalism. Residents said the company had failed in its promise to provide water to the entire community.

In response to pressure from leaders in Santa Cruz, Mesa rolled back part of the price increase on diesel fuel.

“Mesa isn’t governing,” said Jorge Lazarte, a La Paz political scientist. “He’s being governed.”

Conflict isn’t new to Bolivia, one of Latin America’s most fractured societies. In his 1983 book, “Presidents of Bolivia: Between Rifles and Ballot Boxes,” Mesa wrote how more than one Bolivian leader had struggled to keep the country from falling apart at the seams.

Now it may really be coming apart. Last week, Mesa quietly acquiesced as thousands of people rallied in Santa Cruz at a cabilo abierto, or “open council,” that declared their eastern region “autonomous,” in violation of Bolivia’s constitution.

In La Paz, the publisher of the newspaper La Razon called the Santa Cruz declaration “an act of sedition.” Among other things, the Santa Cruz leaders demanded the right to name the prefect of the regional government. The prefects, de facto governors, are appointed by the president.

After three weeks of protests, Mesa once again gave in to the demands. On Jan. 29, the president signed a decree scheduling a June election in which Bolivia’s nine departmental prefects will be chosen by local vote.

“The prefects are the president’s representatives in the [regional] departments,” analyst Valverde Bravo said. “Now he’s agreed to appoint whoever wins these elections. Sadly, he’s shown that with pressure, you can get him to do anything.”

Mesa has proved to be such a pliable leader in part because of the circumstances under which he came to power, observers say. Dozens of people were killed in the protests that forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada from office.

“This government was born from the trauma of October,” said Lazarte, the political scientist. “Mesa wants to be a different kind of leader, so as not to suffer the same fate as Sanchez de Lozada.”

Mesa referred to those violent events in the Jan. 9 speech in which he renounced the use of force to restore order, saying, “I am not going to act like my predecessor.” If push came to shove, and there were no other option but to call tanks onto the street, Mesa said, “I will not remain in this palace of government.”

The perceived weakness in that speech has set off more protest movements in the weeks since, and the country’s geographic and ethnic divisions have sharpened.

Leftist peasant leader Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian who finished second in the 2002 presidential election, denounced Mesa’s concessions to Santa Cruz leaders. Morales said the president had given in to that city’s European-descended “oligarchy.” In western Bolivia, some Indian leaders rallied to the president’s defense.

At the same time, other regional leaders have begun to press their own demands.

For many observers, Bolivia has come to resemble a family in which the siblings argue and trash the house while their ineffectual father sits back and watches, unable to muster the courage or the determination to step in and restore order.

“This government will continue to be weak,” said Marcelo Varnoux, dean of the political and social science department at Nuestra Senora University in La Paz. “It might get even weaker, because Mesa is being pulled from two directions, east and west.”

Special correspondent Oscar Ordonez contributed to this report.