Bolivia Explodes in Sharp Class Battle

[bolsheviki]

JUNE 1 – After three weeks of massive mobilizations, tens of thousands of workers and peasants besieged Bolivia’s central government plaza yesterday. Throughout the day, miners exploded dynamite and riot cops fired tear gas as the demonstrators fought to break through police lines to seize the center of La Paz and shut down the rightist-dominated Bolivian Congress. Up to 50,000 participated in the largest and fiercest protests since the “gas war” of October 2003. Government spokesmen threatened repression against labor leaders. The class battle is coming to a head, as the choice is posed: advance toward a revolutionary outcome or face defeat at the hands of the bourgeoisie, whether in “democratic” guise or through naked military force.

[Full Story] (http://www.internationalist.org/boliviaexplodes0506.html)
-bolshevik, on #che-lives

[bolshevik butcher]

Socialism continues to advance through south america. hopefully this time a real progressive, socialist government will emerge.

[Colombia]

This threat of a part of Bolivia seceding, any chance of this actually occuring?

[Clarksist]

Che is never in Bolivia when we need him!

Venezuala, Colombia, Greece, and now Bolivia is being over run with Leftists.

[bolshevik butcher]

Could well be. Socialism's really geting somewhere for the first time in a long time.

[FriedFrog]

Seems to be one of those 'Domino Effects' the Americans fear so much spreading through Latin America. It's good to see.

[bolshevik butcher]

Yeh, we actually have a domino effect in action and the americans can't stop it! :D

[RedAnarchist]

I'm really glad that its starting in Latin America. Latin America is not just where Che's ideals were forged, but it is also a place where so many are not as rich as the average Northern European/American.

Hopefully a few sparks from the Latino flame can land elsewhere as well.

[Latin America]

bolsheviki Posted: Jun 3 2005, 03:28 PM
"Up to 50,000 participated in the largest and fiercest protests since the “gas war” of October 2003"


I don't think so, I was there in 2003. Anyway Bolivia slowly is turning left politically, that's good!!! :D

[slim]

Wait a sec...

Columbia (probably backed by the USA) want to attack Venezuala,
Argentina are apparantly preparing to attack the Falklands (UK owned),
Bolivia is looking like revolution.

I can see this spiralling into a large war if it is conducted in the wrong way.

[GoaRedStar]

This Domino effect seen to be occuring because of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.


The same thing seen to have happen in Ecuador about month ago.


http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/ecuador_uprising210405.htm

[slim]

So...

Bolivia, Venezuala, Argentina, Equador.
Vs.
USA, Britain, Columbia.



I want to be on Bolivias side lol.

[chebol]

BOLIVIA: A week of upheaval
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/628/628p12.htm
Alison Dellit & Federico Fuentes

Monday May 23

On Monday May 23, around 10,000 coca growers, marched into El Alto, the capital of Bolivia, ending a 200-kilometre, four-day march led by the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), and its leader Evo Morales. Far from ending the protests, however, the cocaleros’ arrival kicked off more.

The marchers were demanding an increase in the royalties paid by transnational companies to the government for natural gas exploitation. This issue — who should benefit from Bolivia’s gas reserves, the second largest in Latin America — brought down one government, and is rapidly becoming a struggle over who controls the country. It has crystallised the divide between the vast, poor majority who want Bolivian resources to benefit them, and the US-led imperial empire that has the support of the country’s business elite.

After months of debate, a public referendum and threats from both mass organisations and big business, President Carlos Mesa allowed a new hydocarbon bill to be signed into effect on May 17. The bill imposed a tax of 32% on top of 18% royalties. However, this falls short of the proposal of 50% royalties put forward by MAS, and way short of the most popular option: nationalisation of the industry.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the gas transnationals, the Bolivian oligarchy and their most vocal supporters, the civic committee of Santa Cruz, have denounced the bill as too radical. The civic committee of Santa Cruz has announced its intentions to hold a referendum, with or without government support, on greater autonomy for the department (state), believing that this would enable it to control the gas reserves, which are located in the region around the wealthy, mostly white, city. The indigenous people on whose land the gas is located, however, are opposed to this.

Bolivia has a history of mass struggle and several well-defined mass groups. MAS, which grew out of the cocalero movement in the Chapare region, has a significant parliamentary presence. Morales missed out on election as president last time by 1.5%.

However, more radical are the demands of the altenos, members of the groups based on El Alto, the city that grew out of a shanty-town suburb of La Paz, and has a history of militant struggle against privatisation. The main groups in El Alto, FEJUVE (which unites around 600 neighbourhood committees), COR de El Alto (the Regional Workers Central of El Alto) and El Alto’s federation of trade unions, have been calling for nationalisation of the gas supply, and Mesa’s resignation, a demand supported by the Bolivian Workers Central (COB).

Green Left Weekly has abridged these reports of the week of struggle that started with the cocaleros arrival from journalists based in La Paz.

Jeffery Webber, New Socialist Group

FEJUVE timed the beginning of an indefinite general strike for Monday to coincide with the arrival of the MAS marchers. While the [MAS-led] march was met with something like a spirit of solidarity in El Alto, the radicalised population of this mostly indigenous, massive shantytown let the marchers know that [the altenos] were demanding, “neither 30% percent, nor 50% royalties — nationalisation!”

The first day of the strike was not as effective as many had hoped. Mobilisations were limited, the transportation union failed to participate, and all blockades were lifted when night fell. Buses travelling to other departments of the country from La Paz were able to leave without obstacles.

While El Alto's strikers were unable to shut down the international airport located in their shantytown, American Airlines cancelled all flights to La Paz and other airlines cancelled flights selectively.

At 2pm, after the marchers and various sectors of El Alto had wound their way down the mountainside to the centre of La Paz, an open meeting was held in the Plaza of Heroes. About 30,000 people attended. The divisions in the crowd and between Morales and the other speakers were palpable, however.

Participants included the Departmental Federation of Peasant Workers of La Paz, the peasant women’s federation Bartolina Sisa, the National Council of Ayllus and Marcas, the Federation of Colonizers of La Paz, the Federation of Petroleum Workers of Bolivia, the Landless Movement of Bolivia and COB.

Of the 16 core speakers, Morales was the only one who refused to call for the nationalisation of gas, instead focusing on demands for a Constituent Assembly, and denouncing Santa Cruz’s autonomy call. While Morales was speaking, the crowd of miners and COB affiliates around me were consistently trying to drown him out with calls for “Nationalisation!” and “Close the Parliament!”

COB leader Jaime Solares called for nationalisation, the closing of the parliament, and the resignation of Mesa. He also called on the examples of Venezuela and Cuba to inspire the crowd. In contrast, Morales asserted, “We are not asking for the closing of the Congress of the Republic because it is the symbol of Bolivian democracy.”

Roman Loayza, leader of the central peasant organisation of Bolivia (CSUTCB), and (dissident) MAS senator, called for the nationalisation of gas. He announced in the open assembly that the protesters would wait for four days for the government to invoke a Constituent Assembly, and if did not happen by then, “We will take power.”

The crowd dispersed after the speakers, and what would follow in the coming days was unclear to everyone. Morales was completely uninspiring, but the crowd seemed of a different mood.

Tuesday May 24

Jeffery Webber, New Socialist Group

This morning, more than 10,000, mainly Aymara peasants from the altiplano rural area around El Alto, marched to the Plaza Murillo in La Paz, demanding the nationalisation of gas. There they encountered metal barricades with a hoard of police behind them. At approximately noon, the peasants tried to enter the plaza, only to be temporarily dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets. In other confrontations near the plaza, however, cooperative miners — with the assistance of dynamite — were able to repel the police. The miners entered the plaza, followed by the peasants and a small group of coca growers from the Chapare region. They were quickly sent running by more tear gas and rubber bullets.

In El Alto, the second day of the general strike was much stronger than the first. Also, highways connecting La Paz to much of the rest of the country, as well as the borders of Chile and Peru, were blockaded.

In the afternoon, an emergency FEJUVE assembly was held of all presidents of each of the neighbourhood zones, from each of the nine districts of the city. The press were locked out while the first two hours of intense discussion and debate took place. Entering the assembly room when they called in the press, I was hit with the intense heat of 500 bodies cramped into a room that normally holds 300. The temperature perhaps reflected the sentiments of the neighbours gathered there. The memory of the dead and injured of the [October 2003 uprising over the gas issue that overthrew then president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada] was evident in the speeches.

The [proposals from] the various districts, many with near-unanimous support, were: the radicalisation of mobilisation measures starting Wednesday; the intensification of the general strike; and marches to La Paz [and support for the demands of] the nationalisation of gas; de Lozada to be tried for his crimes of October 2003; the resignation of Mesa; and the closing of the parliament.

Carlos Barrerra, president of District Eight, proclaimed, “We have an enormous responsibility. On our backs are the thousands and thousands of the poor. We need to proceed as in October (2003). All the movements in the streets need to unite for the one hundred percent recuperation of our natural resources!”

Meanwhile, in Sucre, Mesa declared that he will neither resign nor change the 2007 election date.

Wednesday May 25

Luis Gomez, NarcoNews

This morning, the Aymara came down marching from El Alto once again. This time it was a huge group divided into three parts: more than 5000 rural school teachers, then FEJUVE, and behind, battle-hardened, the Aymara peasant farmers. Downtown La Paz was paralysed all day long by mobilisations.

The FEJUVE leaders are still divided over whether to fight for nationalisation or to moderate themselves and avoid a national fight.

This morning the country had two “bombs” to digest for breakfast. The first fell last night in the southern city of Tarija, where the civic committees and the congressional delegations from four departments [joined nearby Santa Cruz in demanding] an immediate referendum on regional autonomy.

The second explosion, from the media: two lieutenant colonels appeared on a La Paz television station this morning, calling upon the people (and all their comrades in arms) to join the mobilisations, turning against the high military command and the Bolivian political class.

Julio Herrera and Julio Galindo kept coming back to the same message: they demanded the installation of what they called a “civic-military government” of transition, which would bring soldiers into defending natural resources, and the formation of a new government. Herrera, according to a report on the Radio Erbol website, said: “Initially, the government we want to form is one with the participation of all sectors of society, not a military government. We want the president's resignation and the closure of the Congress.”

A few hours later, in the Plaza of Heroes, a red banner appeared with black letters repeating almost the same message, which — and this is no coincidence — greatly resembled Monday's fiery speech by Jaime Solares.

Both the government and some social movements had accused Solares of having links to coup plotters. A little before 11am, the High Command of the Armed Forces issued a statement disowning Herrera and Galindo's arguments, advising both officials that they would be sanctioned for their “irregular military careers.”

“Brother, what do you know about these soldiers? We are very worried… this could all turn very bad”, said Gualberto Choque, executive secretary of the Tupaj Kitari Single Departmental Federation of Peasant Farmers of La Paz. Choque was out in front of his people again, together with the principal Aymara leaders. “We will not allow a coup, wherever it comes from, because that doesn't change things for us or our demands… we want peace, but a peace after they have left”, emphasized the campesino leader.

A young Aymara fighter asked us about the coup as well. I showed him a flyer that they have been passing out among the mobilisations. Directed to “all Bolivians and Latin American brothers”, and signed by a supposed “Civil-Military Alliance”, the document speaks of how “civilians and young soldiers, ‘Bolivians united', will share in the glory of liberating Bolivia from a government that has sold out to foreign interests.” The young protester, worried like everyone about the tensions we are living through, and faced with the uncertainty created by these soldiers and their civilian allies, bade farewell, saying, “These guys make us look bad”.

Friday May 27

Luis Gomez, NarcoNews

Yesterday, Bolivia celebrated the Catholic festival of Corpus Christi. Most organisations called a one-day truce, and the groups aligned with MAS extended the truce until next Tuesday. Since early today, there have been marches and confrontations in La Paz and El Alto, but a major new wave of protests is expected beginning Monday.

It was still dark out when the first dynamite blasts began in the La Paz neighbourhood of La Portada. The hillside shook for nearly two hours this morning: the rural public school teachers, in a lightning-fast action, blocked the highway in both directions with rocks.

The police, unprepared for the attack, were surprised by the teachers, who also razed the tollbooth for the highway connecting La Paz and El Alto. There was a confrontation and the police dispersed the teachers with teargas.

In the altiplano, blockades appeared. The rural Aymara, who since yesterday have returned from La Paz to their communities, are not only preparing even more road blockades, but have also announced that they will return to La Paz next Monday.

In the city of La Paz there were two marches led by women. The first was a march of urban schoolteachers from the department of La Paz, who have been on strike for days. The march had a brief confrontation with the police near Plaza Murillo, where the main government buildings are. The other march was led by the women of Bartilina Sisa and the Tropic of Cochabamba (in the Chapare region), who spent the day with Loayza.

Julio Herrera and Julio Galindo were forcibly retired from active duty yesterday afternoon, causing the climate to relax significantly, for now. There are rumours that the government plans to convene the Constituents' Assembly by decree on Monday, and organise negotiating commissions with all the mobilised sectors; all of this with the intention of dissolving the protests. It has also been insinuated that the Mesa administration is considering declaring a state of siege, but nothing has been confirmed.

When the education minister resigned, a rumor began to spread of a crisis within the cabinet, but nothing further happened today.

The ones making noise are the altenos. The assembly of neighbourhood FEJUVE presidents ended half an hour ago, with a general decision: the general strike/civic shut-down, which up to today has been very decisive, will be maintained throughout the weekend. There is no truce, and the neighbourhoods plan to keep it that way.

[The full accounts, as well as ongoing updates on the struggle, are available at http://www.newsocialist.org> and <http://www.narconews.com>. Jeffrey Webber’s account first appeared on Z-Net <http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm>.]

From Green Left Weekly, June 1, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

[Yazman]

Kickass&#33; This is some great information.

Chebol, thank you for the further information.

[Sabocat]

Bolivia rocked by mass protests over energy law
By Bill Van Auken
3 June 2005


Bolivia’s capital of La Paz has entered its second week of mass protests by workers, indigenous peasants and students demanding the nationalization of the country’s energy industry.

Meanwhile, the government agency responsible for maintaining the country’s roadways reported Wednesday that 60 percent of the country’s highways have been blocked, including all major routes into the capital. Peasants and rural teachers have piled rocks, logs and other materials across the roads. Truckers have also gone on strike, and food and fuel supplies are rapidly dwindling in the city.

La Paz has witnessed some of the biggest protests in the country’s history as tens of thousands of peasants, teachers, miners and other workers have poured into the city and laid siege to government buildings. Various reporters estimated the largest of the demonstrations at 50,000. Throwing sticks of dynamite and rocks, the demonstrators have confronted riot police using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon.

The sparks for these upheavals were the approval by Bolivia’s Congress of a new energy law last month and the drive by the country’s wealthier regions—backed by the oil companies and foreign capital—to achieve political autonomy.

The government of Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, who came to power after the October 2003 upheavals that toppled his Washington-backed predecessor, Gonzalo Sanchez Lozada (now in Miami exile), appears to be on the brink of collapse.

Mesa was Sanchez Lozada’s vice president, but distanced himself from him after government forces massacred scores of unarmed protesters, igniting insurrectionary conditions. Like his predecessor, he is a supporter of the policies of privatization, economic austerity and subordination to the transnationals that have left more than two-thirds of the population in poverty while creating unprecedented social polarization.

When the new energy law was passed in mid-May, Mesa, who opposed the measure from the right, sought to avoid responsibility and the political consequences by allowing the Congress to enact it without his signature.

The effect, however, has been far from what he intended. The additional taxes contained in the measure antagonized foreign companies that are reaping massive profits from the exploitation of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves. It also served to fuel the drive by the right-wing and wealthy elite based in the city of Santa Cruz to seek autonomy for the southern and eastern provinces, where the bulk of Bolivia’s oil and gas reserves are located.

At the same time, the law provoked the growing anger of the country’s impoverished majority, which sees control of the country’s natural resources as a means of ending decades of social misery.

Demands for Mesa’s resignation have come from the residents of El Alto, the impoverished working class city outside of La Paz, who have marched on Congress and the presidential palace. The same demand was made Wednesday by the head of the Eastern Agricultural Chamber, representing the country’s wealthiest landowners. Expressing ruling class impatience over Mesa’s failure to crush the revolt, he declared, “The president doesn’t have the pants to govern.”

The energy sector was privatized in 1996, falling under the effective control of foreign companies, including British Petroleum and British Gas, Total of France, Repsol YPF of Spain and Petrobras of Brazil. The scandal-plagued US corporation Enron previously held a major interest as well.

Since privatization, estimates of the country’s gas and petroleum reserves have increased dramatically to 53 trillion cubic feet, second only to Venezuela on the South American continent.

While the foreign companies have cried foul over the new law raising royalties and taxes, the privatization has left the key issue of setting the price of gas exports in their hands. Thus, Bolivian gas is exported at a cut rate, while the country is forced to pay market prices for any oil that it must import. Meanwhile, the royalties and taxes, whatever their percentage, are paid on a fraction of the real value of the resources that are being extracted from the country.

As a study prepared by the Center of Information and Documentation of Bolivia points out, these “sales” are in any case fictitious, with the gas passing from a Bolivian subsidiary of the Spanish energy giant Repsol, for example, to an Argentine or Chilean subsidiary of the same corporation.

“Under these conditions, once Bolivian gas crosses the border, it is converted into thermo-electricity, liquefied natural gas, methanol (bound for the US and Europe) and other petrochemical products, which allows the transnationals to reap enormous profits at Bolivia’s expense,” the study declares.

The militancy of the demonstrations has gone far beyond the intentions of the existing opposition leaderships. The Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) headed by the coca growers leader Evo Morales has failed to press the nationalization demand, calling instead for an increase in the royalties paid by the foreign companies from 18 percent to 50 percent—a rate roughly equivalent to the royalties paid on British oil.

“A law has already been passed and therefore it is not an issue for the Congress,” MAS legislator Antonio Peredo told the Argentine daily Clarin. “According to the constitution, nationalizations are the prerogative of the executive branch through a supreme decree.”

As he spoke, tens of thousands—including much of the MAS’s own base—were marching in La Paz and other parts of the country demanding nationalization. An ever-wider layer of Bolivian society, including organizations representing teachers, health workers and bakers as well as the federation of neighborhood associations, has endorsed the demand.

Morales, whose party won 19 percent—the largest share—of the vote in the last municipal elections and is the second largest block in the Bolivian Congress, played a central role in politically disarming the mass movement that erupted in 2003 and allowing Mesa’s installation as the new president.

Attempting to play the same role in the current crisis, the MAS reached a vague agreement with the ruling party Wednesday to organize a simultaneous debate over the two contradictory demands of autonomy and the convening of a constituent assembly.

The deal was struck between party leaders, as the Congress could not be assembled because of the masses of demonstrators who have taken over the center of the capital.

The demand for a referendum on autonomy, put forward by representatives of the wealthy class of farmers, landlords and bankers who dominate the Santa Cruz region, is aimed at striking a separate bargain with the foreign corporations at the expense of the rest of the country. The call for a constituent assembly is aimed at forestalling such a referendum, and is backed by the MAS and other opposition forces based in the west of the country.

An indication of the explosive tensions over these issues—and the improbability that they will be resolved through a legislative compromise—came in the form of a violent clash in the city of Santa Cruz on Wednesday. A march made up predominantly of indigenous peasants demanding the convening of a constituent assembly was set upon by armed fascist thugs of the Santa Cruz Youth Union. Leaders of the peasant group issued a statement declaring, “We will not allow the aggression of the fascists. We will return, and the next time we will be ready to repel all aggression.”

The Bolivian Workers Federation, or COB, the country’s main trade union organization, criticized the congressional deal. “To trade nationalization for the constituent assembly is a betrayal,” said Jaime Solares, the COB executive secretary, who added a demagogic threat to “burn the parliament” if Congress did not approve a nationalization law.

The COB leader, however, has advanced no independent alternative. On the contrary, he recently declared his hope that a government headed by “a patriotic and honest military officer” would replace Mesa. He said he was willing to accept the rule of a “colonel or a general” who he hoped would be like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. When he made this view public before a rally of workers, Solares was met with a resounding cry of “no&#33;”

The historical record of the COB’s misleadership includes its subordination—backed by the revisionist Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) of Guillermo Lora—of the working class to the “left” military ruler Gen. Juan Jose Torres at the beginning of the 1970s. His short-lived regime paved the way to the seizure of power by the right-wing dictator Gen. Hugo Banzer in 1971, ushering in a long period of brutal military dictatorship.

That the military will intervene is a real possibility. The head of the Bolivian armed forces, Admiral Luis Aranda, was compelled to make a public statement denying “coup preparations” by the military. He also repudiated a pair of lieutenant colonels, calling themselves the Generational Military Movement, who advocated Mesa’s replacement with a “revolutionary” government composed of “all sectors” of Bolivian society. Both officers were sacked.

MAS leader Morales, meanwhile, reported that elements of the Santa Cruz bourgeoisie were conspiring with sections of the military to bring about a right-wing coup aimed at crushing social protest.

For its part, the Bush administration has made it clear that it is following the Bolivian events with growing alarm. “We are very concerned about serious challenges to Bolivia’s stability from radical opposition groups that threaten the country’s hard-won gains in democracy, economic development, and the fight against drug trafficking,” Jonathan Farrar, a US State Department official in charge of international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, testified before a Congressional subcommittee May 25.

Meanwhile, Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said Wednesday that Washington was “in contact with the [Bolivian] government, we are also in contact with other nations that are very concerned and worried by the situation there.”

This last reference was apparently to the governments of Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil. While both have postured as “left” alternatives to Washington’s policies in Latin America, their governments are participants in the exploitative relations worked out between the foreign oil companies and the Bolivian regime. Likewise, they both fear the potential domestic impact of a continuing revolutionary crisis in Bolivia.

Boucher added that US discussions with the besieged government of Carlos Mesa were on the “security situation, about the situation as regards democracy and maintaining the democracy in Bolivia.”

As elsewhere in the world, this US struggle for “democracy” translates into maintaining or installing regimes that assure the unfettered operations of the multinationals and US access to cheap energy supplies. That these aims could be furthered through such undemocratic means as Washington’s backing a seizure of power by the Bolivian military is a real danger.

The entire Andean region is a tinderbox, as evidenced by last April’s ouster of the pro-US President Lucio Gutierrez by mass protests in Ecuador and the mounting unrest confronting the deeply unpopular regime of Peru’s President Alejandro Toledo. Under these conditions, Washington sees the Bolivian events as a serious threat.

Link (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/boli-j03.shtml)

[Yazman]

Thanks for the update, Disgustapated.

[redstar2000]

Bolivian protesters vow to go on

June 6th--

Demonstrators in Bolivia have rejected calls by the widely respected Catholic Church to end their protests.

Thousands are expected to march on the main city, La Paz, on Monday where they plan to hold a popular assembly.

Cardinal Terrazas asked protesters to "end the pressure tactics that for weeks have choked the residents of La Paz and have hurt most of all the poor".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/americas/4613119.stm

They need to sack a few cathedrals while they&#39;re at it&#33; :angry:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Fuck the Catholic Church&#33; They have never stood for anything progressive or rational&#33;

I will be watching this with interest.

[Hefer]

Fuck the Catholic Church&#33; They have never stood for anything progressive or rational&#33;


Don&#39;t you remember Liberation Theology gonig around the 80&#39;; besides it&#39;s not a good idea for the church to get into public affairs.

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 06:31 PM
Wait a sec...

Columbia (probably backed by the USA) want to attack Venezuala,
Argentina are apparantly preparing to attack the Falklands (UK owned),
Bolivia is looking like revolution.

I can see this spiralling into a large war if it is conducted in the wrong way.
Fortunately, there is no way America can wage a war against these countries. Britain would not join America on yet another war, it would be political suicide. Columbia is an unreliable ally, as the country itself already has the FARC who are quite militarily powerful, so their army would not be able to defeat Venezuela. And of course, America&#39;s army is stretched thin already from the war on terror. It can&#39;t afford to lose more soldiers in an even bigger war, where it will certainly face popular resistance. Especially as leftist movements are strong in Mexico and throughout latin America.....it would spark off revolution across the continent.

And as Vietnam showed, America cannot handle popular guerilla resistance in a jungle environment in one country, nevermind a continent. Attempting to suppress this reaction to Capitalist dominance would lead to America&#39;s military being severely damaged.

[chebol]

Bolivia on the brink
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/629/629p14.htm
James Lehrer, La Paz

After three weeks of mobilisations in defence of Bolivia&#39;s gas reserves, the country&#39;s political crisis continues to deepen. A June 2 attempt to quash the crisis by President Carlos Mesa, by calling elections for a new assembly, and for a referendum on autonomy for the country&#39;s wealthier provinces, has done little more than enrage his opponents.

Demanding “nationalisation now”, a seemingly endless series of marches, strikes and blockades have saturated La Paz. In a city where few people normally smoke, people are everywhere drawing on cigarettes, applying the Bolivian antidote to tear gas.

Bolivia, regarded as the poorest nation in South America, is located on top of the second biggest gas reserve in the continent. For Bolivia&#39;s poor, this huge natural wealth poses a real way out of their poverty and misery.

This peoples&#39; offensive follows a 19-month long public debate, including a referendum, since the “gas war” uprising in October 2003, which overthrew the previous president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Lozada was responsible for signing gas contracts with transnationals that almost gave away Bolivia&#39;s gas.

Lozada&#39;s vice-president at the time, Mesa came to power promising to implement the “October Agenda” — nationalisation of the gas, the trial of those responsible for 67 deaths in the uprising, and a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution as a way of refounding a new Bolivia: this time involving the indigenous majority.

The latest protest wave was sparked by Mesa’s May 17 decision to allow a new hydrocarbon bill, increasing taxes on multinationals but falling far short of popular demands, to be signed into effect. In response, tens of thousands protested, most now calling for nationalisation of gas, the resignation of Mesa and the formation of a new Constituent Assembly to replace the National Congress.

Escalating protest

In the days leading up to Mesa’s June 2 announcement, La Paz was host to escalating protest. A general strike initiated

by the powerful Federation of Neighbourhood Committees of El Alto (FEJUVE) has grown in strength since May 23. Traffic has been prevented from entering or leaving la Paz, and travel to and from Chile and Peru has been shut down. El Alto, the city that grew out of a shanty-town suburb of La Paz, has been the site of some of Bolivia’s most radical protests.

On May 30, behind the banner of the El Alto Regional Workers&#39; Federation (COR — El Alto) 10,000 workers and street merchants descended on La Paz, their determined approach announced via dynamite blasts. This contingent was followed by a similarly sized contingent of Aymara indigenous peasant farmers. Thousands more cocaleros (coca farmers) from the Chapare region, aligned with MAS, also reached La Paz to join the 10,000 who had arrived the week before. At midday, an assembly was held to reaffirm the main demands.

On May 31, the National Congress was scheduled to meet in Plaza Murillo, which is in effect a militarised zone. The session was ostensibly held to discuss the demand of the wealthier provinces of Santa Cruz and Tarija for a referendum on autonomy.

This autonomy movement is an attempt by the European-descended elite of the east and the south, where the gas reserves are located, to get greater control over the resources and insulate themselves from the political influence of the western indigenous movements. The gas oligarchy, based predominately in Santa Cruz is also opposed to the new hydrocarbon law — because it claims it breaches the Lozada-signed contracts and amounts to “confiscation”.

To greet the congress, around 50,000 protesters filled the streets, bringing La Paz to a standstill. Given the severe economic insecurity facing most Bolivians, and the huge distances travelled to reach la Paz, this indicated a massive groundswell of opposition. This was, in part, a response to Mesa commenting that nationalisation is demanded by a “minority”, and that those leading the movement were “irresponsible”.

One of the key leaders of the movement, Evo Morales from the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), whose base is in the cocalero movement, asked his supporters to respect the congressional session.

Other sections of the movement including students from the Autonomous Public University of El Alto, tested the police barricades, receiving doses of tear gas for their efforts.

The Aymaras from El Alto and the surrounding rural areas, peasants from the south of La Paz, miners and public school teachers marched to the rich suburbs in the south of the city. Some of the El Alto neighbourhoods, together with the Aymara peasant farmers of the Omasuyos province, shut down Plaza Isabel la Catolica, 50 metres from the United States embassy.

Congress suspended

By 8pm, the expected session of the National Congress was suspended, leaving the issues of the autonomy referendum and the Constituents&#39; Assembly undecided. MAS parliamentarians had demanded that legislative work begin, but the majority of the right-wing representatives did not attend the session, staying inside their hotels instead.

In the afternoon, the university students and the Movement of Unemployed Workers built barricades in the Plaza of Heroes, with the intention of blockading this key traffic hub for the night. The police responded with a massive dose of tear gas, chasing protesters up the steep cobblestone streets that climb the hills surrounding La Paz. There are also reports of several injuries from low-caliber “crowd-control” bullets.

On June 1, the people again descended on La Paz, though in smaller numbers, while the National Congress was suspended for the second consecutive day. Despite this the leaders of the political parties, including MAS, reached an agreement, dubbed the “National Accord for Bolivia”, to discuss the organisation of a Constituent Assembly and the right wing&#39;s demand for regional autonomy.

Cracks in the police?

In another key development, cracks began to appear in the loyalty of the police force. Bolivian police are poorly paid, mainly of indigenous origin, and many live in the shanty town of El Alto. On June 1 the media began reporting news of a mutiny within the police, specifically within Regiment No 1.

While the government denied the reports, an officer from that regiment called Radio Erbol and stated that his regiment had decided by consensus to stop going into the streets “to gas our women and our own children”. He went on to demand “total nationalisation of the hydrocarbons”. The government has in the past shipped in police from other regions to ensure they are prepared to fire on protesters.

Meanwhile, protests have begun to spread to most of the other departments, with an estimated 60% of major highways being blockaded. Large demonstrations were held in Cochabamba, and the Departmental Workers Confederation of Potosi called for an indefinite general strike starting June 2. In Santa Cruz a march of indigenous peoples was violently attacked by fascist Cruzista Youth Union. A 48-hour strike from June 2 of bus drivers cleared the streets of traffic. Many shops didn’t open.

Too little, too late

On the evening of June 2, after three days of deadlock in Congress, Mesa used his executive powers to convoke an election of a new Constituent Assembly and a national referendum for autonomy to be held on October 16. Although he clearly believed this would satisfy both the right-wing and the left-wing, it did neither.

The following morning, the people of El Alto, the altenos, responded to Mesa’s announcement by building ditches around the gas plant to prevent fuel from reaching La Paz. Marches continued in the city, calling for nationalisation and a constitutional assembly. Meatpackers marched down from El Alto — the buses were on strike — and 1000 peasants from the altiplano around El Alto also arrived. According to Luis Gomez from Narconews <http://www.narconews.com>, the workers were singing “Now there will be civil war”.

Even Morales, who had previously proposed a similar “joint vote” plan to Mesa, has condemned the announcement, arguing it was an illegal attempt to stop the protests, and would not resolve the issues.

Right-wing backlash

Nor is the right-wing happy. Declaring that the president had “decided to oppose the country”, the Santa Cruz Civic Committee has called its own referendum, to be held on August 12. A June 3 statement on the website of the pro-autonomy Camba Nation Movement, announced that Santa Cruz representatives would only attend an assembly “under an agreement where they recognize that Santa Cruz (and other nearby provinces) constitute an ‘associate free state’ with Bolivia, possessing full sovereignty”.

However, the indigenous communities in the region that would be in the “associate free state” do not support the autonomy movement. Responding to the secession threats, the Assembly of the Guarani people, on whose land much of the gas is actually located, announced on June 3 it would join the protests for nationalisation and a constituent assembly.

In other developments, on June 1 the minister of government, Saul Lara, filed conspiracy charges against the two lieutenant colonels who last week called for a military uprising. The two had called for a “civic-military government” of transition, which would be responsible for nationalising Bolivia&#39;s gas. Julio Herrera, one the lieutenant colonels, according to a report on the Radio Erbol website, called for the formation of a government with “all sectors of society, not a military government”.

At the same time, two leaders of the upsurge — Jaime Solares, leader of the Bolivian Workers&#39; Federation (COB) and Roberto de la Cruz, an Aymara member of the El Alto city council and a key figure in the October 2003 uprising — were also charged with alleged involvement in the coup, signalling the first serious attempt at criminalising movement leaders.

The streets are daily filled with circles of protesters discussing enthusiastically what to do next, indicating that they have no intention of leaving the streets any time soon.


From Green Left Weekly, June 8, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

[Severian]

Bolivian president submits resignation to Congress (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B718345.htm)

A symptom of the strength of the movement, as well as an effort to dissipate it through evasions.

Just curious, but why is the military in Bolivia, a landlocked country, headed by an Admiral?