Visual Concept of Bolivian News

This map shows the nine depart­ments of Bolivia. Each depar­ment has a pre­fect. This is super­fi­cially com­pa­ra­ble to the American States and their governors.

Four of the depart­ments, those marked with a blue half moon, are referred to jointly as the Media Luna, or Half Moon. The Media Luna are cur­rently in strong oppo­si­tion to the cur­rent pres­i­dent, Evo Morales, and his polit­i­cal party, MAS — Movimiento al Socialismo, or Movement towards Socialism. Evo and the admin­is­tra­tive cap­i­tal of Bolivia are located in La Paz.

Chuquisaca is the seat of Sucre, the con­sti­tu­tional cap­i­tal of Bolivia. Chuquisaca is a bit of a toss-up in its polit­i­cal lean­ings; not tra­di­tion­ally part of the Media Luna, but unwill­ing to lose its con­sti­tu­tional and his­tor­i­cal posi­tion as hav­ing the pri­mary cap­i­tal in its cap­i­tal city of Sucre, which is what MAS would prefer.

Cochabamba is tra­di­tion­ally a neu­tral loca­tion. Little vio­lence hits Cochabamba, and usu­ally the elec­tions are extremely close. Neither MAS nor the oppo­si­tion have a strong foothold here. Cochabambinos tend to be rather like Texans; Cochabambinos care mostly about the con­di­tion of Cochabamba.

We’re located in the city of Cochabamba, which is the cap­i­tal of the depart­ment of Cochabamba. We’re approx­i­mately 8500ft above sea level. Although we are very high up, the city is located in a val­ley bowl sur­rounded by moun­tains. Three solid “high­way” passes exist which lead out­side of the val­ley towards the Chapare (coun­try­side, essen­tially) and the other departments.

The Media Luna depart­ments bor­der Argentina and Brazil. Unfortunately, in blow­ing the nat­ural gas pipelines to those coun­tries which imported Bolivian nat­ural gas, the Media Luna has made polit­i­cal ene­mies of them. No for­eign sup­port there.

Evo / MAS have the strong sup­port of Chavez in Venezuela. Chavez has com­mit­ted his sup­port polit­i­cally and mil­i­tar­ily to Evo. Venezuelan mil­i­tary are cur­rently in parts of Bolivia.

The Media Luna have more or less closed the domes­tic bor­ders to the other depart­ments. Exports from those depart­ments have been ceased. Gasoline and beef are those which chiefly affect Cochabamba.

Active vio­lence is occur­ring in the Media Luna depart­ments. The vio­lence is incited by both MAS and Media Luna.

Now then. Let’s eval­u­ate our posi­tion. We’re in the cen­ter of Cochabamba. The Bolivian mil­i­tary is cur­rently in the Pando. In order to defeat the Media Luna, the mil­i­tary needs to stay a fairly intact force. They will prob­a­bly opt to enter the Beni, fol­lowed by Santa Cruz, and then down through Tarija if they deem it nec­es­sary. They could cut through Cochabamba from La Paz in order to get to Santa Cruz, but, a) noth­ing really seems to be gained by this, b) it would split the strength of the attack, and c) it would alien­ate the peo­ple of Cochabamba who have hereto­for been pretty neutral.

That’s why we’re stay­ing for now. The phys­i­cal dan­ger is out on the street, and that’s rea­son­ably han­dled by addi­tional safety mea­sures like only leav­ing our gates in groups and remain­ing armed with police night­sticks when we close and open the gate for enter­ing stu­dents. For us the largest inter­fer­ence is on the polit­i­cal level more than any­thing else.