Bolivian state terrorism Date Mon, 6 Nov 2000 02:55:31 -0500 (EST) ________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________ from Libertarian Youth (Anarcho-Communist) In the past few months we Bolivians have experienced a social upheaval that has revealed, at its core, the strong desire and determination of the rural people to take control of their lives. The majority of those taking part in the insurgency were also pushed by the extreme poverty that prevails nationwide. The exploited and oppressed did their best to take their problems into their own hands and solve them. But they were thwarted by a combination of their lack of a clear revolutionary strategy and the role played by the reformists in stifling the flames of revolt. The social explosion has resulted in a stalemate: owing to its weakness, the government has not been able to drown the workers' power in blood. In fact, it has had to make concessions and adjust some of the bourgeois laws. This does not mean that the exploited are going to back down and disband; they still could begin the fight again because their poverty and oppression remain. The rural people who make their living by growing coca were among the most combative during the upheaval of recent months. Although the bureaucrats representing them were able to extract a few concessions from the bourgeois state, now the ordinary growers are paying dearly for the surrender to the politics of prohibition and the hypocrisy of bourgeois imperialism with regard to the war on drugs. About 40,000 families make their living cultivating coca for traditional use. They have no alternative but to sell their surpluses to drug-dealing mafias. In a country with very little industry, there are no other jobs they can find. It is no exaggeration to say that their only choice is coca growing or starvation. The state has militarized the coca-growing region; it has dispatched 12,000 troops and is threatening to unleash the army's elite corps on the farming population. It has launched a dirty war in which the leveling of fields, kidnapping, house burning, burglary and the jailing of unionists have become common. The state has gone so far as to have snipers fire upon unionists from helicopters supplied by the US Drug Enforcement Agency. The rural people have not remained indifferent to all of this. Though poorly equipped with old rifles and sticks of dynamite, they have used their self-defense committees to confront the government's show of force. Despite their rudimentary means of resistance, the government is now accusing them of maintaining training camps with the assistance of advisors from the Colombian FARC. Faced with the escalating repression, the farmers are prepared to die defending their fields and their families. The nation's other groups of workers have declared their solidarity and remain ready for battle. They are threatening to take to the streets and roads to resolve their own problems through direct action. Recent battles against the bourgeois government have given valuable experience, which, if assimilated, has the potential of strengthening the exploited and oppressed for the fights ahead. On the other hand, the absence of truly revolutionary organizations makes one fear an armed betrayal by the bureaucracies and a bloodbath. Juventudes Libertarias October 31, 2000 Contact: juventudes_libertarias@latinmail.com ******** ****** The A-Infos News Service ****** News about and of interest to anarchists ****** COMMANDS: lists@ainfos.ca REPLIES: a-infos-d@ainfos.ca HELP: a-infos-org@ainfos.ca WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/ INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org -To receive a-infos in one language only mail lists@ainfos.ca the message: unsubscribe a-infos subscribe a-infos-X where X = en, ca, de, fr, etc. (i.e. the language code)