La Paz, Bolivia – Young Indian men in El Alto, the poorer sister-city of this capital, have constituted themselves as “Indigenous Talibans” to defend the unity of Bolivia and oppose autonomy moves by several provinces, a municipal councilman says.
El Alto city councilor Roberto de la Cruz summoned reporters to a local gym to watch the self-styled militants working out.
The initiative was labeled anti-democratic by Bolivia’s six-month-old Socialist government and “ridiculous” by the conservative opposition.
De la Cruz, a radical who is no stranger to controversy, told EFE that the youths adopted the provocative name for their group because “they are students ready for anything” and “because they aim for a fully indigenous government.”
President Evo Morales, the country’s first Indian head of state, has said he intends “to refound” Bolivia on behalf of its indigenous majority, which he says has been oppressed and exploited by whites and mestizos for centuries.
De la Cruz said the recruits for the militia-like group number in the hundreds, but fewer than a dozen men are seen pumping iron in the photographs and televised images from the gym in El Alto.
The councilman, who is a journalist by profession, said the primary goal of the Indigenous Talibans is to defend “the unity of the homeland” in the face of a push for autonomy by four of Bolivia’s nine provinces.
He also issued a challenge to Santa Cruz Gov. Ruben Costas and to a youth organization known as the UJC, an entity with ties to the civic committee that advocates sweeping autonomy for Bolivia’s wealthiest province.
De la Cruz invited Costas and the UJC to square off with the Indigenous Talibans in a “tinku” – the Aymara Indian word for “fight” – of ideas.
Failing that, the El Alto politician suggested the two organizations “hold a tinku on a neutral field to find out who is the stronger in a battle of blows.”
Despite the talk of physical combat, he ruled out any possibility that his Talibans will take up arms.
De la Cruz’s announcement brought criticism from the ruling party and the opposition as well as from politicians in Santa Cruz.
Senate leader Santos Ramirez, a senior figure in Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, said the Talibans initiative “is not welcome in a democracy.”
He said it could undermine the Constituent Assembly created by Morales to rewrite Bolivia’s constitution, which is set to begin work next month.
Speaking for the conservative main opposition, lawmaker Fernando Messmer described De la Cruz’s gambit as “laughable, ridiculous and irresponsible” and said that “it does nothing but exacerbate tensions when we are weary of confrontation.”
Bolivians went to the polls July 2 to elect delegates to the forthcoming constitutional convention and to vote on a proposal to allow Bolivia’s provinces greater autonomy.
Citizens in Santa Cruz and the three other relatively prosperous provinces – Tarija, Beni and Pando – voted “yes,” but the nationwide tally went against the initiative.
Some in the autonomy-minded provinces, which contain most of Bolivia’s natural gas and the country’s best farmland, are openly disdainful of the Andean nation’s Indian majority, and the Socialist government in La Paz denounces Santa Cruz’s UJC group as racist and even “fascist.”