‘FOR many years the extreme right in Bolivia, based in the oil and gas rich east of the country and very much controlled by the local large landowners, has been seeking to undermine the government of President Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS).
They see themselves as the only rightful rulers, being the wealthiest in the country.
They consider themselves as the true descendants of the Spanish conquistadores untainted by “Indian” blood.
Their choice of these genocidal rapists as their forebears should be indication enough of their politics.
But the persistence of the Monroe Doctrine – which deems the whole of South America as “Uncle Sam’s backyard” – has been strengthened by any means, by the imperialist demand for unrestricted access and domination to all the world’s resources – e.g. see the cases of Iraq, Libya, etc, Venezuela for oil, Bolivia for our lithium, gas and many other natural resources – so it is a geopolitical issue.
To the generally ignorant, Morales represents the usual despot overstaying his welcome and cynically manipulating the bourgeois democratic norms to stay in power for power’s sake.
But Morales and the MAS (Movement for Socialism), represent much more than the parliamentary cretins of the democratic west and their suburban prejudices could possibly grasp.
Not just in Bolivia but in the whole of the developing world, as the western developers like to call it, there is a life and death struggle for just the right to have enough food, shelter, health and education provision.
Whenever a leader or movement emerges to challenge the status quo of exploitation and poverty, they are vilified and if possible overthrown.
The racism of the Carlos Mesa supporters and the Santa Cruz civic leader Luis Fernando Camacho, a well known supremacist with links to neo-Nazi activities while leading the Union Juvenil Crucenista, is there for all to see.
Their persecution of indigenous Bolivians, “Indios”, especially in the areas of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz in the eastern part and now poisoning the capital La Paz, has largely gone unremarked by the liberal media.
These outlets, rightly exercised by injustices such as the Windrush scandal, choose to sit on their hands when the same or worse happens in the developing world. Is it because it’s “only foreigners” involved?
In La Paz and other cities the racists have been chanting “The Indian must go” and “Kill the collas” (Indians).
Prior to Evo’s fall from power, in Cochabamba, the Mayor of Vinto, Patricia Arce, was assaulted by more than 500 fascists, forced to walk for miles barefoot, her hair cut off and red paint thrown all over her body and the Mayoral building set on fire.
At the beginning of November, the ultra right-wing purge got worse.
They began persecuting Evo’s supporters from the low and high ranks, trade unionists, Ministers and many other authorities who have worked with him, burning down their homes, threatening their families to be hanged or killed if they refused to sign their resignations, torturing some of their family members in public, ransacking and burning down Evo’s home as well as his sister’s home.
Barbarism in the 21st century! Will we one day get Justice?
In Cochabamba, during a peaceful protest against this de-facto government, indigenous women were violently attacked by paramilitary groups; our ancestral flag, the WHIPALA was ripped and burnt by the police and fascist mobs.
Then, like in colonial times the “golpistas” entered the Presidential palace holding a bible, disrespecting our ancestral roots, to subjugate the indigenous people who are the majority in Bolivia.
Soon after the killing machine started. The latest happened on Friday 15 November, in Sacaba, Cochabamba, during a peacul demonstration against the coup.
To date, there are around 26 dead, hundreds injured, and hundreds detained – the majority indigenous people.
The repression and racist attacks continue but the Bolivian people are fighting and resisting with sticks and stones, defenceless, against the killing machine of the army and the police.
Nobody is asking what happens to the poor, the working class, the peasants, or when or if the restraints on the wealthy, the military and the imperialist backed monopolies are removed and neo-liberalism lets rip.
The mixture of civic, police, militarist fascism, racism and US imperialism has fuelled the latest events in Bolivia.
We have an imperialist coup in Bolivia!
The struggle is not over. Bolivia with Evo Morales has lit a flame which will engulf not only South America but the whole of the world, and international solidarity is paramount right now.
Let’s keep supporting to the Bolivian people in their struggle against fascism and imperialism!
LONG LIVE BOLIVIA!!!
JALLALLA BOLIVIA!!!
HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!!!’
By Miriam Amancay Colque, Bolivian activist based in London, ex-trade unionist, founder of the Bolivian Solidarity Campaign, member of the Bartolina Sisa Resistance.
- Four more people have died in protests in Bolivia, raising the total number killed in the political unrest to 23, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said on Saturday.
The new deaths were announced after five protesters were killed in clashes with security forces on Friday in central Bolivia, a political stronghold of the exiled ex-president Evo Morales.
The Washington-based IACHR, a part of the Organisation of American States, also recorded 122 wounded since Friday.
While the rights commission counts nine dead over the past two days, the official government tally remains at five.
Interim leader Jeanine Anez’s cabinet chief Jerjes Justiniano told reporters on Saturday night that he would ask for ‘forensic doctors to speed up their work,’ but did not confirm a higher toll.
Fierce clashes between Morales’ supporters and police forces have been ongoing since Anez, 52, declared herself acting president last Tuesday.
The former deputy senate speaker took over the top job ‘to avoid a power vacuum’ – a move endorsed by the Constitutional Court.
The IACHR said it considers as ‘serious’ her decree of last Thursday authorising the armed forces to participate in maintaining order and exempting them from any criminal responsibility.
Morales, has condemned the measure as giving the state forces ‘carte blanche and impunity to massacre people.’