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To cite this article: Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (1990) Liberal democracy and
ayllu democracy in Bolivia: The case of Northern Potosí, The Journal of
Development Studies, 26:4, 97-121, DOI: 10.1080/00220389008422175
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Liberal Democracy and Ayllu Democracy in Bolivia:
The Case of Northern Potosí
* Andean Oral History Workshop (La Paz, Bolivia). Translation by Charles Roberts.
98 THE CHALLENGE OF RURAL DEMOCRATISATION
Bolivia. The colonial cycle, which began in 1532, left a legacy of ethnic
domination which continues to the present. The liberal cycle began with
the reforms of the late nineteenth century, which set forth the notion
of citizens as 'free and equal individuals' without communal links or
solidarity. It was this concept of citizenship which, at least in theory, was
to be the basis upon which the institutions of liberal representative
democracy were to be built. Finally, the most recent cycle began with the
1952 nationalist revolution. I call this the populist cycle, in view of the
large-scale incorporation of the hitherto excluded masses of workers and
indigenous peasants into the political arena, through universal suffrage
and parastatal unionism.
The article focuses on northern Potosí, one of the most traditional areas
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models on the ayllus have actually hindered the emergence and consoli-
dation of democratic practices and institutions in Bolivian society, repro-
ducing authoritarian and/or paternalistic relations rooted in the colonial
and oligarchic past.
combined the direct democracy particular to the ayllus with the repre-
sentative democracy of the union, thus forming powerful federations
capable of acting in unity while respecting a certain organisational and
cultural diversity.
In northern Potosí, in contrast, historical barriers impeded the process
of union démocratisation that began elsewhere with the katarista move-
ment. By the late 1970s, when the katarista movement began to have an
impact in northern Potosí, there already existed considerable opposition
to state intervention in rural unions and to the military-peasant pact more
generally.12 Together with other factors, including a shared experience of
repression under the Banzer dictatorship, this opposition led to a cautious
rapprochement between miners and peasants, on the basis of a shared
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This section explores how unions, NGOs, and political parties interact in a
clientelist system which actively undermines Bolivia's 'other democracy'
in the name of progressive politics.
The ideology of trade unionism and development promotion is based
on a radical lack of familiarity with the complex internal structure of the
ayllu and its workings. Development institutions distinguish only two
levels: the ayllu (corresponding to the maximal ayllu, or the major ayllu,
in Plait's classification), and the 'community' (corresponding to the
principal or subordinate hamlet). To the extent that the intermediate
levels (minor ayllus) are not recognised, and the cabildos are confused
with their subordinate ranchos, their promotion work profoundly distorts
the organisation of land tenure at the various levels, as it fails to recognise
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The ayllus view the NGOs as sources of resources parallel to the state to
which partial concessions must be made, such as accepting instructions to
vote for one or another candidate in union, municipal, or national
elections. There is a great deal of evidence confirming the politically
contingent nature of NGO services and resources. The 'electoral geo-
graphy' of the 1985 national elections and the 1987 municipal elections
points to the decisive influence of NGOs on the left parties' electoral
results. Far from the sovereign exercise of individual free will, there-
fore, voting is the product of clientelist transactions in which access to
resources, whether of the state or the NGOs, depends on pacts entered
into with the communities, and in which the communities vote collectively
in the expectation of obtaining the best possible negotiating terms with the
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defensive mobilisation of the ayllus against the NGOs took the apoca-
lyptic form of mythical revival. The circumstances that sparked this
movement have passed, and the agitation has subsided. Nonetheless, the
latent problem of incompatibility between the NGO and union model, on
the one hand, and the psychic and organisational universe of the ayllus, on
the other, persists. The cultural gap that has existed for centuries does not
appear to have found a harmonious and viable solution in this new phase
of modernisation. On the contrary, each modernising step appears to
generate defence mechanisms in the communards, at the deepest sub-
stratum of the collective memory, where the oldest wounds still bleed,
where the memory of the invader who altered the invaded society is still
painful. This memory is set off by the continued destructuring work of the
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NOTES
1. We think of the one million victims of the Mexican revolution, the approximately
250,000 killed during la Violencia in Colombia, and the untold massacres and popular
revolts of contemporary Bolivian history, to cite only a few examples.
2. Platt proposes the idea of a 'reciprocity pact' between ayllus and the state, to interpret
the communards' defence of the old tributary regime and their opposition to the Law of
Expropriation [1982: 100]. We radically disagree with that interpretation, because it
suggests a continuity between the Inca state and the colonial state, failing to recognise
the profoundly traumatic and destructuring impact of the European invasion, and
minimising the impact of colonialism. The notion of an 'understood truce', on the other
hand, is more in line with the communard perception of an as yet inconclusive battle
between colonised and colonisers, with partial and temporary agreements - among
them the payment of tributes - as a means of defending a status quo of territorial
occupation by part of Andean society [Rivera and THOA team, 1989: 15; Lehm, nd.].
3. According to a rural survey done in 1978, the results of which were presented and
analysed by Tristan Platt, only 25 per cent of the families surveyed in 18 cantones of
118 THE CHALLENGE OF RURAL DEMOCRATISATION
northern Potosí had direct access to puna and valley lands, but many other families had
access to the valley's products through ties of kinship, reciprocity, barter, and other
means [1986: 49-76].
4. This movement, which took place between 1957 and 1959, is studied in detail by Harris
and Albó [1986: 73-90].
5. Runa and jaqi are the terms for 'people' in Qhichwa and Aymara, respectively.
6. This was particularly evident from 1962 to 1964, when, in the context of a traditional
ritual fight or tinku (Qhichwa for 'encounter' or 'meeting'), violent confrontations
between two ayllus worsened. With the support of pseudo-peasant leaders, the
government used the tinku as a pretext for a military intervention aimed at tightening
the circle around the 'communist' mines in the region. This situation endured until the
late 1970s [Harris and Albó. 1986: 90-99].
7. It is essential to bear in mind that apparently universal and neutral concepts such as 'free
will' and 'citizenship' are deeply tied to a specific cultural historical configuration of
ideas and beliefs, in this case liberalism, and are therefore neither universal nor neutral.
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8. Oscar Céspedes, a resident of Toracarí and former policeman of the mining locale
of Uncía, was 'elected' executive secretary of the National Federation of Peasant
Workers, and kept that post throughout the Banzer period [Harris and Albo, 1986: 95-
9].
9. This Weberian conceptualisation of the Bolivian state system was suggested to me in a
recent work by Malloy and Gamarra which describes the form of domination estab-
lished during the Banzer government as 'neopatrimonialist' [1988: Ch. 3]. In addition
to removing the prefix, I believe that the patrimonialist nature of the state, in its caste-
like or estamental form [Weber, 1964: 11-773], is precisely one of the manifestations of
colonial continuity in the contemporary political system, and that it has been reinforced
by the 1952 revolution.
10. The CSUTCB's mobilising capacity was revealed in its successful opposition to a 1979
coup attempt, which was followed by a mass mobilisation seeking more favourable crop
prices. The road blocks of November-December 1979 were one of the most impressive
mobilisations in recent history. Tens of thousands of indigenous peasants mobilised
nationwide, cutting off supply channels to the cities and establishing an iron 'fence'
around the urban areas. No doubt the logic of siege was also present in this mobilisa-
tion, both in the tactics of the indigenous peasantry and in the collective perception of
the urban creole sectors, who viewed it as a revived version of 'racist' practices (that is,
aimed at eliminating the ' whites' from the scene) of indigenous leaders of the past, from
Tupak Katari in the eighteenth century to Zárate Willka in 1899, including the rural
militia of the 1950s [Rivera Cusicanqui, 1984: 157-60; Hurtado, 1986: 159-86; Albó,
1987: 379].
11. This explains the kataristas' emphasis on the liberation of colonially oppressed nations,
based on multiple forms of indigenous self-rule operating in the countryside, which
were to be 'combined' without dissolving the unity of the state, but radically trans-
forming its centralist and colonial character [CSUTCB, 1983].
12. The ayllus' continued rejection of the liberal tax reforms attempted since the early
1960s revealed clear limits to trade union manipulation: the ayllus were willing to make
certain concessions to the new forms of social and political control in the countryside as
long as these did not imply a radical change in their forms of collective landholding,
which were guaranteed by the continuation of the symbolic payment of the ancient
tribute. Today this yearly tribute is equivalent to the value of approximately 12.5
pounds (half an arroba) of potatoes, at urban prices.
13. Florencio Gabriel was a former miner of rural origins who was politicised in the
increasingly radicalised miners' movement. As was the case with the leadership of the
1957-59 valley mobilisations, Gabriel's ties with the mines led him to adopt radical
language and methods of struggle. He did not, however, attempt to articulate the union
structure with the forms of authority and representation particular to the ayllus.
Disdain for the ethnic authorities, however, did not prevent Gabriel from succeeding in
mobilising the population. His personal charisma and ability to communicate with the
communards sparked massive indigenous participation, together with the miners, in
the mobilisations of 1979 and 1980.
LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND AYLLU DEMOCRACY: BOLIVIA 119
14. The base of data for analysing this congress is found in various tapes in the author's
personal files, as well as her participatory observations throughout the event The tapes
have been translated by the author in collaboration with Filomena Nina and Franklin
Maquera of the Andean Oral History Workshop.
15. In the 1978 elections the MRTK supported the UDP, but was treated in a discrimina-
tory and offensive manner in the negotiations to determine parliamentary slates. Since
then tensions have heightened, especially with the MIR [Rivera Cusicanqui, 1984:151—
2; Hurtado, 1986:125-30].
16. The governing UDP parties controlled all routes of access to these structures of
traditional clientelist mediation, through the lower-ranking political authorities, the
local administrative posts, and even the miners' unions and rural teachers. Even the
MIR, which at that time was splitting from the UDP, had its own clientelist networks in
the countryside, through non-govemmental organisations operating throughout the
country. In the town of Ocuri (province of Chayanta) the MIR directed a powerful
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institution, the Tomás Katari Polytechnical Institute (IPTK), which since 1976 had
been offering educational and health services to the region's rural residents, with the
clear intent of recruiting more rural militants.
17. The electoral outcome of the Congress was also defined beforehand: two union
candidates had been proposed, and the distribution of provincial representatives was
determined by the desired electoral outcome. Thus, of the 490 delegates to the
Congress, 204 represented the province of Bustillos, site of the region's main mining
centres and a stronghold of the UDP cantonal and provincial authorities. These
delegates would invariably vote for the MNRI candidate as a counterweight to the
delegates from Chayanta province, who had been massively instructed by the MIR to
attempt to impose their candidate. In this context, the MRTK intervened as part of the
stronger electoral 'machine' and, drawing support from the MNRI and the PCB,
committed itself to supporting the candidate backed by these parties, in exchange for
having one of its militants receive the second-ranking union post.
18. When a delegate from the grassroots raised the need for bilingual education in their
native language in the school system, he was harshly criticised. A former deputy prefect
of Chayanta, who was a member of the presidium, responded: 'For how much longer
will you refuse to become civilised? How long will you continue to dress in ojotas and
lluch'us, continuing with your customs, like animals? You must join civilisation, and
that is why Spanish must be taught in the schools.'
An ojota is a leather sandal that is part of the traditional peasant attire in the Andean
zone; a lluch'u is a multicolor woven cap, the design of which is distinct in each ayUu in
northern Potosí.
19. During the serious drought that affected vast stretches of Bolivia in the 1982-83
agricultural season, the impact of development organisations such as IPTK of Ocuri,
Pío XII of Siglo XX, and Acción Cultural Loyola (ACLO) of Potosí and Chuquiasca
grew enormously. A partial list of the institutions that operate in the province of
Bustillos alone indicates that in addition to Pío XII and the IPTK, beginning with the
1983 drought the following projects began to work in the region: European Economic
Community, Ayni Ruway, USAID, CARITAS, Fundación contra el Hambre, World
Vision, and Plan de Padrinos, in addition to the aid programmes managed by various
evangelical churches. Of all of them, the IPTK and Pío XII are unquestionably the most
important, both because of the amount of funds they administer and the spatial and
demographic coverage of their activities. They are also the mainstays of the union
organisational model in the region.
From May to October 1986, the Andean Oral History Workshop evaluated the
Peasant Agricultural Recovery Programme (PRACA), which was being carried out by
the religious institution Pío XII, based in the mining town of Siglo XX. The data for this
section are from that study, to be published under the title Ayllus y proyectos de
desarrollo en el norte de Potosí [Rivera and THOA, nd.].
20. In addition, the jurisdiction of the trade union leaders does not cover the families at
other ecological levels, since they belong to other provinces, as well as to a level of trade
union organisation autonomous and distinct from that of the highlands.
21. Harris [1982:15] has described the ethnic economy as a complex of activities based 'on
120 THE CHALLENGE OF RURAL DEMOCRATISATION
kinship and on the cultural expressions common to the entire ethnic group'.
22. In the 1987 Departmental Federation of Potosí Peasant Workers, the union congress
adopted this view of the ethnic authorities as part of the organisational platform: 'The
political authorities such as corregidores, curacas, and alcaldes, shall be directed by the
union people and elected democratically by the union organisations. The authorities
should not practice bad customs that are harmful.'
23. This is shown in the testimony of a union leader from Bustillos province:
The natural authorities are elected in accordance with the customs that our ancestors
have left us; those customs are always ck'allas, they are not elected by a majority
consensus of all the people; since they assume their position by those customs alone,
they are natural authorities. (Translation by Ramón Conde.)
24. The data on which this description is based were taken from the work of Federico
Aguiló, a Jesuit who worked with ACLO-Sucre [Aguiló, 1983]. The author was also
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able to obtain additional information through field work carried out in 1986, as well as
from Carmen Avila (personal communication).
25. From the Qhichwa and Aymara, respectively: lik'i=fat; khariña=to cut. Both
expressions mean 'he who cuts (or extracts) the fat'.
26. Such tendencies undoubtedly exist, but have not fully developed. In several ayllus of
Bustillos and Chayan ta, processes of coordination of functions between ethnic and
trade union authorities have emerged which could offer an alternative. At the higher
levels of the CSTUCB, there is also a growing consciousness of the need to put in
practice its principle of 'unity in diversity', developing organisational forms which are
appropriate to the indigenous peasantry.
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Bolivianos, Cochabamba, 5-7 Sept.
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Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World: 18th to 20th Centuries,
Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.
Bloch, E., 1971, 'Efectos políticos del desarrollo desigual'. Lenk (ed.), El concepto de
ideología, Buenos Aires: Amorrortu.
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LIBERAL DEMOCRACY AND AYLLU DEMOCRACY: BOLIVIA 121