Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia as the voice of a
mass movement – but a battle over a new road exposes the gulf
between his rhetoric and reality, writes Mike Gonzalez In August
this year, a march of 4,000 indigenous people set off from the
Isiboro Secure National Park, a protected Amazon region in
eastern Bolivia known as Tipnis. They are protesting against
president Evo Morales’ decision to allow a huge highway to be
built through the middle of their area—destroying the rainforest
and wrecking the agriculture they depend on. This week their
march will finally reach the country’s capital, La Paz, and
gather outside the presidential palace. By then their numbers
will have swollen to tens of thousands—trade unionists,
students, and indigenous, community and left wing organisations.
It has become a national protest.And it has raised questions
about Morales—a leader who came to power as part of a movement
for indigenous rights and against the neoliberalism that swept
Latin America in the early 2000s