The student group's communique, posted above by Irene Roca Ortiz, declares their opposition to the secession movement and decries the media's intentional misrepresentation of the general student opinion on this issue, even as the split is graphically illustrated by a brutal attack on them ordered, they say, by the proto-fascist "Civic Committee."

I was never in Santa Cruz outside its airport, but I have personal experience that also rejects an image of popular .

I flew home from the Bolivian session of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism via Santa Cruz.  I sat next to a girl who was studying in the United States.  She was from Santa Cruz, and I very much doubt her family voted for any Movement Toward Socialism candidates.  She felt the gas needed to be exported if Bolivia were to have economic development.  I would guess the media typifies the indigineous movements as anti-development.  The subtleties about how it was exported, and who benefited, did not seem forefront in her mind.  Her family, I would gather, was not in the same desperate situation facing so many of her compatriots after over a decade of failed neoliberal promises of economic development.

I bring this up because autonomy for the Santa Cruz region appears to be only a very thin cover for the fight over the gas.  Even for people who disagree with social movements, and perhaps believe they have too much ability to influence the national government, how many want to split their country?

The girl I sat next to was most passionate about Bolivia's ecological diversity, from the mountains around La Paz to the fertile tropical lands around Santa Cruz– and the economic potential from this.  She was proud of Santa Cruz's agricultural produce, and she kept returning to the lack of attention to Bolivia's possibilities for attracting tourists.  Travelers from the U.S. and Europe don't realize Bolivia has everything Peru has and more, she told me.  Her economic development goals seemed to be more agriculture and tourism focused, and based on selling Bolivia as a whole to the world.

I find it hard to believe that splitting Santa Cruz from Bolivia has majority support, even in just the city itself, outside the elites who stand to gain the most from quickly selling the gas to their own business connections.

Although it is an attempt to short-circuit the debate on how to use Bolivia's gas to the greatest benefit of all Bolivians, the secession movement is also a split in Bolivia's elite which may be of tactical use to the social movements.

The challenge, I think, is therefore to put forth a vision and strategy that unites a large majority of Bolivians across all regions – the economically margianalized with at least some of those making their living from the present system – with the promise of an economy and society built around meeting their individual and communal needs and dreams.