Bolivia’s indigenous peoples are going to face the coronavirus pandemic by taking advantage of their geopolitical isolation, which limits their access to the public health system but gives them more managerial autonomy to encapsulate and fend for themselves by relying on ancestral knowledge, such as natural knowledge. medicine.
Although a comprehensive review of the data on the incidence of covid-19 in the indigenous population of Bolivia is not known, the preliminary data consulted for this report shows that the number of infections and deaths from the pandemic was significantly lower in the Andean region (with a majority Quechua and Aymara) compared to those recorded in the Amazon and Chaco regions (with a greater diversity of indigenous nations, the Chi-Quitana and the Guarani being the largest).
This research focused its efforts on three indigenous peoples in Bolivia: the municipality of Charazani, the capital of Kallawaya culture, in La Paz; Raqaypampa, an autonomous indigenous territory in the Cochabamba Department; and Charagua, an autonomous indigenous community of Chaco, in the Santa Cruz department. However, it has also gathered information from other indigenous peoples in the Amazon and tropical regions of the country, given their vulnerability to the pandemic.
Diagnosis varies depending on the regions examined. While in the highland (Andes) indigenous peoples, such as Charazani and Raqaypampa, the impact of the pandemic has been and continues to be reduced due to the number of reported cases and deaths; In the low-lying towns (Chaco and Amazon), such as Charagua, the virus has been more aggressive, causing more infections and deaths, which are of concern relative to their minority population.
According to the latest census and housing census in Bolivia, which dates back to 2012, the self-indigenous population to the country stands at 2,806,592, which is equivalent to 40.6% of the recorded. The Bolivian constitution recognizes 36 indigenous nations. In terms of population, the vast majority are Quechuas (45.6%) and Aymara (42.4%), also known as highland indigenous peoples, compared to less than 12% of the inhabitants of the lowlands.
Pandemic, forgetfulness and self-management. The pandemic arrived in Bolivia on March 10, 2020 in two women from Europe. The breakout and expansion coincided with the temporary government of Jeanine Áñez, who succeeded the outgoing Evo Morales in November 2019 and handed over power to elected Luis Arce in the election a year later. What is known as the first wave of covid-19 spread in Bolivia from March to November 2020, so attention was paid to the transition regime.
Áñez’s health policy aimed at applying rigid and flexible quarantines across the country, with strict controls in the capitals of the nine departments and with the highest population density. Due to the logistical and budget constraints, it was difficult for the company to perform a large number of coronavirus tests. On November 6, nearly 338 thousand applications had been filed, of which 142,343 positive cases, 1,305 suspects and 194,358 closed.
This limitation is attributed to the fact that the officially reported cases are lower than the real ones, with an under-registration hiding the full extent of the pandemic in the country. If the under-reporting was significant in urban municipalities with the highest population densities, then so was rural areas with indigenous populations, where coronavirus tests have arrived in scarce quantities or, in more than one case, have not even arrived.
Another example of the Provisional Government’s inattention to the management of the pandemic among indigenous peoples was the abolition of the Under-Ministry of Traditional Medicine, dependent on the Ministry of Health, downgraded for administrative rationalization to a long-standing directorate. was left headless. Assuming traditional natural medicine is a practice deeply rooted in the country’s rural communities, the deputy ministry’s disappearance limited its actions in rural indigenous people.
The demotion of the Deputy Ministry took place despite the validity of Law 459 of Traditional Ancestral Medicine of Bolivia, promulgated in late 2013, which instituted the recognition of traditional doctors, spiritual guides, naturopaths and midwives, to register them first and then in the public health system, so that they also have a relationship with doctors.
The authorities of the three indigenous areas addressed in this study agree that budget planning for the pandemic was carried out by local governments (municipal mayors and indigenous administration). The role of the departmental and national governments was minor, if not nil, and in some cases limited to providing food and some medical supplies (Charagua).
Civil society organizations and local leaders were essential for residents to become aware of the pandemic and take measures to deal with it. In some places, however, skepticism about the existence and dangers of covid-19 has not been completely eradicated.
Traditional natural medicine has been the indigenous people’s most consistent shield to prevent contamination and, in confirmed cases, to mitigate the effects of the symptoms of the disease.
Aside from the health consequences, indigenous peoples regret that the restrictive measures, including isolation and banning human encounters, have changed their social habits. They have not only reduced or suspended their collective political consultation meetings, but also the festive activities essential to update their social ties and with Mother Nature and other spiritual gods.
Another chapter deserves the economic devastation that indigenous communities continue to suffer from the paralysis of many productive activities and the restrictions on going beyond their borders, an essential dynamic for resource generation in their communities.
Given the threat of the new wave of the pandemic, peoples are already taking steps to curb the entry of the virus and minimize its health impact. But they hope that the new government, led by Luis Arce, with whom they have a greater affinity than the transient ones, will generate additional policies to reactivate their productive, social and cultural lives.
The mirror in Peru and Paraguay. Indigenous peoples also face chronic state neglect in Peru, a country with which Bolivia shares a border (to the northwest), history and cultures. In a piece created exclusively for this report, the helplessness they experience is reflected in the lack of health coverage, but also in the lack of data on the impact in terms of infections and deaths, especially in the Amazon, most exposed to the pandemic because of its proximity to Brazil, the third country most affected by Covid-19 in the world. The natural medicine that lives in their forests is all they have to resist the virus that threatens to put them out. The leaders do not lose hope that the vaccine will reach them and give them more strength to defeat the plague.
In Paraguay, which borders Bolivia to the south, coronavirus rates are lower than in neighboring countries, yet evil has infiltrated indigenous communities, leaving them in a state of even greater defenselessness than they already had. Another piece produced exclusively for this report shows that land evictions, armed intimidation, fires, droughts and floods are expressions of the extreme vulnerability in which native Paraguayans survive, to which the pandemic has added a new risk factor, not just any one. but one who wants to proceed with no signs of decomposition in sight.
NOTE: This report was made possible thanks to a research grant from the Pulitzer Center. Individual reports are published weekly in the journal Así.