JUVENTUDES LIBERTARIAS, BOLIVIA. 04-29-01
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Translation from the Spanish

The social upheaval that has hit Bolivia this week stems from issues that have remained unresolved for many many years and have affected society at its core.

Thousands of men and women, young and old, have gone onto the streets and roads to demand rights, food, shelter, education and justice. They have determined to take direct action to march because the current situation is chaotic and hopeless.

The uproar of protest is everywhere. Thousands of unemployed people have given up hope for the future; the worst kinds of financial calculations have come to dominate the thinking of those who administer the education system. Sources of finance for industry have dried up and production has slowed to nearly a standstill. The state is being managed with a desperate kind of improvisation. The health of the population has sunk to levels never seen before. The hungry people have resorted to direct action and have started to take their destiny into their own hands.

In these times, nobody in the country is sleeping easily. The corrupt government is tottering from the stupendous political, economic and social crisis that has battered it like a plague and threatens, not only to cut short the rule of the former dictator Banzer, but to destroy the state as we know it.

On Monday, April 9 of this year, a group of more than a thousand people began a march from Cochabamba toward the city of La Paz, a distance of 500 kilometers, or 310 miles. The march was initiated by the Coordinadora de Movilización Unica Nacional, COMUNAL (Unified National Mobilization Coalition).

COMUNAL has set forth an extensive program of demands that include the various demands of all of the different groups that were involved in the march for life and sovereignty. They are calling for changes in the laws that affect the lives of the country's disadvantaged groups--indigenous peoples, settlers, etc. They are demanding suspension of the coca eradication program in Yungas de La Paz (the area of traditional coca cultivation) and are opposing construction of barracks and military bases in the Yungas region and the rest of the country. And, among its more revolutionary demands are a call for annulling Decree 21060, which imposed neoliberal policies on Bolivia, and the capitalization law, which privatized all state enterprises. They are also fighting to end the criminal proceedings against labor unionists and freedom for those arrested. They are calling on financial institutions to forgive $20 million in debts owed by 30,000 small lenders, an investigation into fortunes accumulated, and for a campaign against corruption and wage inequities, among other things.

The government ordered six military-police assaults during 14 days of the march, but was unable to halt it until it had gone 400 kilometers and blocked vehicular traffic. In an open violation of the right to free movement and expression, the government brutally repressed the protesters, who nevertheless continued their march by way of the mountains, rivers and back roads.

Hundreds of people were imprisoned and tortured by the army and the police, but even so the march reached La Paz, amid the cheers and applause of the city's slum residents, who joined the workers, farmers, students, teachers, labor unionists and others on their way to the city center. There they set up a Popular Assembly, which resolved to start nationwide road blockages and to coordinate the demand for a change in economic policies, to make social demands and impose political solutions.

In a display of its true nature, the fascist, dictatorial and narco-racist regime pursued the toughest kind of repression, for several days attacking the weakened and exhausted crowd. A worker and an elderly woman were murdered and there were widespread beatings. In an official decree, the Minister of Government gave the military and the police carte blanche to kill, and guaranteed them total impunity against any and all charges.

In response to all of this the COMUNAL began organizing highway blockages in the coca producing areas and, starting at the beginning of May, blockades throughout the whole country. The Central Obrera Boliviana (Bolivian Workers Central, COB) called for an unlimited nationwide general strike, also at the beginning of May.

There is a wide range of groups in struggle. The combative Organización Nacional de Deudores (National Debtors Organization) has a membership of 30,000 small debtors, and calls for the burning of banks and debt forgiveness. There are also retired people, 250 of whom began a hunger strike four days ago. The teachers, starting on May 3, will be going on strike to defend public education. The truckers plan a series of escalating stoppages. Among the workers in general there is a total rejection of the current economic system and the political parties, a rejection of bourgeois democracy and a widespread call for President-General Banzer to leave office. In the 1970s, with support from the US government, Banzer headed a ferocious dictatorship that murdered hundreds of people, and exiled, tortured and imprisoned thousands more. With its repressive forces, during the four years of its "democratic" rule, the current regime has murdered more than fifty activists and gravely injured hundreds.

The situation is deteriorating seriously, and the working class is completely skeptical about any kind of leadership. Workers have pushed aside the labor union bureaucrats, who, in order not to be left behind, have radicalized their speeches. But, the people in struggle are already engaged in direct action, and they are not going to forego victory easily.

The leadership of the farmworkers is notable for demagogy. On the one hand, Felipe Quispe, "El Mallku," promises to enter the Palace of Government triumphantly in 90 days and proclaim the "first Indigenous state" on the continent. But at the same time he plays the game of government by using ambiguous language and boycotting the mobilizations of other groups. He has also been accused of working for the government. The other farmworker leader, Evo Morales, is a parliamentarian and reformist who has changed his rhetoric, under pressure from his supporters and out of a hunger to draw more attention to himself. Although the two leaders display irreconcilable personal antagonisms to each other, in their authoritarian, opportunistic politics they are quite brotherly.

The disorganized local anarchist movement has participated in many of the actions. Even though it is not very large, it has been notable for its commitment and the relevance of its ideas and practices.

The bourgeois regime is collapsing. The ruling class has become totally exhausted and is rotting amid corruption. More and more it is turning itself into the servant of the imperialists who have converted Bolivia into their plantation. The ordinary people can no longer tolerate the conditions of extreme poverty to which the structural crisis of capitalism has condemned them. The people have turned their backs on the bourgeois democratic farce; the electoral stunts of the politicos only make them angrier and more hostile. And on the horizon hovers the specter of popular insurrection that will bring with it the possibility of social revolution which can finish off the bourgeois regime.

The Banzer regime has the support of the US government, so, up to now it has not hesitated to militarize the country and arrange for a worker and farmer bloodbath. We call for international solidarity, because the struggle of the Bolivian workers is the struggle of all the world's workers. We all face the same enemy: capitalism and its states. It is urgent to spread word of the Bolivian struggles, to denounce the acts of the government at Bolivian embassies everywhere. Only the watchful eye of the international working class can deter the genocide that the bourgeoisie is preparing in Bolivia.