In this Relentless Bolivian Revolution, Media Matters

Such success doesn't come from luck or two weeks' work.  Epitomized by the ERBOL radio network, the Bolivian social movements have constructed a media that reflects the people's needs. As Teo Ballvé just wrote, the struggle of course is far from over, but it is time to think about what made possible the incredible successes so far.  Because these successes are incredible.  The blockades put cities and communities into or on the brink of economic and public health crisis, yet the radical movements maintained such overwhelming support that the military would not kill and the would-be authoritarian ruler simply did not have enough people to give orders to.  The demonstrations and blockades where everywhere, farmers took over gas fields and even the oligarch's alleged playground, Santa Cruz, had blockades.  When Vaca Diez tried to move the legislature over 700 kilometers away from the mobilizations of La Paz and El Alto, the call went out for area groups to shut down this attempt, and they did.

Al Giordano quoted ERBOL:

"There is a multitude surrounding Plaza 25 de Mayo," noted one of the radio journalists on the air.  "Congress is unable to convene. There is no agreement yet in Congress."

 Another reporter conducted a man on the street interview: "Yes, (the protest) is justified, because we are tired of this nefarious government that has led us all into misery."

 Another reporter, from the airport, noted that incoming legislators “are being transported in a bus normally used for maximum security prisoners.”

 A reporter from La Paz just interviewed a leader of the confederation of labor unions who said that if Senate President Hormando Vaca Diez takes the presidency the unions will call a "national strike."

And later that day, yesterday, last night, the final act that assured that when the legislature did meet, it would follow the will of the people regarding presidential succession and new elections, was reported by Narco News' latest star, Jean Friedsky (my emphasis added):

it was at approximately 9pm, as movement leaders were coming across the airwaves to talk about the mass mobilizations of tomorrow, that Vaca Diez finally gave in and announced that he would agree to resign.

What kind of a radio network is this, that allows people to come on the air to talk about opposing the plans of the powerful with acts of civil disobedience (legally defined as terrorism in the United States)?  A network that Al Giordano called "the national public radio of Bolivia"?  (The United States' own NPR asked heart-heavy questions about what the movements' rise in Bolivia will mean for investors in the gas corporations there-- "aren't there international laws requiring compensation?"  Answer: Yes.)

I urge my worthy colleagues in Bolivia to find a spare second to analyze the media in Bolivia and its relationship to the social movements, the ways various institutions of the media contribute to or detract from the fight for justice, and the prospects for the future of the media in Bolivia.  In the meantime, though, I can report on a small but important piece of the Bolivian media that is by and of the people.

During the 2004 July-August School of Authentic Journalism in Bolivia, the lucky scholars and professors got to meet as a colleague Egberto Winston Chipana Limachi, the director of Radio Soberania (“Radio Sovereignty”) in the town of Chipriri of the Chapare, the heart of the current coca growers movement.  The station reaches 96 percent of the public in the Tropic of Cochabamba, Authentic Journalism scholar Romina Trincheri wrote at the time: "Walking the small earthen paths that connect the homes of the traditional coca growers, we find that the radio is listened to, sometimes in Spanish, and for a good part of the day in Quechua."  Quechua is the indiginous language and name of the second-largest ethnicity in Bolivia.

Wearing an "erbol" T-shirt (the back read, in Spanish "if you listen to ERBOL you listen to Bolivia") Egberto Chipana talked to us about his radio station.

Today I transcribed my notes of this talk and discussion about Radio Sovereignty, and for this article I'll summarize what I consider to be key points:

• Radio Sovereignty was founded in 1997, and served the needs of the coca growers when no commercial station would.


• It's mission is to be an over-the-air school for campesinos, young and adult.


• The stations brave and accurate reporting on conflicts between coca growers and crop eradication forces (and between the police and the military, as the case may be), forced a measure of accountability on the government and helped allow more "peace and tranquility" in the Chapare.


• Shut down in 2002 at a time of conflict between the government and the coca growers, the people blockaded the country's one main highway, between Santa Cruz and Cochabamba (and from Cochabamba on to La Paz), forcing the government to return the stations equipment and grant the station a license to operate.  The station had proven it's worth to the peasant farmer social movement and the social movement defended it.


• Al Giordano asked what role the station played in the blockades against Goni.  "Only to inform the people what's going on," came the reply.  And really, what more does authentic journalism have to do?

Radio Sovereignty is just one station that carries ERBOL, Bolivia's national network that in this crisis has again distinguished itself (in my eyes through my far-away, refracted lens).  I think a key to Bolivian radio's national effectiveness is that true community stations like Radio Sovereignty don't just carry national programs but also send reports that are carried over national programs.  If there is anything like what we see with Radio Sovereignty writ large nationally, Bolivia has at least one form of media that people are ready to defend and that defends the people by the simple act of reporting the truth.  This allows people to co-ordinate in their own self-defense.

I would like much correction and elaboration of the ideas I have written here, based on the facts brought by the great Narco News team in Bolivia and those watching the events from outside.  For when I next write I want to discuss what could be Bolivia's next export: its media model of revolution-ready, if not revolutionary, radio.