Despite repression and attempts to disperse the popular mobilizations, they continue to escalate. On May 21, the country's president, Rodrigo Paz, after a bloody intervention by the police and the army that failed to contain the uprising, hastily leaves the presidential palace, while the general strike lasts for more than two weeks. Already after the first repressive attack by the state on May 16, which resulted in 4 deaths, the struggle of the Bolivian people is spreading and radicalizing, mainly with the arrival in La Paz of thousands of indigenous people and farmers who travel enormous kilometers with the demand to abolish Law 1720, which was passed in April 2026 and introduced small landholdings into the financial system, weakening the historical protection of small landholdings in the country.
The role of the "Red Poncho" movement is also worth mentioning here. This is a historical movement of the indigenous Aymaras, for whom red is the color of war and who are at the heart of all the uprisings that have erupted in Bolivia since 2022. It should be noted that this movement has its own armed militias.On April 24, the government attempts to limit the conflict by concluding an agreement with CIDOB (Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia) to incorporate a new article into the law aimed at strengthening the protection of collective and indigenous lands. This agreement is rejected by the majority of indigenous and rural organizations as it does not modify the core of the law. The political authorities are forced to withdraw the law (and prepare a similar one), but the mobilizations continue and intensify.
Over time, the struggle becomes radicalized and other demands are raised related to galloping inflation, the economic crisis, and the lack of fuel. It eventually takes the form of a political avalanche that forces the country's president and Trump's chosen one to hastily leave the presidential palace.
Meanwhile, the COB (Central Organization of Bolivian Workers), for whose leader the government has issued an arrest warrant, is linked to mobilizations and blockades in many parts of the country, while thousands of workers from the working-class suburbs of El Alto are flocking to the capital.
And if the indigenous and rural organizations declare that their struggle is collective and not individual (after all, for the indigenous people the land has always been collective and their decisions equally), setting an example for the workers of the cities, the latter are discovering the power of collectivization and self-organization through the general strike that has been going on for two weeks.
For this reason, the authorities are forced to change their tactics towards workers and teachers (although many politicians are calling for the intervention of the army and the declaration of a state of emergency). More specifically, they are attempting, on the one hand, to split the front of the struggle, and on the other hand, to manipulate it in a direction that suits them better, that of former president Evo Morales, even if the latter has nothing to do with the uprising and is rather trying to calm the spirits.
In this context, it promises to compensate transporters for the engines of their vehicles due to the use of adulterated gasoline, while the Ministry of Labor concludes an "agreement" with the Confederation of Teachers - teachers are a social space where the struggle is more advanced and better organized -, an agreement based on which an annual bonus of 2,400 pesos is granted and promises of participation of the leaders in the preparation of a new bill on education in exchange for the cessation of mobilizations and strikes. However, the Union of Teachers of the Cities, which is the largest education union, rejects the agreement. In reality, it is a ridiculous "increase" of less than 2%, at a time when teachers and all workers are demanding increases of 20%.
Thus, the mobilizations continue and, through them, the fighters create self-organization structures. In the areas of El Alto, Senkata, Ventilla, Puente Vela, Puente Bolivia and in various other blocs, assemblies are held, spaces for discussion and collective decisions are created at the base of the neighborhood, the school, the factory. of rural communities as popular organs for the continuation of the struggle after the collapse of political power.
In a report by the newspaper Daily Left regarding the city of Cochabamba, it is reported that "the blockades remain in many places in the areas of Huayllani, San Isidro, Aguirre, Colomi. On the other hand, the Regional Base Organizations (OTB) of Quillacollo decided to coordinate the blockades so that transportation to the Cercado department is not possible. The number of blockades and self-organized assemblies in this province of 240,000 inhabitants with its capital in Cochabamba is innumerable. It is also worth mentioning that the old road to Santa Cruz is also blocked in the largest parts of Tiraque, including interprovincial roads such as those of Vacas."
All these forms of self-organization are in conflict with the national union and political leaderships that deceived the people during the mobilizations of December 2025/January 2026. where they had called the fighters to go home, after the government promised to satisfy their demands. It goes without saying that the government did not satisfy any of the demands.
An important symptom of these developments is that in the working-class suburbs of El Alto, in the highlands of La Paz, which usually played a decisive role in the country's labor mobilizations, forms of self-organization are beginning to emerge, even if embryonically.
For decades, the peasant and labor mobilizations in Bolivia have had a significant impact on all Latin American countries. And the current mobilizations are already finding echo in Argentina and Chile, strengthening the mobilizations there.
Besides, it is no coincidence that the Chilean government of Milley, with the support of Trump, sent two planes supposedly with "humanitarian aid" to break the blockade imposed by the strikers in La Paz, nor that it took the initiative of a "humanitarian democratic" declaration signed by 8 countries (Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru) to support the Bolivian government. All this, of course, before the hasty departure of the Bolivian president from the presidential palace.
Given that the eyes of the oppressed and struggling men and women of Latin America are focused on the Bolivian uprising, developments in this country may affect the stability and other regimes of South and Central America.
SOCIAL SELF-ORGANIZATION AT LOCAL, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL LEVEL
FOR THE BUILDING OF A WORLD OF FREEDOM, EQUALITY AND JUSTICE
FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION AND LIBERAL COMMUNISM!
https://landandfreedom.gr/el/diethni/2293-allileggyi-ston-eksegermeno-lao-tis-volivias
_________________________________________
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten