Generally considered one of the most powerful men in Bolivia, the radical indigenous leader Felipe Quispe, known as the Mallku, now seems to be losing his touch.
Over the last three years, the Mallku has headed a number of direct-action protests that have shaken successive Bolivian governments and made his name a byword for uncompromising activism. The union of Bolivian rural workers, the CSUTCB, is one of the best-organised indigenous associations, and, as its executive secretary, Quispe enjoys considerable personal prestige.
The CSUTCB's heartland is the area of altiplano between La Paz and the Peruvian border at Lake Titicaca, and one of the organisation's preferred tactics is to use temporary roadblocks to cut the highways in the region. In mid-2001, the CSUTCB managed to cut La Paz off from the Peruvian border for some weeks, defying the Bolivian military's attempts to break their blockade.
At that time, in July 2001, a meeting organised by the Mallku brought thousands of indigenous activists together in the village of Achacachi. Many were armed and wearing masks and the Mallku's arrival was greeted with a chant of 'civil war! civil war!'
Demands. In recent months, Quispe has been in talks with the Bolivian authorities to discuss the CSUTCB's list of 72 demands. This lengthy list includes a call for wide-ranging agricultural reforms, as well as expressing objections to the government's plans for Bolivian gas and to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Given his previous record, Quispe's announcement on 20 July that he was breaking off the negotiations and would begin an open-ended blockade of La Paz the following morning, provoked widespread fears of serious disruption.
The fears proved groundless though. For once, rural workers largely failed to heed the Mallku's call, and the army and police, who mounted a major operation to keep the highways clear, swiftly dispersed those small groups who did attempt to stop traffic.
Police described the traffic flow in the region as close to normal during the first week of the planned blockade, although the uncertainties about the danger of travelling temporarily forced prices of some products higher in Bolivia's markets as well as sharply reducing travel by tourists.
After the first few days of the protest, Quispe was forced to admit that the blockade had failed to have any impact so far, although he promised to continue the protest and to 'carpet the highways with stones' as soon as the security forces let down their guard. 'The army got up before us, they occupied the roads before us,' the Mallku admitted.
Fall in fortunes. But it was the lack of popular support rather than improved military tactics that made the blockade a failure, and many analysts believe the fiasco marks a change for the worse in the Mallku's fortunes.
Writing in the Bolivian press, former union leader turned analyst, Carlos Camargo, described the failed protest as the Mallku's 'worst day' and predicted a rapid fall in his fortunes. 'Felipe Quispe is liquidated, his leadership has been questioned, people don't respect him or obey him. We are witnessing a decline in his fortunes as a leader that will end with him being removed from the union leadership,' Camargo suggested.
Quispe has always been known for his authoritarian personal style, but many of his followers were apparently angered that he called such a major protest action unilaterally and without consulting CSUTCB members.
Criticism. Critics also suggest that the Mallku is too intransigent and does not know how to negotiate without resorting to threats. They argue that presenting the government with 72 demands was unrealistic, and that the quantity of demands meant rural workers were unclear about why they were being asked to mount a blockade.
The timing of the Mallku's protest call was also a strategic error. Quispe called the blockade just weeks before the national reconciliation discussions, which will be chaired by the Catholic church, are scheduled to take place. The discussions would have been the ideal forum for the CSUTCB to raise its 72 demands, and the Mallku was left isolated when other indigenous leaders decided to wait for the outcome of the talks before backing any protests.
This understandable reticence led Quispe to call his fellow indigenous leaders, Román Loayza and Evo Morales, 'traitors'.
The Mallku's recent failings have confirmed that Morales, the coca growers' leader who narrowly lost out in last year's presidential elections to President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, is now the most powerful indigenous leader. While the two men share much of the same ideology, Morales's prestige has grown as the Mallku's has fallen, and he is now set to be the government's main interlocutor at the forthcoming talks.
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