Strikes in Bolivia challenge 'socialist' president Evo Morales

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Protesters in Bolivia have blocked main roads and clashed with police, on the ninth day of nationwide demonstrations against the government.

Police used tear gas to clear the main road south of La Paz, and protesters fought back with stones and slingshots.

Teachers and health workers are on strike to demand a 15% pay increase.

The unrest is the worst yet faced by President Evo Morales, who once led similar protests that forced two previous presidents from power.

There have also been street protests and road blockades in cities across Bolivia, including Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Tarija.

The biggest clashes happened 45km south of La Paz, Bolivia's main city, where around 2,000 rural teachers used rocks to block the main road to the rest of the country.

Several people were reported injured as riot police moved in to reopen the road.

The protests are being led by Bolivia's main trade union federation, the COB, which is demanding a 15% pay rise for all workers.
'No truce'

The government has already approved a 10% increase for teachers, soldiers and police, and says it cannot afford any more.

"The president and government have always been prepared for dialogue with all sectors, and so the means of pressure they have adopted are not justified," Information Minister Ivan Canelas said.

The COB is demanding direct talks with President Morales rather than his ministers.

""The mobilisations will continue, there will be no truce," COB leader Pedro Montes told reporters.

Mr Morales has been visiting the southern city of Tarija, but pulled out of a public appearance there because of protests.

Bolivia's trade union movement was until recently a close ally of Mr Morales, and helped him win election in 2005 and 2009.

The left-wing Bolivian president is himself a trade union leader, and some of his ministers are former leaders of the COB.

But his popularity fell sharply last December when he attempted to cut fuel price subsidies, only to back down in the face of nationwide protests.

Since then, rising transport and food prices and shortages of some basic goods, such as sugar, have caused rising discontent.

Bolivia's last two presidents were forced from office by mass demonstrations and road blockades which Evo Morales helped to lead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13099827

[RadioRaheem84]

I really don't want to totally disown Morales without first reading about more economic news from Bolivia to see just what the capitalists are doing in the country to destabilize the economy in lieu of the Bolivarian reforms.

I never knew just how much reform could shut a nation down because of economic warfare from the oligarch, until I read the history of Allende's downfall.

[Dimentio]

Exactly what could Evo Morales do? His country isn't exactly the wealthiest, and if he tried more radical reforms, it could very well develop into a civil war.

[The Douche]

it could very well develop into a civil war.

Uh....you mean...proletarian revolution?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Exactly what could Evo Morales do?

Nothing... which is exactly the point. He's the head of the capitalist state and he has to act accordingly.

[Gorilla]

The COB has a history of going very hard on leftist (or "leftist" depending on how you look at it) governments to the extent where they actually supported a military coup against the National Revolutionary Movement government in 1964.

That was when Juan Lechin, a Trotskyist, was head of the COB. Lechin himself was forced into exile by the military junta shortly thereafter. He didn't get to return until JJ Torres' government in 1971, whereupon he immediately led a massive strike wave against the Torres government which helped bring about another right-wing coup, leading to the COB being banned.

[Fulanito de Tal]

I wonder how much the US has to do with this.

[Gorilla]

I wonder how much the US has to do with this.

It's possible but I don't think it's necessary. Any Bolivian government is going to be faced with contradictions between the (huge) peasantry and the (small, but extremely militant) proletariat. Morales, being a peasant leader, has tended to direct resources at peasant problems and now finds himself on the wrong side of the working class just like all left Bolivian leaders before him have. Correa over in Ecuador is having the opposite problem right now.

If agriculture is not yet conducted on an industrial wage-labor basis, any revolutionary socialist government going to face the same contradiction.

[black magick hustla]

The government has already approved a 10% increase for teachers, soldiers and police, and says it cannot afford any more.



goood we demand shit until the economy breaks down

[black magick hustla]

btw waiting on the leftist scoundrel/rats coming out to back one of the dearest bosses of the left wing of capital

[Pretty Flaco]

Uh....you mean...proletarian revolution?

I don't think it's within Evo Morales' interests to start any sort of revolution, considering he's currently in power.

[RedSonRising]

Unions and organized workers pressuring reformist heads of states to pick sides between workers and capitalists is a good thing. I believe reform in Bolivia and Venezuela is a generally positive thing, but this kind of activity prevents those in power from forgetting about how they got there, or the potentially very militant class they themselves helped mobilize.

I think when it comes down to it, neither Chavez nor Morales can turn their backs on the people; they will have nowhere else to go as the neoliberal order actively supports their sabotage. I'm interested to see where this goes, but I'm not ready to blame the heads of states themselves as they are not running a one man show and are trying to navigate policy with a capitalist state in transition.

[black magick hustla]

Unions and organized workers pressuring reformist heads of states to pick sides between workers and capitalists is a good thing. I believe reform in Bolivia and Venezuela is a generally positive thing, but this kind of activity prevents those in power from forgetting about how they got there, or the potentially very militant class they themselves helped mobilize.

I think when it comes down to it, neither Chavez nor Morales can turn their backs on the people; they will have nowhere else to go as the neoliberal order actively supports their sabotage. I'm interested to see where this goes, but I'm not ready to blame the heads of states themselves as they are not running a one man show and are trying to navigate policy with a capitalist state in transition.
of course they are not, the fucking capitalist state can't manage crisis. we communists know this. we communists know the governments are broke. we dont give a fuck we want those things to be burnt to the ground and then take a leak on the ashes. its the same with mexican immigration. we communists are not dumb, we know the state is unable to absorb every immigrtant that wants to come. you know what. we dont care. we will demand our shit until the economy tumbles down like a tower of cards

[Tim Finnegan]

We communists sure like our delusion that economic collapse in the absence of a militant working class movement has a history of bringing about anything but fascism.

[black magick hustla]

We communists sure like our delusion that economic collapse in the absence of a militant working class movement has a history of bringing about anything but fascism.
No, but this is the case of the militant working class forcing the economy to collapse. I am down for that.

[Tim Finnegan]

No, but this is the case of the militant working class forcing the economy to collapse. I am down for that.
I'm not sure that the positions you describe are so much indicative of class militancy as vaguely left-wing shoutiness.

[Gorilla]

No, but this is the case of the militant working class forcing the economy to collapse. I am down for that.

40 years ago so was he...

http://www.info-regenten.de/regent/regent-d/pictures/bolivia-banzer1.jpg

I mean, Morales is a peasant-based douche and all, but just sayin'.

[Optiow]

I was under the impression that Evo Morales has been a friend to the Bolivians since getting into power?

The way the articles I have read are written, it is saying that he has not actually helped the people since he got into office.

Is this view correct? Because I believed Morales to be a good person.

[FreeFocus]

I was under the impression that Evo Morales has been a friend to the Bolivians since getting into power?

The way the articles I have read are written, it is saying that he has not actually helped the people since he got into office.

Is this view correct? Because I believed Morales to be a good person.

For the most part, it isn't about the individual's personality, it's about the systematic superstructure in which he or she acts.

It's a mixed bag from my understanding. Morales has done some good things and in other ways he's fallen short.

[Optiow]

For the most part, it isn't about the individual's personality, it's about the systematic superstructure in which he or she acts.

It's a mixed bag from my understanding. Morales has done some good things and in other ways he's fallen short.
I understand. How has he fallen short though?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I was under the impression that Evo Morales has been a friend to the Bolivians since getting into power?To which Bolivians (Bolivia, like the rest of the world, having classes and all)?

Remember what Aristotle said, "A friend to all is a friend to none."

Is Evo Morales a "friend" to the working class? Does he have anything to do with the working class fight for emancipation?

We're talking about the head of a capitalist state, who rode to power on the backs of workers and peasants. The government was rendered ineffective, the economy was shut down, armed workers were in the streets of the capital yelling "Workers to power!" and this so-called friend's solution was to hijack that mass struggle and divert it back into the "acceptable" realm of bourgeois parliamentary politics. He then commenced to act as any capitalist state executive would. Don't worry though, spokespeople for his "Movement Toward Socialism" party have promised that after they're building "Andean capitalism" they will establish a socialist society... "at least 50 years from now."

[bcbm]

We communists sure like our delusion that economic collapse in the absence of a militant working class movement has a history of bringing about anything but fascism.

bolivia sounds like it has a pretty militant working class movement


and fascism occurred in countries with militant working class movements that were defeated, not absent.

[Jose Gracchus]

But without thorough organization and international solidarity [and reciprocity, in making the revolution elsewhere], Bolivian socialism would be strangled in its cradle.

[Tim Finnegan]

bolivia sounds like it has a pretty militant working class movement
I was responding to Maldoror's posing of concerted state-suicide as a universal road to socialism.


and fascism occurred in countries with militant working class movements that were defeated, not absent.Fair point. I should distinguish between bourgeois authoritarianism in its general form and the particular pseudo-revolutionary ideology of fascism.

[black magick hustla]

I was responding to Maldoror's posing of concerted state-suicide as a universal road to socialism.


of course not. right now its the militant working class against the bolivian state though.