40 CultureShock! Bolivia
but led to even deeper impoverishment of the already poor
indigenous growers, many of them being former miners
who had drifted into coca growing only after having been
laid off from the mines in the 1980s and with no other
job alternative.
Social problems in the US sustained a voracious appetite
for the forbidden powder at the consumer end, so that
eradication at the production end proved useless. Coca
growing simply shifted to Colombia.
Thus, at the turn of the 20th century, the political void
for Bolivia’s indigenous majority was accompanied by the
potent pair of economic disenfranchisers: the crushing of
coca planting and more signifi cant, the massive crippling of
state revenue through the privatisation process.
Through inheriting the policies of Sánchez de Lozada
(Goni), President Bánzer was not in a position to lay the
blame on Goni, for his ADN had never opposed orthodox
‘free’ market sacking of the country. Bánzer had dressed
himself in a neoliberal straightjacket.
Bolivia’s precarious pigmentocracy was presided over
mainly by white men who responded to the impositions of
other white men from fi nancial institutions like the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Though government subsidies play a great role in boosting
US and European industries, Bolivian business was expected
to compete with zero government incentives.
The indigenous majority was left with no voice over the
use of their own natural resources, and the power vacuum
was confounded when IMF and World Bank loans became
contingent on further privatisations, including the essence
of life itself: water.
The stage was set for the dramatic events between 2000
and 2005.2000: El Mallku and Road Blockades
Insurrectional road blockades led by a new indigenous
leader, Felipe Quispe (El Mallku), paralysed the country twice
during the year. El Mallku is the Secretary General of the
CSUTCB (Confederation of Agricultural Workers of Boliva).