Ana Carola Traverso-Krejcarek: "The Government is giving this region the opportunity to question the social contract it has with the State"

The urban planner and sociologist Ana Carola Traverso-Krejcarek presents the book El proyecto cruceño: History, region and development, this Friday, November 25, from 10:00 a.m., in the History Museum Junin street # 151

Traverso-Krejcarek addresses the historical, social and methodological processes of regional developmentl, which were supported by the work of key institutions, such as the Public Works Committee and the Development Corporation, as well as departmental governments and the autonomist movement, which endowed themselves with power, responding to the needs of the region.

The book was published thanks to the support of the Rural Electrification Cooperative (CRE) and the UAGRM History Museum.

What was the main motivation for writing El proyecto cruceño?

It was to narrate the period of the second half of the 20th century from Santa Cruz. What he wanted was to document the experience of urban and regional planning, but also to write about the contribution that institutional development had in Santa Cruz today. It also motivated me to fill the gap that exists in the narrative around the development of Santa Cruz, explaining the origins of this legacy in that profound experience of thinking about the territory.

During the colonial period, Santa Cruz was a society isolated from the centers of power. Why did this reality not change during the republican period?

This was due, unfortunately, to the absence of public policies that managed to articulate a territory as vast as the Bolivian east to the national task, to the Bolivian State. The reason why Santa Cruz remains isolated and the reason why we are such a lost, forgotten and backward society is as a result of exclusive national policies, which did not want to integrate or protect the Santa Cruz industries that existed before and after the Republic . The liberal policies of the mid-nineteenth century are going to postpone and submit us, not only to an asymmetrical relationship, both of power and of allocation of economic resources, but also to poverty, as a consequence of the linkage and push from other areas in the country, that they are going to receive strong investments and that they are going to integrate, to the detriment of eastern Bolivia.

What is the value of the 1904 Memorandum drawn up by the Society for Geographical and Historical Studies of Santa Cruz?

It is an important document, however, it is not the first in which the people of Santa Cruz elaborate a development proposal in which they think of themselves. The first were the 21 instructions that the Santa Cruz Cabildo gave to the delegates who attended the deliberative assembly in 1825. The 1904 Memorandum inaugurated the 20th century for Santa Cruz, it is a vision of connection and a development proposal in which the people of Santa Cruz they look at themselves in the sense of detecting the potential that it had within the territory of Santa Cruz for the rest of Bolivia.

Royalties for hydrocarbons are mentioned whenever the fundamental factors for the development of Santa Cruz in the 20th century are discussed. What factor was decisive for these resources to be used effectively?

They are two fundamental factors. On the one hand, the insubordination that is going to take place as a result of the fight for royalties, a political and ideological insubordination in relation to the Government of the national Revolution and, on the other hand, the values ​​in which the initiatives are going to be framed. that the Public Works Committee, from 1963 onwards, will adopt. They are modern values, which have to do with an effective management of resources, which will prioritize meritocracy with a work method, in which the best technical cadres will be hired to carry out all the necessary works to capture the vision of development that Santa Cruz is going to have. The royalties ensured that there is a constant flow of resources, they are an important part of the whole, the other part are the policies born from Santa Cruz.

The artistic and cultural activity in Santa Cruz grew along with its economic development in recent decades. What does this reality show?

These activities drank, in their first phase, from the autonomous model of self-management born, produced and reproduced in Santa Cruz. For example, the original Casa de la Cultura had a way of working that emulated the self-management cooperative model of the Public Works Committee. Starting with municipalism, that will change, but what is interesting is that, despite the setbacks that the Casa de la Cultura may have had, artistic and cultural activity continued to be promoted by managers, artists, and people interested in promoting culture and this essential part of human development. Today there is a whole conglomerate of institutions dedicated to art and culture. Perhaps, due to the difficulties in establishing its own cultural industry, for many reasons, economic development was not necessarily accompanied with the same vigor, but it continues to be a fundamental part. We must highlight the enormous vocation of current artists and managers to dedicate themselves to culture by seeking funds through self-management.

Do you consider the claim made to Santa Cruz fair when speaking of a lack of political leadership on a national scale?

I do not consider it fair, because Santa Cruz has been producing leadership and concrete offers for new development agendas, which were incorporated into the national agenda during the 20th century. In 1931 the Public Works Committee was born and we will see in the following decades, between the 40s, 50s and 60s, public works committees emerge throughout the department. The same with the development corporations, the idea of ​​development corporations was born in Santa Cruz and it was a proposal that became national because all the departments had them.

Here we are talking about the export of a political proposal of how we understood the territory and how we understood the self-determination capacity of the regions and departments to pursue those development goals. The same thing happened with autonomy. It is a question that is made to the State, which was not necessarily born in 2003, although at that time it was going to position itself, but the notion and claim of departmental and municipal governments were going to be in Santa Cruz in the 80s and to take more than 20 years to become a reality with departmental autonomy.

So, it is not fair to say that there is a lack of leadership at the national level, because many people from Santa Cruz have participated in political parties, have also been authorities at the national level and have generated development models and proposals. However, what has been a constant for 200 years is the attempt by the national government to curtail the capacity for political, economic, territorial and even cultural development of regions that have always been considered as the aggregate confines of this country. Demanding that they have a Bolivian proposal, when what is understood, from here, is that they are Santa Cruz proposals made for Santa Cruz, it seems to me that it is somewhat unfair. If we start to review the history of the 20th century, there are many examples, like the ones I have just cited, that make us think about the opportunities for development and both human and economic resources for the regions. It is important to bring up one of the oldest tensions that this country has, such as the regional issue. All the departments have a very charged, very tense history, in which they have not necessarily treated our populations well. I personally subscribe to that vision.

How can the requests for self-determination and federalism, which are currently gaining strength among the population, be related to the demand for autonomy?

If we understand that there is an asymmetrical relationship of power and management of economic, human and natural resources in Bolivia due to a drying centralism and an inability to generate spaces for dialogue and discussion and joint management between the three levels of Government, it seems to me that the request for self-determination in the Bolivian case is very valid. It not only affects all regions, but also indigenous peoples based on ethnic issues and may also affect the management for greater economic development.

Regarding the demand for federalism, this is a very difficult question to answer today, because federalism is a desire that has existed in Santa Cruz for a long time, but it is important to put it in context and clarify this request. When talking about federalism we need to be aware of the path we would need to take to get to the implementation of a federal model and, currently, I don’t know if the political context is in our favor. Another aspect to consider is that there is no proposal for federalization beyond a clamor, otherwise meaningless, valid and shared. So it seems to me that it is very important to be responsible with a campaign for the federalization of the country. You cannot cast slogans that are empty. Because the autonomy campaign was a worked proposal, it was a proposal that was nurtured by decades of discussion among various sectors of civil society, who participated in the discussion and elaboration of proposals that have not only a philosophical, legal and historical base, but real, that can define what type of competencies to implement. It is important to understand that we still have spaces and powers for which we can fight and exercise them. Currently we have powers and we have not yet put on the table what have been the contributions and progress that we have achieved in these 15 years of the autonomous regime. So, first we have to make that balance before being so bold as to criticize what we don’t even know we have.

What results do you think this stage of conflict will have, which began with the census request in 2023?

The contract between the Bolivian State and the department of Santa Cruz must begin to be discussed. I think that, regardless of the exact date of the census, getting this planning instrument discussed has been a victory. Of course, the issue has technical connotations, the Government demonstrated that it does not have serious, appropriate and responsible technical management, it revealed its total and complete ineffectiveness and inefficiency in relation to the census. Beyond that, one of the results of this stage of conflict has been the demonstration of the strength that Santa Cruz has in terms of movement and the validation of the rejection that exists to the project of the plurinational State. The Government, in almost 20 years of management, has not been able to subordinate the population of Santa Cruz. The way in which the Government has managed the conflict has been so unfortunate, especially the denial of dialogue, that this region is giving rise to questioning the social contract it has with the State, because a Government that is incapable of opening up to dialogue, being incapable of listening to opposing voices, of reaching a resolution of a conflict of this nature, shows what he believes in relation to one of the most important regions of this country, a region that is constantly being discriminated against and who deserves their political rights to be respected.