By Carlos Toranzo, Brujula Digital:

When Rodrigo Paz came to power, the COB, the social movements, and the “moral reserve” of society were in ruins, carrying on their shoulders the stigma of corruption and the collapse of values. By repealing Supreme Decree 5503, the government reinvented the COB; it brought a dead organization back to life.

During the 50 days of blockades, when virtually all of society repudiated the COB and the peasant blockaders, when most Departmental Labor Federations (CODs) rejected the mobilizations promoted by Argollo, when a large portion of miners, mining cooperatives, and factory workers opposed Argollo’s blockades, the government reached an agreement with the COB that, by its very wording, amounts to a capitulation before an almost non-existent organization.

The government commits itself to everything, while the COB commits itself to nothing. It does not even apologize for the 22 deaths caused by the blockades. It is a strange agreement between an organization that is little more than an empty shell, representing almost no one, and an extremely weak government that effectively grants impunity for all the crimes committed by those who instigated the blockades and signs an agreement allowing the COB to oversee any future public policy the government wishes to implement.

Some say it is an excellent agreement, a brilliant tactic, because it isolates the peasants, paves the way for declaring a state of emergency, and begins the process of clearing the roads across the country. They also argue that the government won because the blockaders failed to provoke the deaths they were seeking. But do the 22 deaths caused by the blockades not count? Does it not matter that, after 50 days of blockades, the economy was left devastated and that recovery will take years?

Others argue that the agreement is worthless paper because the government will not comply with it, given that it faces an illegitimate and weakened COB. In any case, time will tell.

However, let us note a few elements worth reflecting upon. The blockades were not about ethnicity, poverty, or discrimination. There are intellectual middle classes in Bolivia with an obsession about ethnic issues who see ethnicity in everything and wish to interpret these events exclusively through that lens, but they overlook the fundamental causes of the conflict. They fail to note the role of drug trafficking, its pawn Evo Morales, organized crime, mining, the geopolitics of smuggling, and logistical support for narcotrafficking.

In 2003, the blockades involved a peasant actor and the popular urban sectors of El Alto; there were no indigenous actors. Now, in 2026, the actors are basically from the popular urban sectors, and once again there are no indigenous actors. Yet international aid workers, especially Europeans, see everything through an indigenous lens, driven by a guilty conscience rooted in their countries’ colonial past.

The blockading peasant comes from the provinces of La Paz, but that same peasant is also a merchant, truck driver, dump-truck operator, minibus driver, smuggler, drug mule, and participant in many urban occupations. He is more a member of the popular urban sector than a peasant. Add to this the population of El Alto, which is also part of the popular urban sector. The metaphor is leader Salazar, who wears the red poncho by day and is a rapper in El Alto by night.

The government’s strategy was dialogue, dialogue, dialogue—waiting and waiting. The 22 deaths did not move it, nor did the thousands of drivers trapped on the highways, the dozens of patients left without food in hospitals, or the children with cancer who could not reach their treatments. Thousands upon thousands of children were forced into remote learning, with a single family cell phone shared by four or five children.

Thousands of poultry producers in Santa Cruz and Cochabamba went bankrupt; thousands of dairy farmers were ruined because they could not deliver milk to processing companies; dozens or hundreds of meat producers suffered losses because they could not sell their products. Hundreds of hotels and motels closed, and hundreds of restaurants either shut down or went bankrupt. Thousands upon thousands of families could not buy chicken at 35 bolivianos per kilogram, meat at 140 bolivianos per kilogram, tomatoes at 15 bolivianos per pound, or other products priced in a similar fashion.

The blockades demonstrated the interdependence between Santa Cruz and western Bolivia. La Paz eats chicken, meat, cheese, and uses soybeans and grains from Santa Cruz; Santa Cruz cannot generate income if it cannot sell those products to La Paz and the western regions. This reveals the interdependence of Bolivia’s regions.

The blockades caused bankruptcies in both the east and the west. Civic leaders in Santa Cruz claimed they would clear the blockades in Yapacaní and San Julián, but they lacked the physical capacity to do so. There was much talk, but it became clear that the time for federalism has not yet arrived. Perhaps greater decentralization will be possible in the future, because weak governments may allow regions to advance toward that goal, whereas strong governments—such as those of the MAS party—recentralized the country.

The initial attempts to clear the roads were improvised. The humanitarian corridor to Oruro sent Minister Zamora and the police running. The blockaders had dynamite, while the police had only tear gas.

The first road-clearing operation in Lipari was disastrous; the police fled. The operation in San Julián, despite much fanfare and the participation of some young members of the Santa Cruz Civic Union, ended with another police retreat. Armed individuals were discovered among the blockaders.

Let us not forget that behind the blockades stand not only Evo Morales, nor merely the defense of the privileges of hundreds of leaders from the union aristocracy, nor illegal mining; there are also organized crime and drug trafficking, which do not want to lose the “Bolivia sanctuary” they enjoyed for twenty years.

During the blockades, La Paz rediscovered its northern region, which can provide it with food. Highways to Beni are a necessity for the entire country. La Paz, the region most suffocated by the crisis, realized it is without authorities. An absent governor, perhaps burdened by guilt over his qualification by a mediocre Supreme Electoral Tribunal (even the Yahuasi case helped strengthen the blockaders’ narrative). A mayor occupied with rolling out red carpets for nonexistent “July celebrations” or trying to bring in decomposing chickens.

The blockades led people to define their instigators not only as vandals but as criminals, because surrounding cities and preventing the entry of food is an offense, a crime against humanity.

It was always very difficult for the blockades to achieve Rodrigo Paz’s resignation. In present-day South America, there can be no left-wing government or government linked to drug trafficking because of the strong opposition of the Trump administration. Paz is protected by the “Shield of the Americas,” making a coup d’état difficult. Nevertheless, the government’s incompetence could pave the way for any type of solution.

We must not lose sight of the fact that this blockade could become the “Black February” that the blockaders will try to transform into a future “Black October.” If Evo Morales—the pawn of drug trafficking and of the blockades—is not imprisoned, the future will remain uncertain.

Carlos Toranzo is an economist.