Bolivia

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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 19, 2022 2:09 pm

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Coup d’etat II Case in Bolivia
February 16, 2022
By Romina Guadalupe González Ramos – Feb 15, 2022

The object of this article is to provide real and reliable information regarding the so-called Coup d’etat II case in Bolivia.

“Coup d’etat II” refers to the trial that is being carried out against former senator Jeanine Áñez, who declared herself the president of Bolivia, on November 12, 2019, without meeting all the necessary institutional requirements to do so, and who is currently been accused of a breach of duties and resolutions contrary to the Constitution, when she assumed the Bolivian presidency via a coup d’état. Añez is on trial together with her former Chief of the Armed Forces Flavio Gustavo Arce and former commanders Pastor Mendieta (of the army), Gonzalo Terceros (of the air force) and Palmiro Jarjury (of the armed forces). There are also two fugitives who have not been brought to justice so far: former Police Commander Yuri Calderón and former Commander of the Armed Forces Williams Kaliman.

The legal proceedings against Áñez and the other defendants have been carried out under the principle of independence of the branches of the government, and falls on the judicial authorities of Bolivia. The accused have been offered all the judicial guarantees offered by both the Bolivian Constitution and the international human rights mechanisms. So far, the trial has been carried out respecting the rules of fair trial, with the presumption of innocence and with due process.

Áñez has been accused of committing criminal offenses of non-compliance with her duties and for executive resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the laws typified in articles 153 and 154 of the penal code of Bolivia.

The trial is based on a document of indictment, in which it is stated that former senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself, firstly, president of the Senate, and then president of Bolivia, without respecting the rules and procedures for succession of mandate according to the Constitution.

The accusation states that Áñez executed an order contrary to the regulations of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP), violating the Constitution and the Senate regulations in the following circumstances:

The necessary and sufficient quorum did not exist in the ALP when Áñez proclaimed herself President. Nor was a session called to debate or approve the resignations, made verbally, of the President of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra, and the Senate Vice President, Rubén Medinacelli.
Áñez colluded with both the Armed Forces and the Police to surround the ALP building so that the assembly members of the Movement for Socialism (MAS), which had two-thirds of the seats in the ALP, could not enter the chamber.
The election of a majority representative could not have been carried out in the ALP at that time, since ex-Senator Áñez belonged to a minority force in the legislative.

The plaintiffs in the trial are the current President of the Senate, Andrónico Rodríguez; the lawyers of the Ministry of Government, Daniela Zabala, Belen Luna and Julissa Duran; and lawyers from the Attorney’s Office, Juan Clemor, Javier Zabalaga and Miguel Angel Chumacero.

The veracity of the facts in the Coup d’état II case makes it clear that in Bolivia there is no political persecution as Mrs. Áñez would have us believe through a deliberate disinformation media campaign carried out by her and her relatives, together with other agents and supporters who were part of the disastrous November 2019 coup.


Featured image: Former de facto president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, is now under trial for her role in the 2019 coup. Photo: HispanTV

(HispanTV)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

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Bolivia’s Government Returns Fleet of Venezuelan Automobiles Stolen by Guaidó´s Minions
January 18, 2022

According to the Minister of the Presidency, Carlos Eduardo del Castillo, authorities from the Plurinational State of Bolivia delivered a fleet of vehicles to Venezuela which had been stolen by representatives of Juan Guaidó during “diplomatic meetings” which took place under the dictatorship of Jeanine Añez.

The President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, explained that Guaidó’s web of lies, concocted to overthrow the government of Venezuela, was supported by the regime which briefly took power in Bolivia after the coup d’état against Evo Morales.

“We delivered the keys to Venezuelan diplomatic personnel,” wrote Minister Castillo on social media. “The recovered vehicles which were stolen by Juan Guaidó’s lackeys from the embassy of Venezuela in Bolivia during their 2019-2022 meetings with the Añez regime.”

More than 34 vehicles were stolen by the personnel placed by Guaidó in La Paz, during the time that they worked with the dictator Jeanine Añez. However, of those 34 vehicles, only 15 of them have been recovered so far.

Other stolen goods

Minister Castillo also noted that a powerful antenna belonging to a Venezuelan communications company was also stolen, together with a firearm and ammunition. These items were recovered. In addition, they have found more communications and broadcasting equipment stolen from the Venezuelan embassy in Bolivia.

“On different occasions, through several raids, we have been able to recover some of the 34 vehicles which were stolen and then sold by those foreign actors who illegally entered in our country,” explained the government official.

He added that an individual identified as Cesar Hernández, a former employee at the embassy, was responsible for the illegal acquisition of four of the vehicles which were then sold using false documents, and that other individuals were complicit in the crime.

Similarly, Castillo explained that the authorities are still carrying out the investigation in order to find the safe houses where the rest of the cars, property of the Venezuelan government, are hidden. “In the name of the government and people of Bolivia, we deeply lament the damage inflicted on our peoples by Añez and Guaidó,” he declared.

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivias-gov ... s-minions/

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Colombian Mercenaries Involved in Attempted Assassination of Luis Arce after 2020 Elections in Bolivia
October 20, 2021

Añez regime’s top officials and foreign mercenaries plotted to assassinate Luis Arce before he could assume charge as the President of Bolivia.

On Monday, October 18, the Bolivian Minister for the Interior, Eduardo del Castillo informed that Colombian mercenaries were involved in an assassination attempt against Luis Arce in 2020.

Del Castillo presented audiotapes, emails, and documents showing that former Defense Minister Fernando López of the coup regime led by Jeanine Áñez had contact with illegal groups that were planning a new coup d’état in Bolivia.

Minister del Castillo named Germán Alejandro Rivera García, a Colombian citizen who entered Bolivia on October 16, 2020, and was part of the plot. Rivera is currently under arrest for the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.


Contacts between the Bolivian far-right and foreign mercenaries were facilitated by Colombian Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, who organized a “business trip” to Bolivia before the end of the 2020 presidential elections, in which Luis Arce was the candidate for Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. He was accompanied by Venezuelan Antonio “Tony” Intriago, owner of Miami-based CTU Security that hired the Colombian mercenaries who killed Moïse. Currently, both Pretel and Intriago are accused of being the intellectual authors of the assassination of Jovenel Moïse.

The then Commander of the Armed Forces, General Sergio Orellana was also involved with the plan. The plotters, headed by López who is currently hiding in Brazil, were prepared to hire 300 people for the assassination plan against Luis Arce and expected foreign intervention in their support, as leaked audios published by The Intercept revealed earlier in the year.


Disagreements between the ministers and divisions inside the Bolivian Armed Forces seem to have thwarted the plan. Arce’s popularity after the elections also appears to have influenced the decision to abandon the plan.

“We know what you have done, and we know what you are doing,” Minister del Castillo said, referring to the coup-mongering opposition, as he presented the evidence at a press conference on Monday. “We ask all of you to stop and respect the rules of democracy and this country’s institutions. We will not allow you to murder and steal the people’s democracy once more.”

President Luis Arce commented on the revelations during his participation at a summit of social movements in La Paz on Monday. “They wanted to make an attempt on my life,” stated President Arce. “To those right-wing murderers, we are going to respond with a phrase from [historic Bolivian socialist leader] Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz: We know that sooner or later they will make us pay for what we are doing; we are willing to pay that price, we are always willing.”


Featured image: Eduardo del Castillo, Bolivian minister for the Interior, presents evidence of assassination plot on Luis Arce before he could become the president of Bolivia. Photo: Twitter / @AymaraRadio

(Telesur English) with Orinoco Tribune content

https://orinocotribune.com/colombian-me ... n-bolivia/
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Tue Apr 12, 2022 1:52 pm

Evo Morales denounces campaign against the MAS in Bolivia

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Evo Morales said that months ago they tried to implicate him and Percy Fernández in the case of ghost items in exchange for freeing detainees in Palmasola. | Photo: @evoespueblo
Published 11 April 2022

The former president urged to beware of government infiltrators who try to discredit the MAS.

The former president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, denounced this Sunday that a campaign is being orchestrated to discredit leaders of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) of the Tropic of Cochabamba, based on alleged links with drug trafficking.

Morales also warned that there are infiltrators in the MAS government itself who promote this campaign.

"A national and international campaign to discredit the Tropic of Cochabamba area to discredit its leaders and director", among which is the former president.


Evo suggested that the United States Drug Control Administration (DEA), as part of some ministry, tries to implicate and demonize the peasants of the Tropics.

In turn, he recalled that a year ago a police captain tried to involve him in the ghost item case through a detainee in Palmasola, whom he tried to persuade. In turn, he tried to link the event, in the same way, to the former mayor of Santa Cruz Percy Fernández.

“A captain from La Paz went to speak with the detainees in Palmasola for the case of ghost items and they told one of them, you, implicate Evo and Percy Fernández in ghost items, if you do that, you will go free. Until now I try to find out who gave that order, who told that police captain to do that, "he said on local radio.


The MAS leader also assured that an attempt was made to link the authorities of the Cochambamba Tropics to illegal acts. "Companero Loza, Andrónico, deputy Pardo, was tried to link them with former police chief Rojas, a fugitive from Justice," he said.

Morales expressed surprise at the case of narcoaudios, since the existence of arrest warrants against some former police chiefs was announced, which have not yet been executed.

He stated that it was necessary to take care of the Ministry of Government, in clear reference to the complaints that ended with the dismissal of the former commander of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (Felcn), José María Velasco, for the case of the narcoaudios, made known by the last Monday.

“It is not understood why the arrest warrants are not executed. We don't understand that. But, the most important thing is that we disrupted an illicit act with which they wanted to link the Tropics”, he added.

He accused José Quiroga and Luis Fernando Camacho of having appointed former de facto president Jeanine Áñez as head of security, who recently held the position of director of the Felcn.


He also indicated that, despite the lack of confirmation, Velasco is one of the policemen who negotiated the 2019 coup with the father of the governor of Santa Cruz.

“This colonel was the one who picked up Jeanine Áñez from the El Alto airport when she arrived from Beni, before assuming the Presidency. He was a coup leader, a pitita, within the Ministry of Government. The best way to help Luis Arce is to get the coup plotters out. Where they are, we don't know. These people must be removed. There is no division, as the right says”

According to the former head of state, a former commander of the Armed Forces gave him a list of names of people who would be seeking to link them to drug trafficking events, but Morales did not specify information in this regard.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/expdte-b ... -0003.html

Bolivia will host the first Latin American forum on lithium

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The first regional forum held to exclusively address the issue of lithium and the challenges it represents for Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. | Photo: MHE
Published 11 April 2022

The event will examine the issue of lithium and its challenges in the development of exploitation and industrialization projects.

The Bolivian Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy announced this Monday that the South American nation will host the first regional forum, Lithium Perspectives from Latin America, to be held on April 13, 2022.

In this sense, the event seeks to generate a space for analysis and exchange of experiences and technological innovation of the Bolivian country with Argentina, Chile and Mexico, who are the main accredited.

Likewise, the nations will address the challenges of the development of the lithium industry in the region; as well as the possibility of creating strategic bilateral and multilateral cooperation alliances to optimize the use of lithium in the energy transition.


“This forum will allow the elaboration of a work agenda with Argentina, Chile and Mexico to identify the potential that we have among the four countries, through lithium resources, for the sustainable and inclusive development of the countries of Latin America, within the framework of the energy transition”, stated the Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy, Franklin Molina.

It should be noted that Latin America is the main objective of the large companies that invest in projects to industrialize the resources of the salt flats, especially lithium; since the region has 62 percent of the total world reserves of evaporite.


According to the Bolivian Hydrocarbons and Energies portfolio, lithium resources from the salt flats of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile account for nearly 90 percent of the world total.

The regional forum will be attended by the director of the Natural Resources Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Jeannette Sánchez Zurita; the Chilean Mining Minister, Marcela Hernando; the Secretary of Energy of Argentina, Darío Martínez; and the Secretary of Energy of Mexico, Rocío Nahle García.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/bolivia- ... -0034.html

Google Translator

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Bolivia to Rescue Peru Amid Fertilizer Crisis
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 4, 2022

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Bolivia will export fertilizer to PeruBolivia’s state-owned fertilizer plant will massively boost sales to Peru as President Pedro Castillo faces strikes and mobilizations over fertilizer shortages. The urea and ammonia plant in the Trópico of Cochabamba is set to cover half of what Peru has lost since Western sanctions on Russia began.

Peru’s Agriculture Minister, Oscar Zea, told the press on Sunday that, “We need 1.4 billion Soles [worth of fertilizer]; we have talked with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, where it was agreed that we are going to purchase this from Bolivia. They are close, and they now have 700 million Soles [worth of fertilizer] in available stock.”

Peruvian campesino unions are taking strike action across the country over the rising costs of fuel and fertilizer. Peru imports almost all its fertilizer from Russia which is now sanctioned by the US and the EU.

During the first quarter of this year, Peru imported 18,000 tonnes of urea. During the same period in 2021, the country imported 190,000 tonnes. The massive shortfall has caused prices to skyrocket.

Bolivia’s state-owned urea and ammonia fertilizer plant is in the town of Bulo Bulo, Trópico of Cochabamba. It was opened by the government of Evo Morales, but was then closed along with most state industries following the US-backed coup in November 2019. It was re-opened in September 2021 by Luis Arce’s government.

Bolivia’s prosecutor’s office has recently requested an eight-year jail sentence for the coup regime officials involved in closing the plant. Those accused are; Víctor Hugo Zamora, former Minister of Hydrocarbons, and Herland Javier Soliz, former president of YPFB (state gas company). The accused will face justice for the crime of “breach of duties and uneconomic conduct” which is punished with a custodial sentence by the penal code.

To see how a newly strengthened Peru-Bolivia strategic relationship is allowing Bolivia to take its products to overseas markets, read here.

Kawsachun News

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Mass Strikes in Peru Over Fuel & Fertilizer Costs

Strikes in Junin, PeruStrikes by transport workers and campesino unions have broken out across Peru against the rising cost of fuel and fertilizers. Western sanctions on Russia have aggravated the problem by causing global shortages of these commodities. Protesters accuse President Pedro Castillo of ‘betrayal’ for failing to deliver on election promises.

Protests began eight days ago in the Andean city of Huancayo, Junín. The chant “Castillo, listen, the people reject you” has been ringing out among campesinos there who say they feel “betrayed”. Today, unions in the northern, central, and southern regions of the country will join the strikes. Mobilizations are expected both in rural areas and in large cities such as Cusco, Trujillo, and others.

The Junín region is the bastion of the socialist Peru Libre. Castillo was its candidate but he has since deserted the party after pivoting towards centrist parties once in power.

Broken promises

The leader of Peru Libre, Vladimir Cerron, said, “The problems of transport, agriculture, and fuel costs have always existed in the free market. However, many hoped that this would not happen in a popular government. If [Castillo] continues without a political compass he will not have a program capable of implementing and committing to the people who are in struggle”. He continued, “Huancayo needs solutions for the high fuel prices, toll prices, and they want concrete support for agriculture. Unfortunately, the Economy Ministry says nothing, it’s being led by neoliberals and caviars (liberals)”.

Castillo won the presidency in 2021 on a platform of nationalizing natural resources and introducing a new constitution. The government hasn’t made any progress on either issue. Once in power, the President broke with Peru Libre and appointed cabinet ministers from social liberal parties such as Nuevo Peru and other establishment figures.

On Sunday, the government initiated a process of dialogue with those taking part in the strikes. Minister for trade, Roberto Sanchez, said “Our mere presence yesterday shows our desire to find solutions. Today we must concentrate our efforts to understand each other. We have not come to impose a way of how we are going to dialogue with the organizations, we have come to build agreements”.

President Castillo has apologized for initially dismissing the protests in Huancayo. At Sunday’s press conference he said, “These movements are taking place for just causes and reasons. I want to clarify to the country, in some of my statements there has been a misunderstanding and I have to clarify by apologizing and asking the people for forgiveness. I never had bad intentions.”

The President will arrive in Huancayo on Thursday for talks.

Kawsachun News

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/04/ ... zer-costs/
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 11, 2022 1:55 pm

Bolivian Justice Sentences Jeanine Añez to 10 Years in Prison

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Protesters demand a jail sentence for Jeanine Añez | Photo: EFE/Martin Alipaz

Published 10 June 2022 (8 hours 55 minutes ago)

Bolivian Justice sentenced former de facto president Jeanine Añez (2019-2020) to 10 years in prison on Friday night for her involvement in the 2019 coup case, according to the ruling of the First Sentencing Court of La Paz.

The president of the First Anticorruption Sentencing Court of La Paz, Germán Ramos, read out the sentence for crimes of breach of duties, resolutions contrary to the laws and against the Political Constitution of the State (CPE), committed in his rise to power in November 2019 following the resignation of Evo Morales, who had won a new term as head of state but was forced to resign.

After more than seven hours of deliberation, the Court also handed down a 10-year sentence for former police general Yuri Calderón and former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Williams Kaliman Romero, both of whom are currently fugitives.

In November 2019, Añez temporarily assumed the Presidency of Bolivia amid a political and social crisis in which former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) was pressured to resign by civic mobilizations, police rebellion and suggestions from the Armed Forces.

The prosecution, formed by the Prosecutor's Office, the Attorney General's Office, the Ministry of Government and the Senate, requested in their final arguments 15 years in prison for Áñez and the other six defendants, who are members of the police and military high command.

Military officers Flavio Arce San Martín and Jorge Mendieta Ferrufino were also sentenced to three and two years, respectively.

Two other generals of the Armed Forces, Sergio Orellana and Jorge Fernández Torranzo, fugitives, were also sentenced to four years in prison.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... -0025.html

Now, if they can just get Elon Musk to visit.....
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 16, 2022 2:16 pm

They highlight the importance of the Social Economic Model in Bolivia

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In the first year of President Arce's administration, the Productive Community Social Economic Model was resumed and the economy was redirected. | Photo: PL
Published July 16, 2022 (7 hours 32 minutes ago)

During the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez, social indicators suffered significant deterioration.

The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, specified this Friday that the bases of the economic and social transformation of the country, through the execution of the Productive Community Social Economic Model, began in 2006.

According to the head of state, in the period from 2006 to 2019, the South American nation emerged as a paradigm in this sector in the region, positioning itself as the leader in terms of economic growth in five years.

“Parallel to the economic growth achieved, we managed to reduce moderate poverty from 60.6 percent in 2005 to 37.2 percent in 2019; extreme poverty from 38.2 percent to 12.9 percent and inequality,” the president specified.


He added that the great economic and social advances of the past decades were cut short by the breakdown of the constitutional order in 2019, which generated an economic crisis as a consequence of the mismanagement of public finances, and the mismanagement of the pandemic during the administration. 2020.

“The Bolivian people felt the rapid deterioration of our economy, increased poverty, hunger, inequalities, and unemployment; economic activity at the end of the 2020 administration registered a contraction of nine percent, a figure not seen since 1953, ”he indicated.

Arce pointed out that, when assuming the national government in November 2020, the Gross Domestic Product in the third quarter registered a contraction of the order of 12.6 percent.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/bolivia- ... -0038.html

Google Translator

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Bolivian prosecutors suspend Camacho’s hearing in coup case following death threats

The governor of the Santa Cruz department, Luis Fernando Camacho, who was the president of the far-right Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee in 2019, was one of the main promoters of the violent and racist demonstrations against the socialist government of former President Evo Morales in October 2019

July 13, 2022 by Peoples Dispatch

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Image: Abya Yala Digital

Bolivian prosecutors investigating the ‘Coup d’état I’ case announced on Monday, July 11 that they suspended the hearing of right-wing leader Luis Fernando Camacho after receiving death threats. The governor of the Santa Cruz department was set to testify on Tuesday July 12 over his involvement in the October 2019 coup d’état against the government of Evo Morales.

Anti-corruption prosecutor Carmelo Laura told local media that on Monday morning, the members of the Prosecutor’s Office received anonymous threatening phone calls. “The commission of prosecutors has suffered a series of very serious threats…so we are going to suspend the audience organized with Mr. Luis Fernando Camacho Vaca. The prosecutors fear for their lives,” said prosecutor Laura.

With regard to the rescheduling of the hearing, he said that the La Paz Prosecutor’s Office was already aware of this situation and that the decision on rescheduling would be made in the city of La Paz, after the threats received are analyzed and due actions are taken on the matter.

The commission of prosecutors traveled from the capital La Paz to the department of Santa Cruz to take statements of Governor Luis Fernando Camacho Vaca and his father José Luis Camacho Parada. They are being investigated for the crimes of “conspiracy, sedition and terrorism” for their involvement in the US-backed right-wing civic-military coup that overthrew democratically elected socialist president Evo Morales in November 2019.

Luis Fernando Camacho, who was the president of the far-right Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee in 2019, was one of the main promoters of the violent and racist demonstrations against the Morales government. In October 2019, during the post-elections conflict, he came to La Paz with members of his organization to demand Morales’ resignation despite the rejection of popular sectors that demanded respect for democracy and the Constitution.

In a video released on social media networks, months following the coup, he was seen addressing a group of people, saying that his father had coordinated with the military and police to ensure that the anti-Morales protests were not repressed.

In November 2020, following the restoration of democracy in Bolivia, former deputy of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party Lidia Patty filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office against Santa Cruz’s governor and his father, accusing them of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy. In March 2021, the lawsuit was extended to former de-facto president Jeanine Áñez, who was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison in the ‘Coup d’état II’ case for “breach of duties” and “resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the Law” when she illegally assumed the presidency of the country, as well as to former military and police chiefs. Recently, Patty requested to expand the accusation against former presidents Carlos Mesa and Jorge Quiroga, and businessman Samuel Doria Medina.

The Camachos were summoned to give their statements in La Paz in October 2021, however, citing health problems José Luis Camacho declared that he could not travel and the said summons were suspended.

After almost ten months of delay, on Monday, defendant José Luis Camacho finally appeared before the prosecutors’ commission, however, he refrained from testifying, taking advantage of his constitutional right to silence.

His son, Luis Fernando Camacho, was set to testify on July 12 and state under oath his role in the 2019 coup d’etat. Pending the hearing, the Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee and the opposition Creemos alliance had already called on their supporters to demonstrate at the Santa Cruz Prosecutor’s Office to support their leader.

On Friday, July 8, providing further evidence of the growing internal conflict between the right-wing sectors in the country, Áñez’s lawyer Alain Canedo asked the the Prosecutor’s Office to charge Camacho and request his immediate preventive detention in the case. He pointed out that despite the fact that the original complaint was against Santa Cruz’s governor, he was only notified to testify, unlike Áñez who was arrested and is in prison.

“The Public Ministry should charge him and request the preventive detention of Luis Fernando Camacho, similar to what was done with Jeanine Áñez…Let’s not forget that the complaint began against Luis Fernando Camacho in November 2020, and it is only in March 2021 that it was extended to Jeanine Áñez,” said Canedo, in statements broadcast by the Red Uno television station.

Since Áñez’s conviction last month, the relatives of the victims of the Sacaba and Senkata massacres and other human rights violations committed during her rule have been demanding that the national government bring to justice all those who were responsible in the planning and carrying out the coup. President Luis Arce has promised that his government will constitutionally and legally work to guarantee justice and reparations.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/07/13/ ... h-threats/
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:54 pm

At UN, Bolivia presents revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform world

Bolivia’s leftist President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to propose a revolutionary 14-point program to transform the world.

ByBen NortonPublished2022-09-27

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Luis Arce

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce used his platform at the United Nations General Assembly to propose a revolutionary 14-point socialist program to transform the world.

“Today we find ourselves facing a wide-ranging, systemic capitalist crisis that increasingly endangers the life of humanity and the planet,” he warned.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Kqzrvo_vC68[/img]

Arce continued: “We should not only reflect on the economic, social, food, climate, energy, water, and trade crises, but also identify with clarity the origin, in order to change a system that reproduces domination, exploitation, and exclusion of the large majorities, that generates the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and that prioritizes the production and reproduction of capital over the production and reproduction of life.”

“Alongside the wide-ranging, systemic crisis of capitalism, we see the final gasp of the unipolar world,” the Bolivian leader added, warning of the dangers of war.

“But unfortunately we are seeing the gradual deterioration of the multilateral system, because of the whims of the capitalist powers that will not accept the existence of a multipolar world with a balance of power.”


Luis “Lucho” Arce represents Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. A trained socialist economist, he served as economic minister under former President Evo Morales.

Morales was overthrown in a violent coup d’etat in 2019, which was sponsored by the US government and led by far-right extremists. But after nearly a year of popular rebellion, Bolivia’s social movements defeated the coup regime, and Arce won October 2020 presidential elections in a landslide.

At the UN, Arce delivered a comprehensive 4000-word speech outlining his ambitious vision for changing the global capitalist system, with 14 concrete proposals.

1. Declare the world to be a zone of peace

Many armed conflicts are “promoted by transnational war corporations, but also by the desire to impose a political and economic order that serves the interests of capitalism,” Arce said.

He called for a concerted campaign to ensure world peace. The Bolivian leader emphasized the importance of “reaching a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine, making sure the historic rights of the state and people of Palestine are respected, and that NATO stops thinking about expansionist plans.”

2. Substitute the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with just compensation for the poor people of the world

Nuclear weapons threaten life on the planet, Arce warned.

He proposed to “substitute military spending on the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction with a just economic compensation that the countries at the core of capitalism owe, morally and historically, to the countries of the periphery and the poor people of the world.”

3. Against the commercialization of health care, systems of universal health care

The Covid-19 pandemic “exposed the vulnerabilities and inequalities in the health systems of all of the world, as well as the global financial and economic system,” the Bolivian leader said.

He insisted that the state has an “obligation to protect and guarantee collective rights” and “reduce the effects of the world economic crisis on the most vulnerable sectors of the population.”

4. Global program of food sovereignty, in harmony with Mother Earth

World hunger is getting worse, not better, Arce warned.

In 2021, 828 million people suffered from hunger, representing 9.8% of the world population.

He proposed a program to strengthen food sovereignty by supporting small-scale agricultural producers, giving peasants and farmers all the seeds, fertilizers, technology, and financial support they need.

5. Rebuild the productive and economic capacities of the country of the periphery hurt by the logic of the unrestrained concentration of capital

The Bolivian president warned of the damage being done to the world by the inflation crisis and the rapid increase in the price of energy, fertilizers, and raw materials caused by the proxy war in Ukraine.

He called for debt relief for the Global South, maintaining, “The restructuring of the world financial architecture is vital for the relief of external debt on the global scale, so that we developing countries have the space to implement sovereign social policies from the perspective of integral and sustainable economic and social development.”

“And, as has always been a cry from the countries of the South, we must balance the trade relations that currently keep benefiting only the North,” he said.

Arce then explained how his government helped to stabilize Bolivia and recover its economy after the chaos of the US-backed far-right 2019 coup d’etat.

“Following the recovery of democracy in 2020,” he recalled, Bolivia returned to its “social, communitarian, productive economic model, a sovereign economic model in which we don’t accept and we will not accept impositions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”

Arce explained that this economic model “is based on the active role of the state in the economy, in the nationalization of our strategic natural resources, the articulation of all forms of economic organization, the strengthening of public investment, import substitution industrialization, the dynamization of the internal market, productive diversification, security with food sovereignty, redistribution of revenues, the struggle against poverty and inequalities.”

He added that this economic model is also influenced by Bolivia’s Indigenous communal traditions.

Arce boasted that this model has been so successful that Bolivia had a rate of just 1.6% inflation in August. The country has the lowest inflation rate in all of Latin America, and one of the lowest in the entire world.

“We regret that, while the countries at the core of capitalism gamble on war with large sums of money, negligible contributions are made for integral and sustainable development, for decolonization and depatriarchalization, for the eradication of poverty and economic and social inequalities,” he said.

As an example of this irresponsible behavior, Arce pointed out that, in just a few months, 20 times more financial resources have been spent on the proxy war in Ukraine than have been invested in the Green Climate Fund in a decade.

6. The climate crisis requires responsibility, solidarity, and harmony between human beings and nature, not usury

Arce warned that the climate “crisis is passing into an ecological collapse.” But he lamented that “the countries that have the means to change their patterns of production and consumption do not have the political will to do it, and those of us who have proposed ambitious goals have not received the means of implementation pledged in the [Climate] Convention and the Paris Accords.”

The Bolivian leader also pointed out that the international climate agreements that do exist do not “take into account the historic responsibilities of the developed countries, or the capacities and limitations of developing countries.”

On a sarcastic note, he added, “Perhaps the historic climate debtors want us all to worry only about the future, to avoid discussing in the present the broken promises made to developing countries about financing, technology transfers, and strengthening capacities.”

The “centuries of bad capitalist development” have done a lot of damage, Arce lamented.

“We are convinced that a future low in emissions and resilient to the climate is not possible if we keep concentrating wealth and incomes in a few hands,” he asserted. “Therefore, to reverse the climate crisis we need to resolve the economic, social, and political contradictions caused by the capitalist model, as well as those that exist between human beings and nature.”

7. The industrialization of lithium, for the benefit of the peoples and a fundamental pillar for the energy transition

Noting that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium on the planet, Arce pledged to use those resources “with much responsibility,” “guaranteeing that its use is of benefit to humanity, as a fundamental pillar of the just global transition to a future low in emissions, respecting Mother Earth.”

“We want our lithium reserves not to follow the path of other natural resources that, on the conditions of colonialism and capitalist development, only serve to increase the wealth of a few and make the people hungry,” he said.

“In this sense, we affirm the sovereignty over our natural resources such as lithium, its industrialization, and the benefit oriented toward the well-being of the peoples, not of transnational corporations or a small privileged group, and the sovereign appropriation of the economic surplus to be redistributed, especially among the low-income population,” the Bolivian leader promised.

Citing a statement by the commander of the US military’s Southern Command (Southcom), Arce warned that South America’s “Lithium triangle,” made up of Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, “is in the sights of the United States.”
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8. From nationalization to regionalization of the struggle against drug trafficking

Early in the day on September 20, a few hours before Bolivian President Arce spoke at the United Nations, Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro used the General Assembly to declare that “the war on drugs has failed.”

Petro criticized the US government’s violent approach and its militarization of Latin America, as well as its internal system of racist mass incarceration of Black Americans.


When Arce took to the podium at the UN, he made similar comments.

“It remains clear that the war on drugs, principally the one unleashed by the United States, has failed,” the Bolivian leader said. “Therefore there is an imperative need that this country [the US] does a deep analysis about changing its policy, with attention to the fact that it has become one of the main consuming countries, which has resulted in the lamentable death of more than 100,000 people by overdoses and drug addictions inside of its territory.”

“We must change the focus in the approach of the struggle against drug trafficking. To keep emphasizing supply and not demand has only served as a pretext for militarization and for the waging of the international war on drugs,” Arce added. “That has affected peasants in the South, and left absolute impunity for the large criminal groups, never publicly identified, in the countries whose populations largely consume all types of drugs.”

“The international war on drugs criminalizes and leads to unilateral sanctions against countries of the South, but it shields money laundering and facilitates drug trafficking and other crimes connected to the countries of the North. It can no longer continue this way.”

Arce proposed the “regionalization” of the struggle against drug trafficking, with an “integral focus that is less militarized and more socio-economic.”

9. Strengthen international mechanisms for preferential treatment for landlocked countries

In his UN address, Arce proposed the idea that countries have a “right to the sea.”

For landlocked nations like Bolivia, “We face grave difficulties in accessing the sea and using its resources, keeping in mind that marine spaces make up zones of great potential for the development of countries, especially developing countries,” he explained.

“All countries have the right to access and utilize oceanic space and marine resources,” he argued. And to protect those habitats, “We should ensure the just distribution of rights and responsibilities with respect to marine wealth.”

10. Widen our restricted vision of human rights and democracy

“We need to widen our restricted concept of human rights and their relation with democracy,” Arce implored.

“Neither one of the two exists,” he argued, “when the preservation of the privileges of a few is done at the cost of the effective unfulfillment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of the majorities.”

As an example of how this can be done, Arce held up Bolivia’s plurinational model, which provides equal representation for the 36 Indigenous peoples that make up the country.

11. Intergenerational solidarity

The Bolivian leader also called to protect older populations who are sometimes forgotten by society.

“This vibrant and productive generation must show solidarity with those who built the first foundations of our houses,” he said.

“One cannot assure equity with future generations if we do not show equity between the present generations.”

12. Declare the decade of depatriarchalization to struggle against all forms of violence against women and girls

Arce condemned “the persistence of violence against women and girls, and in particular Indigenous women and girls who are in poverty.”

“The pandemic and the structural crises of capitalism are deteriorating the conditions of life, especially of women, of the countryside and the cities,” he said. “Those women continue confronting complex and intersectional forms of violence.”

The Bolivian government officially declared 2022 to be the “Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization: For a life free of violence against women,” Arce noted.

“We are advancing policies oriented not only at strengthening regulatory goalposts but also attacking the structural causes of violence, from education, strengthening economic autonomy of women, and also through cultural processes, to transform that lamentable reality, rooted in patriarchy, as the oldest system of oppression, that has a feedback loop with colonialism and capitalism.”

13. Reject unilateral sanctions

Condemning the imposition of sanctions, Arce declared, “It is inconceivable, in a world rocked by crises and the pandemic, that unilateral coercive measures are still applied with the goal of subduing governments, at the expense of people’s hunger and suffering.”

The Bolivian leader denounced the US government’s “inhuman and criminal commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, that puts at risk the lives of millions of citizens.”

“It is a crime against humanity to maintain that type of measure,” Arce said, blasting Washington for adding Cuba to its list of so-called sponsors of “terrorism.”

Every year, more than 95% of the 193 member states of the United Nations vote to oppose the unilateral US blockade on Cuba, yet Washington has maintained it for six decades.

The impunity that the United States enjoys despite these illegal forms of aggression show “how the decisions taken by the majority each year in this [General] Assembly are not fulfilled by certain countries,” Arce lamented.

14. Guarantee the full validity of the UN charter and the principle of multilateralism

“The multidirectional crisis that the planet is going through as a result of capitalist ambition, far from being overcome will get even worse if urgent measures are not taken,” Arce warned at the end of his speech.

“Only through a strengthened multilateralism will we be able to reach greater dialogue and cooperation in search of solutions to that crisis.”

The Bolivian leader affirmed that his country is waging a “revolution” that is dedicated “to overcome the current polarization of the world architecture, to overcome the capitalist order that has put us in dizzying, dangerous, and limitless race of consumerism that puts humanity and the planet at risk, and to instead build a more just, inclusive, and equitable world, for everyone.”

https://multipolarista.com/2022/09/27/l ... c6e4eda9fc
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Tue Oct 25, 2022 2:23 pm

Bolivia’s Authorities Insist on Dialogue With Santa Cruz Far Right Opposition
OCTOBER 24, 2022

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Man riding his bike near a rotonda at Puerto Quijaro, a municipality 569 kilometers from the capital of Santa Cruz, on the border between Bolivia and Brazil. Oct. 22, 2022. Photo: Twitter/@PaolaPteleSUR.

“Our Government demonstrates once again its predisposition to dialogue and fulfilling the demand of the people of Santa Cruz.

Bolivian President Luis Arce said this Sunday, October 22, that his government is willing to dialogue with the promoters of the indefinite strike in Santa Cruz. He regretted that this leadership has abandoned the dialogue without explaining its proposal for the Population and Housing Census to be carried out in 2023.

“We installed a dialogue round-table without conditions to expose the arguments of the date of the Census.” Arce wrote on his Twitter account, that: “The meeting was broadcast and the Bolivian people witnessed the unfortunate attitudes of the strike leadership, who abandoned the dialogue without explaining their proposal.”

“Our Government demonstrates, once again, its desire to dialogue and meeting the demand of the people of Santa Cruz,” he said, “proposed by means of a new Supreme Decree, to define the date of the Census based on the analysis of the technical round-tables.”


This Saturday afternoon, the far-right governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, and the second vice president of the Committee for Santa Cruz, Stello Cochamanidis, left the dialogue round table that analyzes the launching of the Population and Housing Census.

After the restart of the dialogue, the representatives of the Inter-institutional Committee of Santa Cruz presented a proposal for an edict that modifies Supreme Decree 4760. If passed, the decree would mean that the Census is carried out in 2023, and within 180 days to make the results known as soon as possible.

From zero hour this Saturday, in the department of Santa Cruz, an indefinite strike has been carried out in order to conduct the Census albeit in 2023. At the beginning of the measure, one deceased was reported in the municipality of Puerto Quijarro.

The Single Federation of Peasant Workers warned that it would fence Santa Cruz if the strike is not lifted within 48 hours.

“We have made the determination that in case they do not lift their pressure measure in 48 hours,” remarked Franklin Vargas, the spokesperson of the Federation of Peasants of Santa Cruz. “We are going to surround Santa Cruz, and all the nearby regions of our 15 provinces, since they have harmed the most humble people.”

The dialogue round table, which was installed in Santa Cruz between a government commission and the Santa Cruz committee, did not reach agreements after more than eight hours of negotiation. In the meeting there were two intermediate quarters and a harsh exchange of criteria.

The minister of the presidency, María Nela Prada, led the government team together with the minister of planning, Sergio Cusicanqui, presidential spokesman, Jorge Richter, and deputy minister for autonomies, Álvaro Ruíz.

The rector of the Autonomous University Gabriel René Moreno, along with Vicente Cuéllar, the far-right governor, Luis Fernando Camacho, a civic vice president, Stello Cochamanidis, a lawyer, and Jorge Santiesteban, among others, participated on behalf of the Santa Cruz committee.

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivias-aut ... pposition/

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Bolivian organizations will carry out a national mobilization against the strike in Santa Cruz

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The organizations demanded that the death be investigated this Saturday by right-wing groups of a worker who rejected the strike. | Photo: ABI
Published October 23, 2022 (8 hours 54 minutes ago)

They stated that the opposition strike is neither legal nor constitutional. They denounced actions of intimidation, racism and blows to impose it.

The Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and the organizations grouped in the Pact of Unity announced this Sunday that they will carry out a national mobilization against the indefinite strike promoted by the opposition in the department of Santa Cruz and for the death this Saturday in Puerto Quijarro of a worker who opposed said measure of force.

In a written statement issued at the end of the first day of the strike, the organizations announced "a national mobilization against these coup plotters," although they did not specify the date they would carry it out.

They stated that the strike in Santa Cruz "is in no way legal or constitutional," and denounced the actions of "intimidation, racism and blows" used by the local right-wing shock groups to impose it.


They recalled that "the census was already socialized, analyzed and defined by eight departments in a meeting where, due to the inability of some authorities from the department of Santa Cruz, they did not want to participate."

Regarding the death of Julio Pablo Taborga, the organizations made it known to the international community that they will not allow another humble worker to die, nor will there be impunity and bias in favor of those responsible.

Taborga died as a victim of the blows inflicted on him by members of a right-wing shock group after attacking him in the town of Arroyo Concepción, Puerto Quijarro municipality, while rejecting the strike.

The organizations demanded that the government of President Luis Arce carry out investigations into the incident and punish those responsible. "The life of a Bolivian must be sacred," they said.

Santa Cruz collectives reject the strike

Social organizations in the department of Santa Cruz declared an emergency this Sunday and rejected the strike promoted by the Interinstitutional Committee. A leader of the local Peasant Federation, Franklin Vargas, gave the Santa Cruz opposition 48 hours to lift the force measure.

He asserted that the organizations and their brothers from the 15 provinces of Santa Cruz will close the accesses to the main city if the civic calls do not end the strike, "since they have harmed the people, the humblest workers" of the department and the entire country. , said.


In turn, the executive of the Departmental Workers Central (COD), Rolando Borda, recalled that in the recent Cabildo the people of Santa Cruz presented numerous demands, including defending economic reactivation, education, health and work.

He stressed that if the opposition continues to impose the strike, popular organizations are resolved to adopt radical measures so that these demands are respected.

Vargas and Borda criticized the governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, for breaking the dialogue table on the population census this Saturday, after demanding without technical basis that said survey be applied in 2023 and its results be known 180 days later.


Three people arrested for the death of Julio Pablo Taborga

This Sunday, local media announced that Javier Abad Saldias Sánchez, Jaime Algarañaz and Samuel Rojas were arrested for their responsibility in the incident.

The police commander in Santa Cruz, Colonel Jhonny Chávez, reported that their arrest was the product of several investigative acts and that they were transferred to Santa Cruz, where preventive patrols were activated to avoid confrontations.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/bolivia- ... -0022.html

Google Translator

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IMF Tells Bolivia To Drop Its Successful Economic Model
SEPTEMBER 21, 2022

Image
Image divided in two parts, on the left side the IMF emblem and on the right side the flag of Bolivia. Photo: Kawsachun News.

The IMF released a report today on the Bolivian economy in which it recommends adopting drastic neoliberal measures, including; reducing workers’ salaries, cutting public investments, and ending currency controls. These policies have turned Bolivia from one of the poorest countries in the region into it’s fastest-growing economy.

The report takes aim at the government’s spending on development, saying, “The government must restrict spending, including eliminating the end of year wage bonus for workers, they must restrict the growth of wages for public sector workers, and limit the growth of public investment and subsidies.”

The ‘end-of-year wage bonus’ for workers (in both the public and private sector) refers to a policy introduced under Evo Morales that requires employers to pay their workers a bonus equal to double their monthly wage, but only if annual GDP growth is over 4.5%.

The bulk of public investment is destined for infrastructure, while the majority of subsidies are for ensuring the price of fuel doesn’t rise. Bolivia is the only country in the region to see no rise in fuel prices, a policy that has kept inflation at less than 2%, unlike the rest of South America.

The report even states that fuel prices must rise, and the inflation that would inevitably cause could be offset by cash-transfer programs for the poorest sectors, says the IMF:

“The successful implementation of an increase in domestic fuel prices will require recycling a part of the budget savings in cash transfer programs aimed at the poorest deciles of the population.”

Bolivia’s Economy Minister, Marcelo Montenegro, emphatically rejected the report, stating today; “They prescribe the old recipes from many decades ago where they call for reducing subsidies, lowering public spending, gradually eliminating the end of year bonus for workers. We are not going to accept these recommendations because we are a sovereign country, and we have a sovereign economic policy.”

The policies criticized by the IMF have helped Bolivia reduce poverty by over 50% since Evo Morales took office in 2006. It has also helped keep inflation at the lowest rate in Latin America. Meanwhile, when IMF policies were implemented in the early 2000s, over 60% of the country lived below the poverty line.

In a recent speech in Brazil, Bolivia’s President Luis Arce stated that the country’s impressive growth is due to rejecting IMF recommendations; “We are in better conditions because, since 2006, Bolivia doesn’t have a single agreement with the IMF. In 2020 with the de facto government, they tried to enter into a loan program with the IMF, which we stopped as soon as we entered government, we reversed that IMF loan because believe the best way to make economic policy is to have a sovereign monetary and economic policy without being submitted to any international organism.”


(Kawsachun News)

https://orinocotribune.com/imf-tells-bo ... mic-model/
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Sat Oct 29, 2022 2:18 pm

Bolivia: Elitist Coup Attempt in Santa Cruz
By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on October 27, 2022

Image
“No to unemployment, yes to work, workers in Santa Cruz protest bosses strike. photo: AFPPIX

The ultra right-wing governor of the department of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, and his separatist clique have been maintaining an elitist and bosses’ strike against the government of Bolivia since October 21, which has already cost one life and economic losses of tens of millions of dollars. Camacho and the leaders of the Civic Committee for Santa Cruz demand that the population and housing census, postponed for technical reasons for a year later, be brought forward to 2023 with the consensus of all the governors and only the opinion against of the governor of Santa Cruz.

It is worth remembering that Camacho is one of the most reactionary, racist, pro-imperialist and patriarchal politicians of the Altiplano country and one of the most prominent subjects in the organization of the coup against Evo Morales in 2019, initiated with a strike very similar to the current one, which dragged important sectors of the middle classes of Bolivia. But today the conditions are not the same as then, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) gained in experience and consciousness and it comes from a great electoral victory in which it defeated the right-wing coup with more than 55 percent of the votes while maintain its combat morale is high.

On the other hand, the Santa Cruz demand on the census has not materialized in other departments. The strike does however have the capacity to damage the regional and national economy due to the extraordinary economic and commercial importance of Santa Cruz. The census is important, among other reasons, because it has to do by law with the allocation of resources by the national government and the number of representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, where Santa Cruz could increase by three seats, although at least one would be for MAS, the second political force in the department. But it is not understood that postponing it, for technically well argued reasons, is a cause to create a national political conflict, with serious economic consequences, at a time when the economy is recovering well from the effects of the pandemic, the disastrous economic management of the coup perpetrators and the international crisis.

The government of La Paz, from the very beginning, set the position of maintaining the dialogue with the government of Santa Cruz, but it did not do more than initiate the talk between María Nela Prada Tejada, Minister of the Presidency, and Camacho, when the latter decided to leave the table and abandon it, furious because his demands were not being met. The national government even agreed to consider the possibility of advancing the census if the Santa Cruz government technicians could demonstrate that it could be anticipated. More than a strike, it is a road blockade and mandatory closure of businesses and establishments which has hardly any popular support.

The MAS called a Great People’s Council on October 23, which was attended by hundreds of thousands of Santa Cruz inhabitants, who rejected the measure of force. Many of them not only disagree politically with the measure, but it affects them economically, as is the case of the workers of the informal economy and the agricultural producers of the region. Those summoned pronounced themselves in this way: “before the announcement of an indefinite strike by the Civic Committee pro Santa Cruz, the Great National Council in Defense of Democracy and the Economy developed on October 21, 2022, at the foot of the monument of Chiriguano, in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with the participation of the people of Santa Cruz, workers, indigenous nations, natives, workers, peasants, intercultural organizations, economic and productive sectors of the countryside and the city, women’s organizations, trade unionists, transporters, students, university students, cooperatives, micro, small and medium entrepreneurs, artisans, artists, seniors, people with disabilities, youth and organized civil society; with the firm democratic conviction and within the framework of respect for the norms that govern the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the sectors of society demand that the intentions to destabilize the national government, which has democratically won the national elections of October 2020 with more than 55 percent, led by Lucho Arce and David Choquehuanca, be stopped”.

The United States and the Latin American oligarchies have resigned themselves to the existence of social transformation processes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Much less when at the head of them are successful, sovereign and combative governments such as those presided over by Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca. That is why although the coup and all the maneuvers of the OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro to keep the dictator Jeanine Añez in government were defeated, and despite the fact that the MAS and its candidates Arce and Choquehuanca were legitimized with an overwhelming vote, the northern empire will continue to do everything possible to stifle the process of change in Bolivia.

Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US

https://resumen-english.org/2022/10/bol ... d68bd7a83f

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Bolivians Workers Reject Right-Wing Stoppage in Santa Cruz

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File photo of a press conference of the Bolivian Labor Union, Aug. 9, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @LaPatriaDigital

Published 24 October 2022

"We will carry out a national mobilization against these coup plotters because we can no longer allow one more death," the Bolivian Labor Union warned.

On Sunday, the Bolivian Labor Union (COB) and the organizations belonging to the Pact of Unity (PU) announced that they will carry out a national mobilization against the stoppage promoted by the right-wing opposition in the department of Santa Cruz.

The workers denounced the intimidation campaign against citizens that right-wing paramilitary groups are implementing to impose a strike that is "illegal and unconstitutional."

They demanded that there be no impunity in the case of Julio Taborga, a worker who opposed stoppage and was beaten to death by far-right extremists in Puerto Quijarro municipality.

"We will carry out a national mobilization against these coup plotters because we can no longer allow one more death. Our brothers from Santa Cruz are not alone," COB and PU said, asking President Luis Arce to find and punish those responsible for Taborga's death.


The tweet reads, "Bolivia. Right-wing strike in Santa Cruz: the Government warns that 180 tankers are blocked and that the heat is causing an extremely dangerous release of fuel."

The Santa Cruz department, which is an agro-exporting zone with a subtropical climate, has established itself as the main site of operation of far-right organizations.

Previously, the Arce administration decided to postpone the 2023 population census until next year due to the lack of adequate technical and logistical conditions for its implementation. The population census is an administrative tool used to distribute federal financial resources among Bolivian subnational governments.

Taking advantage of the postponement for political purposes, the Santa Cruz governor, Luis Fernando Camacho, who supported the 2019 coup, called for mobilizations against the national government.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... d68bd7a83f

Bolivian Far-Right Groups Threaten Farmer Leader in Santa Cruz

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Felipa Montenegro (C) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Oct. 25, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @ATBDigital

Published 26 October 2022

The "stoppage" called by the Santa Cruz elites affects and threatens the most humble people, the female farmer warned.


On Tuesday night, Felipa Montenegro, the leader of the Bartolina Sosa Movement, which represents the rights of rural Indigenous women, denounced that she and her family received death threats from far-right groups that operate in the department of Santa Cruz.

"We are in danger," she said at a press conference in which she stated that the threats come from people linked to politicians such as Santa Cruz governor Fernando Camacho, the Civic Committee president Romulo Calvo, and the Gabriel Moreno University rector Vicente Cuellar.

The leader Bartolina Sosa asked international human rights organizations to monitor what is happening in Santa Cruz, a territory where the stoppage called by the elites affects and threatens the most humble people.

Montenegro, who also revealed that drones fly over her house as a form of intimidation, is one of the social leaders who have opposed the "regional strike" called by the same politicians who supported the 2019 coup against President Evo Morales.


The tweet reads, "This is how the coup against the Luis Arce administration unfolds from Santa Cruz. There is no such thing as a democratic right-wing. The right-wing is always a coup plotter."

Over the last month, the resistance to the far-right in Santa Cruz claimed the life of Juan Pablo Taborga, who was beaten to death in Puerto Quijarro, as recalled by local outlet ABI.

“We are being bullied. It is time to take to the streets to demonstrate against those who believe they own Santa Cruz. We are tired of being intimidated,” Santa Cruz Farmers Federation leader Franklin Vargas said at the press conference.

"My deepest solidarity with sister Felipa Montenegro, who has received death threats due to her fight for the right to work," the Lower House president Freddy Mammany said.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... d68bd7a83f

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Date of the census in Bolivia will be chosen by a technical commission

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The Minister of the Presidency of Bolivia offers statements at the end of a meeting for the census in the South American country. | Photo: ABI
Published 29 October 2022

The Minister of the Presidency of Bolivia indicated that the representatives of the Santa Cruz region will respond within 24 hours if they agree to participate in such a commission.

The Minister of the Presidency of Bolivia, María Nela Prada, indicated on Friday that the date of the Population and Housing Census must be chosen by a technical commission.

At the end of the "Plurinational Meeting for a Census with Consensus" held in the city of Cochabamba, he explained that the date for the consultation will be decided by a technical commission within 30 days.

The official reported that the representatives of the Santa Cruz region will respond within 24 hours if they agree to participate in such a commission, since their delegates did not have decision-making power.


If the proposal is accepted, the Santa Cruz leaders will be able to work with the National Institute of Statistics (INE) and international organizations for a maximum period of 30 days.

The meeting held in the city of Cochabamba was convened and chaired by President Luis Arce, with the aim of socializing and agreeing on the technical implementation of the census, as well as the ratification that with the preliminary results the tax co-participation resources will begin to be redistributed. .


Luis Arce commented that in case of not reaching an agreement on the work of the commission, they will continue working towards the April 2024 census, which guarantees preliminary data in September and distribution of resources in October.

The meeting was attended by eight governors, mayors and authorities from different public universities.

https://www.telesurtv.net/news/bolivia- ... -0001.html

Google Translator

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Bolivia’s Bartolinas Movement Denounces Death Threats From Right-Wing Santa Cruz Governor Fernando Camacho’s Inner Circle
OCTOBER 26, 2022

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Press conference held by the Bartolina Sisa movement, January 10, 2022. Photo: BartolinaSisa.org/File photo

The threat comes in the midst of political tensions in Bolivia, driven by new destabilization efforts launched by far-right governor of Santa Cruz, Fernando Camacho, under the guise of demading the upcoming national census be carried out earlier.

Felipa Yalily Montenegro, the executive secretary of the organization of Native Indigenous Peasant Women of Santa Cruz “Bartolina Sisa,” in Bolivia, gave a statement on teleSUR this Wednesday, October 26. Yalily denounced threats made by members of Fernando Camacho’s inner circle. Camacho is the governor and opposition leader who played a key role in the 2019 coup d’état against President Evo Morales.

In response to a strike called by Camacho, Yalily issued a statement on Wednesday in which she elaborated, saying that she was “receiving death threats, [her] family is in danger just for going out to the media and asking for what we deserve as women: respect for [our right to] work, to free transit, the right to education for our children, the right to health for our brothers and sisters in this department of Santa Cruz.” Camacho’s strike used Bolivia’s national census date to cause further disruption.

According to the complaint, her life is in danger “just as the member of a very humble family, the husband of a Bartolina sister whose life was ended, he has just died three days ago. They want to do the same with me.”

She called for the complaint to be covered by international human rights and women’s defense organizations “so that they can do something,” she said “my life is in danger.” The leader asked the governor and people around her to “let the women go to work.”


The complaint not only referred to governor Camacho, but also to civic leader Rómulo Calvo and the rector of the Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University (UAGRM), Vicente Cuéllar.

She stressed that they are “original indigenous peasant women who do not harm anyone, we dedicate ourselves to working and producing our land to be able to contribute to the family income.”

Likewise, she denounced the strike promoted by the governor. The strike has threatened the lives of leaders and simple peasants while also having harassed the federation Yalily directs, which is made up, as she recalled, “by only women.”

“They want to finish us off,” she said, while recalling the death of the partner of one of the members belonging to the women and indigenous organization.

The feminist leader asserted that Cruceños have a “culture of brotherhood and solidarity” from whom said culture is derived. She defended her decision to make the complaint public, using the events leading up to the coup attempt against Evo Morales in November 2019 as a point of comparison.

Yalily spearheaded the social movements’ resistance to the strike that Camacho, and the so-called Inter-institutional Committee, announced regarding the political unrest around the population census.

(Telesur) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivias-bar ... er-circle/

“Satan, Out of Bolivia!” – The Ritual of Camacho and His Sect
NOVEMBER 16, 2019

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The followers of the ultra-Catholic opponent staged a religious ritual. Image: EFE

A few days after the coup d’etat in Bolivia, after the forced resignation of President Evo Morales, followers of Luis Fernando Camacho met in the Plaza del Cristo Redentor in Santa Cruz de la Sierra to perform a sort of exorcism. “Jesus rules Bolivia,” those present exploded in jubilation at the end of the ritual.

“Now we bind Satan … And we bind all the demons of witchcraft and send them into the abyss at this hour. We set a new time in the skies of Bolivia. Satan, out of Bolivia! Now! ”A preacher shouts from the stage.


With the statue of Christ in the background, the spectators followed the ritual cheering with their hands raised. Many had the flag of Bolivia with them. They were waiting for the speech of the ultra-Christian Camacho, who, when carrying his request for the resignation of Morales, entered the “Palacio Quemado” (presidential palace) and deposited a bible.

This religious ceremony was attended by the members of the civic committees of Santa Cruz, the groups that led the protests against the deposed president.

Featured image: The followers of the ultra-Catholic opponent staged a religious ritual.
Image: EFE

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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Thu Nov 03, 2022 1:39 pm

Bolivian Right-Wing Opposition Fuels Violence in Santa Cruz

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Humble house burned by right-wing activists in Concepcion, Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Oct. 29, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @AbyaYalaBolivia

Published 31 October 2022

In this Bolivian department, militia groups are attacking social, political, and Indigenous activists who support President Luis Arce.


On Monday, the Bolivian Presidency Minister Maria Nela Prada denounced violent acts unleashed during the "indefinite strike" promoted by Santa Cruz Governor Fernando Camacho and other far-right subnational leaders.

In this Bolivian department, militia groups are attacking social, political, and Indigenous activists who support President Luis Arce, who belongs to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) led by Evo Morales.

This wave of violence focused on Bolivian progressives is causing concern given that popular organizations will lead today a large march that will enter the city of Santa Cruz to protest against the right-wing indefinite strike.

Rocio Picanere, the spokeswoman for the Indigenous Central of the Bolivian East (CANOB), denounced that militiamen burned houses and beat residents in five communities in the Conception municipality.


The tweet reads, "The Presidency Minister Maria Nela Prada denounces that, as a form of threat and intimidation, the right-wing networks spread the addresses of her relatives in Santa Cruz."

"We forcefully repudiate the abuse and outrage that we have been suffering as one of the most vulnerable peoples that are part of the Plurinational State of Bolivia," she said.

Minister Prada also indicated that far-right groups are threatening to declare the "civil death" of those who oppose their action in the department of Santa Cruz.

"They intend to silence the voice of those who think differently by using threats.... Whoever does not agree with them is a traitor," she said through Bolivia Tv.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... -0011.html

Bolivian Militias Attack La Guardia Municipality in Santa Cruz

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Police station in La Guardia attacked by right-wing militants, Nov. 1, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @UnitelPando

Published 2 November 2022

Supporters of Governor Camacho remained in the streets of La Guardia protesting with firecrackers, clubs with nails, and other cutting instruments.


On Tuesday night, far-right activists and members of the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC) attacked the Police in La Guardia municipality with firearms.

The tensions began around 6:00 p.m. local time when right-wing supporters of opposition Governor Luis Fernando Camacho tried to evict citizens who were on the highway expressing their support for President Luis Arce.

Initially, they succeeded in expelling supporters of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). Shortly after, however, the population regrouped to dislodge the right-wing opponents.

Fights between both sides lasted for hours and involved the detonation of firecrackers. The National Police intervened with tear gas to dissipate the tumult. At that moment several police vehicles were damaged.


The tweet reads, "Right now, a paramilitary group, the Cruceñista Youth Union, is leaving Santa Cruz for La Guardia to attack demonstrators who support MAS. Why does this illegal group continue to operate?"

Later, Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo confirmed that the so-called "Unblockers" destroyed six patrol cars, looted the police headquarters, and used firearms.

In a press conference, the Citizen Security Vice Minister Roberto Rios showed the damage that the right-wing militants caused in police patrols as a result of the throwing of stones, explosives, and bullets.

People close to Camacho remained in the streets of La Guardia during the night protesting with firecrackers, clubs with nails, metal shields, and other cutting instruments.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bol ... -0011.html

Technical Commission To Define Date for the Census in Bolivia

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Roadblock in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Nov. 2, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @ejutv

Published 3 November 2022

"Unfortunately, we have not found a full will to establish dialogue and find a solution to the Santa Cruz conflict", Development Planning Minister Cusicanqui revealed.


On Wednesday, President Luis Arce ordered the creation of a technical commission to define the definitive date for carrying out the population census. This commission will include international representatives and will begin work this week.

This decision seeks to restore normality in the department of Santa Cruz, where far-right politicians have been promoting a "civic strike" that has triggered acts of violence.

"With the installation of the technical commission, we give certainty to the population about the execution and quality of the census process. We urge them to abandon any pressure measure that threatens the reconstruction of Santa Cruz," Arce said.

"Unfortunately we have not found a full will to establish dialogue and find a solution to the Santa Cruz conflict", Development Planning Minister Sergio Cusicanqui said after recounting the attempts at dialogue with the political opposition.


"With the desire to move forward with the census process and achieve tranquility and certainty for the Bolivian people and the Santa Cruz families, we will install on Friday the technical commission that will work on the definitive date of the registration day," he added.

Cusicanqui insisted that the definition of the date for the consultation will be made taking into account technical criteria and promised to safeguard the quality of the entire census process so that the data does not leave room for criticism or doubt.

"With the installation of this technical commission, there are no reasons to maintain pressure measures in Santa Cruz. It is time to reassure the people," he added.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Tec ... -0001.html

*************

Bolivia: Elitist Coup Attempt in Santa Cruz
NOVEMBER 1, 2022

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“No to unemployment, yes to work, workers in Santa Cruz protest bosses strike. Photo: AFPPIX.

By Ángel Guerra Cabrera – Oct 27, 2022

The ultra right-wing governor of the department of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, and his separatist clique have been maintaining a strike of the elite and the bosses against the government of Bolivia since October 21, which has already cost one life and economic losses of tens of millions of dollars. Camacho and the leaders of the Civic Committee for Santa Cruz demand that the population and housing census, postponed for technical reasons for a year later, be brought forward to 2023.

It is worth remembering that Camacho is one of the most reactionary, racist, pro-imperialist, and patriarchal politicians of the Altiplano country and was one of the most prominent protagonists in the organization of the coup against Evo Morales in 2019, initiated with a strike very similar to the current one, which dragged in important sectors of the middle classes of Bolivia. But today, the conditions are not the same as then; the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) gained in experience and consciousness. MAS is in power following a great electoral victory in which it defeated the right-wing coup, receiving more than 55% of the votes to the next highest candidate’s 27%. Combat morale is high.

On the other hand, the Santa Cruz demand regarding the census has not materialized in other departments of the country. The strike does, however, have the capacity to damage the regional and national economy due to the extraordinary economic and commercial importance of Santa Cruz. The census is important, among other reasons, because it has to do, by law, with the allocation of resources by the national government and the number of representatives in the Chamber of Deputies, where Santa Cruz could increase by three seats, although at least one would be for MAS, the second political force in the department. However, it is not understood that postponing the census, for technically well-argued reasons, is a cause to create a national political conflict, with serious economic consequences, at a time when the economy is recovering steadily from the effects of the pandemic, the disastrous economic management of the coup perpetrators, and the international crisis.

The government of La Paz, from the very beginning, set the position of maintaining the dialogue with the government of Santa Cruz, but it did not do more than initiate the talk between María Nela Prada Tejada, minister of the presidency, and Camacho, when the latter decided to leave the table and abandon it, furious because his demands were not being met. The national government even agreed to consider the possibility of advancing the census if the Santa Cruz government technicians could demonstrate that it could be handled properly. More than a strike, it is a road blockade and mandatory closure of businesses and establishments which has hardly any popular support.

The MAS called a Great People’s Council on October 23, which was attended by hundreds of thousands of Santa Cruz inhabitants, who rejected the strike. Many of them not only disagree politically with the strike, but it affects them economically, as is the case of the workers of the informal economy and the agricultural producers of the region. Attendees stated: “before the announcement of an indefinite strike by the Civic Committee pro Santa Cruz, the Great National Council in Defense of Democracy and the Economy developed on October 21, 2022, at the foot of the monument of Chiriguano, in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with the participation of the people of Santa Cruz, workers, Indigenous nations, natives, workers, peasants, intercultural organizations, economic and productive sectors of the countryside and the city, women’s organizations, trade unionists, transporters, students, university students, cooperatives, micro, small and medium entrepreneurs, artisans, artists, seniors, people with disabilities, youth and organized civil society, with the firm democratic conviction and within the framework of respect for the norms that govern the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the sectors of society demand that the intentions to destabilize the national government, which has democratically won the national elections of October 2020 with more than 55%, led by Lucho Arce and David Choquehuanca, be stopped”.

The United States and the Latin American oligarchies have resigned themselves to the existence of social transformation processes in Latin America and the Caribbean, even more so when they are led by successful, sovereign, and combative governments such as those presided over by Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca. That is why, although the coup and all the maneuvers of the OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro to keep the dictator Jeanine Añez in government were defeated, and despite the fact that the MAS and its candidates Arce and Choquehuanca were legitimized with an overwhelming vote, the northern empire will continue to do everything possible to stifle the process of change in Bolivia.


(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-elit ... anta-cruz/

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce Warns of a Repeat of 2019 Coup
NOVEMBER 2, 2022

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Bolivian President Luis Arce inaugurating the new military high command. Photo: Facebook Lucho Arce.

This Tuesday, November 1, at the inauguration of Bolivia’s new military high command, President Luis Arce warned that Bolivia is being threatened by actors who bet “on confrontation and violence” and who speak of “marches to federalization” threatening “national integrity.” Due to this threat, he demanded that the armed forces safeguard political stability and defend “the political constitution of the state to the utmost,” reported the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI).

“Today, Bolivia is once again threatened by those who, incapable of contributing to democracy, are betting today on confrontation and violence and endangering democratic coexistence among Bolivians, making it evident that it is the people who possess authentic democratic conviction because they know they are the majority,” said Arce during the inauguration, led by the commander in chief of the Armed Forces (FFAA), General Hugo Arandia López.

Shortly after completing two years as the head of state, Arce said that these actors have a “particular way of seeing democracy where it only counts if the majority of Bolivians yield to [the actors’] interests.” He stated that under this logic, “they set in motion a strategy to redeem the coup d’état of 2019,” when the constitutional order was broken with the illegal self-proclamation as president of the second vice president of the senate, Jeanine Añez.

In a town meeting on September 30 comprised of 229,126 citizens, former civic president and now governor of Santa Cruz Luis Fernando Camacho forced the inter-institutional committee to validate the decision to go on an indefinite strike starting on October 22. The strike demands that the census be carried out in 2023 and also demands the annulment of Supreme Decree 4760 which had postponed the census until 2024.

The strike, which constituted a siege of civil and social organizations of Santa Cruz, eventually turned violent. As soon as the first hours of October 22 passed, the first death was recorded: Julio Pablo Taborga was beaten to death by civic supporters of Camacho in the border municipality of Puerto Quijarro.

The civic violence reached the populous area of Plan 3000 (Andrés Ibáñez Citadel), where the majority of the population is opposed to the strike. However, the strike continued to be spurred on by powerful sectors of Santa Cruz who had given their full support to Camacho. However, despite the strike, the elite continued operations of their companies in the industrial park and would have continued to do so if the gas supply had not been cut off and drivers had not set up a blockade demanding the suspension of all activities.

In Concepción, Deputy Governor Daniel Velásquez and civic officers assaulted indigenous Ayoreo people who were blockading against the strike, and whom the town council decided to expel if they persisted with their “vandalic” attitude, calling them a “scourge.” In Santa Cruz, at least 50 people carried garbage bags and threw them at the Bartolina Sisa women who were at the door of their headquarters.

Meanwhile, national authorities such as the minister of the presidency María Nela Prada, became targets for threats from sectors backing Governor Camacho, who warned of “civil death” to whoever “sells” Santa Cruz or gives in to the request that the census be carried out in 2023.

Despite the fact that the October 28 Plurinational Meeting for a Census with Consensus, which included more than 300 authorities from all over the country, proposed that a technical table define the date for the national survey, the governor of Santa Cruz, who was not part of this national meeting, decided last Saturday, October 29, to maintain the strike.

The president of the inter-institutional committee Vicente Cuellar and the president of the Santa Cruz committee Rómulo Calvo agreed to discuss the date of the census at a technical table. As those who had originally supported Camacho continued to desert him, the governer gave an interview over the weekend to the Santa Cruz newspaper El Deber, where he spoke of federalism as the only solution to the “crack that has existed since the founding of the Republic.

“Centralism has always been a burden for our development. The researcher Carlos Hugo Molina gave a very clear explanation that in about 15 or 20 years, we will be the department that houses more than 50% of the population of Bolivia. That demographic weight will be central to solving that fissure. In any case, as Santa Cruz has already been saying for decades, the way is federalism. That moment is getting closer and closer,” he said.

In this regard, President Arce warned that “there is talk of marches for federalization and of the implementation of a de facto process rather than a social pact process to exchange our state for another. That is called an attempt against national integrity, and let’s remember that the constitutional mission of the armed forces is to guarantee and defend the independence, unity, and integrity of our territory.”

The head of state then reminded the military high command that its “first objective [is] the safeguarding of political stability and the utmost defense of the political constitution of the state.”

Arce told them that these “tests will not be faced alone, but by walking under the leadership of their government and with their people, who, for more than a decade and a half, have decided to construct their destiny with their own hands.”

(Últimas Noticias)

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivias-pre ... 2019-coup/
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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 05, 2022 1:44 pm

Bolivia: Santa Cruz Governor Camacho Responsible for Preventing Passage of Ambulances, says Health Minister
NOVEMBER 3, 2022

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A motorcyclist rides through a blocked street during an indefinite strike in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Photo: Aizar Raldes AFP.

Criminal complaints were registered concerning blockades preventing the passage of ambulances and of hemodialysis, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy patients.

This Wednesday, Bolivian Minister of Health Jeyson Auza condemned violent protests by supporters of Santa Cruz de la Sierra Governor Luis Fernando Camacho that have interrupted ambulance services, placing the health of patients at risk and threatening health personnel. The Bolivian Ombudsman’s Office released a statement lamenting, “the atmosphere of belligerence and violence in which the residents of the municipality of La Guardia (Santa Cruz) were submerged on Tuesday,” and called for peace.

Auza additionally said, in statements collected by Ahora el Pueblo, that Camacho’s intention is to “set Santa Cruz on fire.” The jurisdiction of Santa Cruz is where a so-called indefinite strike is taking place. The strike is an action that the government of Bolivia considers tantamount to an possible coup d’état. The Ombudsman also condemned the belligerence between those who support and reject the indefinite strike, as well as the clashes between civilians and police.

Camacha, added Auza, “has shown that his interest (in maintaining the strike and disruption in Santa Cruz de La Sierra) is merely political and the only thing he seeks is to destabilize a government elected by the people.”

“As minister of health, I hold him responsible,” said Auza. “I hold Luis Fernando Camacho and the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista responsible for this situation.”

Auza described that the governor’s actions as “sowing irreparable damage to the health of the Bolivian people. The government has reiterated on many occasions that dialogue is the only way to resolve conflicts. Ministers in the region have proposed scenarios for conversation and have been open to dialogue, but Mr. Camacho has systematically dynamited the possibility of dialogue, and the only thing he seeks is to set Santa Cruz on fire.”

Criminal actions against health and safety of Bolivians
Auza described the “insane acts of Luis Fernando Camacho” as crimes against the health and life of the Santa Cruz and Bolivian people, and warned that he is filing criminal complaints against authors of the strike.

Auza the showed videos in which demonstrators blocked roads, preventing the passage of ambulances and threatening health personnel. “Even in armed conflicts,” he said, “health personnel and the transit of ambulances carrying patients are to be respected, preventing their passage as is happening today in Santa Cruz is a deplorable act, it is an act comparable to a crime against humanity.”

“Restricting the sacred right that the people have to healthcare is a vile, despicable act,” said the minister. The blockades prevent people from reaching hemodialysis centers, radiotherapy units, or chemotherapy treatments, Auza emphasized.

Ombudsman denounces 11 days of violence

In a report from Ahora El Pueblo, the Bolivian Ombudsman’s Office has stated that “already 11 days have passed in which the jurisdiction of Santa Cruz is experiencing moments of anguish and insecurity, moments that have escalated in violence despite agreements to return to dialogue by national, departmental, and civic authorities from Santa Cruz.”

They also reported that, through his delegation in Santa Cruz, a investigation was carried out at the scene of the events and he was able to verify that there are people injured after the clashes.

The Ombudsman once again called for pacification and to lower the levels of disruption to halt the climate of violence. He demanded that those involved to restart the dialogue to reach solutions. He also asked the police to carry out their work within the framework of national and international human rights standards and to respond with proportional force.

(Ultimas Noticias) by Victor Castellanos

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-sant ... -minister/

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce Warns of a Repeat of 2019 Coup
NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Image
Bolivian President Luis Arce inaugurating the new military high command. Photo: Facebook Lucho Arce.

This Tuesday, November 1, at the inauguration of Bolivia’s new military high command, President Luis Arce warned that Bolivia is being threatened by actors who bet “on confrontation and violence” and who speak of “marches to federalization” threatening “national integrity.” Due to this threat, he demanded that the armed forces safeguard political stability and defend “the political constitution of the state to the utmost,” reported the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI).

“Today, Bolivia is once again threatened by those who, incapable of contributing to democracy, are betting today on confrontation and violence and endangering democratic coexistence among Bolivians, making it evident that it is the people who possess authentic democratic conviction because they know they are the majority,” said Arce during the inauguration, led by the commander in chief of the Armed Forces (FFAA), General Hugo Arandia López.

Shortly after completing two years as the head of state, Arce said that these actors have a “particular way of seeing democracy where it only counts if the majority of Bolivians yield to [the actors’] interests.” He stated that under this logic, “they set in motion a strategy to redeem the coup d’état of 2019,” when the constitutional order was broken with the illegal self-proclamation as president of the second vice president of the senate, Jeanine Añez.

In a town meeting on September 30 comprised of 229,126 citizens, former civic president and now governor of Santa Cruz Luis Fernando Camacho forced the inter-institutional committee to validate the decision to go on an indefinite strike starting on October 22. The strike demands that the census be carried out in 2023 and also demands the annulment of Supreme Decree 4760 which had postponed the census until 2024.

The strike, which constituted a siege of civil and social organizations of Santa Cruz, eventually turned violent. As soon as the first hours of October 22 passed, the first death was recorded: Julio Pablo Taborga was beaten to death by civic supporters of Camacho in the border municipality of Puerto Quijarro.

The civic violence reached the populous area of Plan 3000 (Andrés Ibáñez Citadel), where the majority of the population is opposed to the strike. However, the strike continued to be spurred on by powerful sectors of Santa Cruz who had given their full support to Camacho. However, despite the strike, the elite continued operations of their companies in the industrial park and would have continued to do so if the gas supply had not been cut off and drivers had not set up a blockade demanding the suspension of all activities.

In Concepción, Deputy Governor Daniel Velásquez and civic officers assaulted indigenous Ayoreo people who were blockading against the strike, and whom the town council decided to expel if they persisted with their “vandalic” attitude, calling them a “scourge.” In Santa Cruz, at least 50 people carried garbage bags and threw them at the Bartolina Sisa women who were at the door of their headquarters.

Meanwhile, national authorities such as the minister of the presidency María Nela Prada, became targets for threats from sectors backing Governor Camacho, who warned of “civil death” to whoever “sells” Santa Cruz or gives in to the request that the census be carried out in 2023.

Despite the fact that the October 28 Plurinational Meeting for a Census with Consensus, which included more than 300 authorities from all over the country, proposed that a technical table define the date for the national survey, the governor of Santa Cruz, who was not part of this national meeting, decided last Saturday, October 29, to maintain the strike.

The president of the inter-institutional committee Vicente Cuellar and the president of the Santa Cruz committee Rómulo Calvo agreed to discuss the date of the census at a technical table. As those who had originally supported Camacho continued to desert him, the governer gave an interview over the weekend to the Santa Cruz newspaper El Deber, where he spoke of federalism as the only solution to the “crack that has existed since the founding of the Republic.

“Centralism has always been a burden for our development. The researcher Carlos Hugo Molina gave a very clear explanation that in about 15 or 20 years, we will be the department that houses more than 50% of the population of Bolivia. That demographic weight will be central to solving that fissure. In any case, as Santa Cruz has already been saying for decades, the way is federalism. That moment is getting closer and closer,” he said.

In this regard, President Arce warned that “there is talk of marches for federalization and of the implementation of a de facto process rather than a social pact process to exchange our state for another. That is called an attempt against national integrity, and let’s remember that the constitutional mission of the armed forces is to guarantee and defend the independence, unity, and integrity of our territory.”

The head of state then reminded the military high command that its “first objective [is] the safeguarding of political stability and the utmost defense of the political constitution of the state.”

Arce told them that these “tests will not be faced alone, but by walking under the leadership of their government and with their people, who, for more than a decade and a half, have decided to construct their destiny with their own hands.”

(Últimas Noticias)

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivias-pre ... 2019-coup/

Kawsachun News’ Ollie Vargas on Camacho’s New Move in Bolivia: They’re Not Worried About the Census, They’re Looking for an Excuse to Destabilize
NOVEMBER 5, 2022

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Poster with details of the interview and a watermarked photo the Bolivian flag near a roundabout in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Photo: Orinoco Tribune.

Caracas, Nov 2, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)—In a special show conducted by Orinoco Tribune’s editor, Jesús Rodríguez-Espinoza, we had the opportunity of interviewing Bolivian journalist Ollie Vargas.

Ollie Vargas is a journalist and writer based in Bolivia. He is co-founder of Kawsachun News and co-host of Latin America Review podcast. He has contributed to Telesur, Morning Star and other media outlets.

The following issues were discussed in the interview:

1- What is happening in Bolivia regarding the census? Why is the right wing making a big deal out of the census date?

“There has been what I call a bosses’ lockout in the city of Santa Cruz, illustrious in only that part of the country, not in any other part of the country. It’s led by Luis Fernando Camacho who also was one of the 2019 coup leaders,” Ollie Vargas commented.

He added that the matter revolves around a technicality on the national census that was initially scheduled for this year, but due to the pandemic and the lack of preparations during Jeanine Áñez’s coup government, it was decided to postpone it for 2024 because cartography issues were not solved.

Bolivia: Santa Cruz Governor Camacho Responsible for Preventing Passage of Ambulances, says Health Minister


This decision was agreed upon after officials of President Luis Arce’s government held meetings with governors of all departments in Bolivia except Santa Cruz, not for the lack of invitation but due to Santa Cruz Governor Camacho not attending the meeting, explained Vargas.

“This is really an excuse. They’re not actually worried about the the census, they’re just looking for an excuse to try and destabilize the government, and I think there are sections in Santa Cruz that want to create chaos and make an argument for separatism,” Vargas added.



2- We Chavistas in Venezuela have a big trauma because Guaidó is not in jail. Do you think that in Bolivia, Camacho is not in jail because he has a lot of friends in Washington and the government has decided to keep him running rogue, irrespective of the fact that he is a coup plotter?

“I don’t think so, I don’t think the United States would see him as a viable option as someone that is capable of actually getting rid of the current government,” responded Vargas. “I think it’s more to do with the fact that there’s a lot of problems in the Bolivian justice system that haven’t been resolved for many years, including the fact that the opposition itself has a huge connection with a lot of the people who work in the justice system, with judges and prosecutors, and just the corruption in the justice system means that people with a lot of money, which are people on the right, can pay to manipulate, to bribe, and to try and get a favorable outcome in certain cases. I think part of how Camacho has managed to protect himself is because of that and people in Bolivia are really angry about that and they want big changes in the justice system.”

3- Don’t you think that the are trying to repeat the same script that we have seen before, to destabilize the government like in 2019? Will they be successful?

“No, I don’t think they’re going to be successful because it’s so local, it’s only in one part of the country, and the rest of the country, even right-wing governors and authorities, are in agreement with the government on this issue,” Vargas said. “It’s only one area, Santa Cruz, which wants to cause these problems, so they’re very isolated, and when you’re isolated at a national level you’re not going to be able to overthrow a government as on this issue.”

On being asked about the Latin American right-wing script of building national crisis out of nowhere and transforming small incidents into violent massive attacks and from there destabilize left-wing governments and promote coup d’etats, Vargas agreed that there is always that risk, and for Bolivia there is the added risk of destabilizing the economy, as the economic stability of Bolivia has been one of the majors achievements of Luis Arce’s government.



4- How is President Luis Arce doing in opinion polls? And what are the upcoming political contests in Bolivia?

“Most of the the polls that have been carried out especially by foreign agencies have him about the same rate as when he won; he won with 55%,” the journalist responded. “Most polls are showing approval rating of around 50% which makes him one of the most popular presidents. I saw some graphics where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico is always the number one with like 65-70% in approval rating and Luis Arce… comes third or fourth in terms of most popular presidents in Latin America.”

In Vargas’ view this is mostly because Arce has brought economic growth to Bolivia and has almost eradicated inflation while the rest of the world is suffering inflation crisis. “Last year Bolivia had an annual inflation rate of 1%,” he added.

Regarding the political panorama and upcoming electoral contests, Vargas explained that there are still a few more years until the presidential elections, which are scheduled for 2026, and local elections come afterwards. However, he added that “Bolivia is a highly politicized country, everything is politics, everyone is very passionate and it means that there’s a sense of like all year-round campaign, even if it is not an election year. It feels like it could be an election year just because of how politically charged everything is and how politicized the country is.”

We also asked him about Kawsachun News and how the project is moving on, taking into consideration the challenges that independent anti-imperialist news outlets face everyday to remain afloat. Vargas told us that Kawsachun News is doing good work. They have launched a weekly YouTube livestream and they have more plans to increase content on that platform. He told us that they are working hard on a project connecting their work with the Qatar Football World Cup.

Orinoco Tribune encourages all our readers to follow and support Kawsachun News and follow the amazing work of the co-editors Ollie Vargas and Camila Escalante.

https://orinocotribune.com/kawsachun-ne ... stabilize/

Bolivia: President Arce Calls for End to Right-Wing Strike, Supports Technical Commission on Census
NOVEMBER 4, 2022

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Plurinational Meeting for a Census with Consensus, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to determine the framework of the upcoming national census. Photo: Ahora El Pueblo.

On Tuesday, November 1, the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, called upon the right wing to end its pressure measures in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where it is conducting an indefinite strike over differences with the government regarding the date of the upcoming national census. President Arce said that the formation of the technical commission to decide the date of the census will give certainty to the people about the national statistical survey. He added that the invitation to dialogue will remain open for all.


“We always call for dialogue and the invitation remains open, because we believe that it is the best mechanism for conflict resolution,” the president said. “It is time the people of Santa Cruz have some peace.”


On Wednesday, November 2, Bolivian Minister of Development Planning Sergio Cusicanqui announced that the technical commission will be set up on Friday, November 4, in which will participate delegates from international organizations, public universities, governors’ offices, and mayors’ offices.

Bolivia: Elitist Coup Attempt in Santa Cruz


The technical commission is the result of the consensus reached in the Plurinational Meeting for a Census with Consensus, held last week in Cochabamba. More than 300 elected authorities from all over the country participated in the meeting that was called by President Arce to decide on the framework and schedule of the census process.

(Últimas Noticias) by Víctor Castellanos

https://orinocotribune.com/friday-noon- ... on-census/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Bolivia

Post by blindpig » Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:47 pm

Bolivia: Santa Cruz Campesinos Describe Attack on Facilities as Terrorism, Camacho Coup in the Making
NOVEMBER 14, 2022

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Camacho's terrorist gangs while burning the Peasants' Union headquarters during the Santa Cruz civic lock-down, Friday November 11, 2022. Photo: APG.

This Sunday, November 13, the leadership of the Single Trade Union Federation of Campesinos of Santa Cruz described the burning down of its headquarters in the capital of Santa Cruz, which occurred on Friday, as an act of terrorism. It was denounced at a national and international level, in order for those responsible to be punished.

“It was a criminal attack that they launched on our federation, we denounced this act of terrorism at the national and international level,” said Franklin Vargas, the organization’s top leader, in an interview with Bolivian state media.

Vargas recalled how the violent events occurred at the headquarters when 60 to 70 people were inside.

According to the Bolivian Information Agency, he reported that: “For about five hours we were attacked by paid bandits, who we suppose were brought by governor Luis Fernando Camacho and the Civic Committee. Then the police came to protect us, although I think they could not withstand the attacks; there were about 2,000 people who attacked with dynamite and firecrackers.”

Luis Fernando Camacho was an active promoter of the coup d’etat against Evo Morales in 2019 and a key figure in Jeanine Anez’s dictatorship, but for some reason the Bolivian judicial system has not put him in prison and has let him run rogue, destabilizing the country and trying to replicate the 2019 coup d’etat now in 2022.

Among the people who were inside the headquarters were children and older adults who were lucky to be evacuated, Vargas said, and later the violent groups entered, looted and burned the facilities.

He also warned that: “Our bases are extremely upset by these acts. We are the victims, but we have not yet responded. From now on, anything that happens in Santa Cruz will be the responsibility of the governor and the Civic Committee; if they take action we can also mobilize ourselves.”

He added that the federation is attentive to the resolutions coming from other social organizations and they are ready to join in on any measures taken in the face of the persistent violence promoted by Luis Fernando Camacho. In the meantime, it is expected that local authorities will carry out the necessary investigations so that justice is served for the terrorist attacks.

“There is a lot of evidence for those responsible to be punished,” Vargas said.

He argued that, since they have a date for the census, it is time for activities in Santa Cruz to be normalized and for the civic lockdown to be lifted, so that the humble and poor sectors of society are allowed to work.

The burning of the campesinos’ headquarters was reported after a union march against the civic lockdown took place, due to the damage it represents to them, and the presence of members from the far-right Cruceñista Youth Union (UCJ) was denounced. With the participation of the police, they unleashed violence and confused confrontations.

Violence returns to Santa Cruz, clashes recorded in Plan 3000
In the La Campana sector of Plan 3000, in the early hours of this past Sunday, on the 23rd day of the civic lockdown, harsh clashes were reported again between those who reject the lockdown, those who support it and the police.

According to reports from the right-wing television station Red Gigavisión, the events began around 1:00AM and lasted until about 5:00AM.

In the videos on the television network, there is an indiscriminate use of fireworks and firecrackers very close to homes, many of them even reaching the interior of some houses. The atmosphere was made even more chaotic with the police firing tear gas.

In other videos, the movement of police officers, patrol cars and motorcycles of the police institution is observed. Police were trying to prevent the two groups from clashing by using chemical agents, one of the reports said.

According to other reports, some clashes began on Saturday night when two town halls were scheduled to take place, one on La Campana Avenue with residents of Plan 3000 who reject the civic lockdown and the other just a few blocks away, by the sector supporting the lockdown.

In the first brawls, the destruction of a police station and an injured officer were reported. Bolivia TV informed on Sunday morning that commercial movement and vehicular traffic in Plan 3000 had been fully normalized.

Camacho supporters destroy a police station and leave an officer injured
In another night of confrontations in the city of Santa Cruz, the avenues Tres Pasos al Frente and Tercer Anillo, and the Estación Argentina neighborhood were converted into scenes of violence by groups of Camacho’s militas, Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), against the Bolivian police, who tried to protect both places.

As a result of the clashes, an officer was hit in the face by a stone and a police station was completely destroyed.

In an act of provocation, the violent groups moved in vans and motorcycles, armed with sticks and stones, towards Plan 3000, to hold a town hall, after which violence broke out since that area is inhabited by people who do not agree with the lockdown.

The police guard had been reinforced after threats from violent groups connected to Governor Fernando Camacho. They threatened to “take over” the Andrés Ibáñez citadel.

https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-sant ... he-making/

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Bolivia: Indigenous Movements Call For Fascists To Be Punished
November 14, 2022Bolivia, Fernando Camacho, Santa Cruz

The leadership of the Federation of Campesino Workers of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, has today described the burning of their headquarters by far-right protesters as an “act of terrorism”. On Friday, pro-fascist groups set fire to the building of the region’s indigenous campesino union (Federación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Santa Cruz). They also attacked the departmental workers federation (Central Obrera Departamental – COD) building and various government offices. Campesinos are now calling for strict punishments for those responsible.

“We are making the corresponding complaints, investigators have come to see everything they have done, but what are they going to see if everything is burned and looted?” said the executive secretary of the Federation, Franklin Vargas, today in a press conference.

“We ask the Prosecutor’s Office to find the intellectual authors of this, we know who is financing them, there are videos where you can see who has paid,” he explained.


The violent right-wing protests began weeks ago demanding that the national census be brought forward by six months. However, the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) says this is just an excuse used by Santa Cruz governor, Fernado Camacho, to try and destabilize the country and launch a second coup d’etat.

After the wave of fascist violence on Friday, the government confirmed that there were 15 people detained for carrying out the arson attacks at the headquarters of the Campesino Federation and the COD.

“The violence is not going to win, the violence unleashed today only tries to satisfy the personal appetites of Mr. Luis Fernando Camacho and those responsible for the burning of private property and the attacks on Santa Cruz citizens and the Bolivian police. They will face justice,” said the Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo.

By Kawsachun News

https://kawsachunnews.com/bolivia-indig ... e-punished

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Bolivia’s socialist government confronts separatist, racist uprising
November 10, 2022 9:27 AM CST BY W. T. WHITNEY JR.

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A banner reads '2023 census now!' at a blockade on a Santa Cruz street. | via Twitter

With the exception of a coup-government interregnum in 2019-2021, the Movement Toward Socialism political party (MAS) has headed Bolivia’s government since the beginning of Evo Morales’s presidency in 2006.

The MAS government now led by President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca announced on July 12 that its every-ten-year Population and Housing Census would be moved from November 16, 2022, to sometime in 2024.

Spokespersons attributed the change to difficulties left over from the pandemic, a need for translations into indigenous languages, uncertain financial resources, and extra time required for “technical” changes.

Leaders of the Santa Cruz department in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands, the nation’s largest, immediately demanded a census in 2023, not in 2024. Department governor Luis Camacho and Rómulo Calvo, president of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, warned that without a settlement on the census, they would initiate a strike aimed at undoing the department’s economy, and thereby the national economy.

In response, “over one million Bolivians mobilized” on Aug. 25 in support of the government and against a regional leadership group that is the vanguard of opposition to Bolivia’s socialist and indigenous-led government. Even so, the strike began on Oct. 22. Recent Bolivian history suggests another coup may be in the offing.

Why a seemingly routine piece of government business like staging a census might provoke momentous consequences is not obvious. A look at expectations attached to Bolivia’s census and at the nature of Santa Cruz politics may clarify.

Census results help to determine the national distribution of government-provided services and resources and are the basis for each department’s representation in the national Legislative Assembly. Opposition forces in Santa Cruz see operation of the national census, as presently constituted, as beneficial to their side, particularly for the national elections of 2025.

They see advantage in the increased numbers of indigenous peoples migrating recently from Bolivia’s poverty-stricken highlands to economically-resourced Santa Cruz. That advantage rests on indigenous peoples showing up on the census with an identity other than indigenous.

The national census in 2012 fueled controversy when it showed that many indigenous people identify themselves as mestizo and not as belonging to a particular indigenous nation. That was encouraging to the reactionary and racist Santa Cruz leaders, who have no enthusiasm for increased indigenous representation in the national legislative assembly.

The Arce government, by contrast, objects to an undercount of indigenous people and especially in the eastern lowland departments, where their numbers are increasing.

The category of mestizo did not appear in the census of 2012 and is not part of the census in dispute now. The Santa Cruz leaders are insisting that that mestizo identity be incorporated into the census. Expert advice was sought in 2012 and the Arce government is now proposing the same.

The peculiarities of Santa Cruz are central to this story. For one thing, Bolivia’s four easternmost departments, particularly Santa Cruz, produce most of Bolivia’s wealth. Santa Cruz is home to industrial-scale agricultural operations and to facilities for oil and natural gas production. This lowland region accounts for most of Bolivia’s export income.

The realities are these: Santa Cruz alone accounts for 76% of the country’s food production, for all of its sorghum and sunflower oil production, 99% of its soy products, 92% of its sugar cane, 75% of its wheat, 72% of its rice, and 66% of its corn. In 2021, farmers owned 4.6 million head of cattle, over a million pigs, and 130 million chickens.

Among departments, Santa Cruz consumes 39% of the country’s diesel fuel and contains the bulk of Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, which rate as South America’s second largest. The Financial Times lauds the Santa Cruz economy’s explosive growth and large foreign investments. It mentions Santa Cruz city as one of the world’s fastest growing urban areas.

Also relevant to the strike story is the reactionary and racist nature of opposition leaders in Santa Cruz. They are utilizing the department’s “Civic Committee” to organize the strike and the Union of Santa Cruz Youth to carry out violent, paramilitary-style street actions. Gov. Luis Camacho formerly headed the Santa Cruz Civic Committee.

The civic committees of all departments originated decades ago in response to national-regional tensions. Members of formerly eastern European families, some of them big landowners, belong to the Santa Cruz civic committee. Many brought fascist ideology with them when they immigrated to Bolivia after World War II.

At the last of three big gatherings in Santa Cruz, Camacho on Sept. 30 announced the start on Oct. 22 of an anti-government strike of “indefinite” duration. In operation, the strike has led to barriers being placed across major highways to impede exports and in-country deliveries of commodities, mainly food. Strike leaders have forced key factories and commercial centers to shut down.

The Youth Union and other thugs have carried out anti-government demonstrations and fought in the streets against MAS party supporters and the national police. There have been injuries, human rights violations, and one death. The strike has had little impact in the other eastern departments.

With a presence at border crossings, the strikers have sharply reduced the transit of exported goods. Government authorities on Oct. 27, anticipating domestic food shortages, banned all exports from Santa Cruz of soy products, beef, sugar, and vegetable oil.

The government and MAS activists organized a rally and march by hundreds of thousands of people before the strike began, and another on the day after. In La Paz on Oct. 26, confrontation between government supporters and an opposition march left 20 persons wounded.

The government on Oct. 25 held a “Pluri-national Encuentro for a Census with Consensus.” Officials from throughout the country attended. A proposal emerged that would enable a technical commission to determine a date for the national census.

Camacho rejected it, but opposition leaders Rómulo Calvo and Vicente Cuellar accepted the proposal. In an interview, Camacho asserted that federalism remains the only solution to the “fissure” present since the “founding of the Republic.”

On Nov. 1, President Arce, referring to threats to “national integrity,” called upon military leaders “to guarantee and defend the independence, unity, and integrity of our territory.” A presidential spokesperson indicated that Arce favored new negotiations with no established date for the census and without conditions.

Events in Santa Cruz align with a grim history. President Evo Morales’s accession to power in 2006 was a culmination of old indigenous resistance against European colonialists and of recent pushback against neoliberal assaults inflicted by local enablers of U.S. and European ruling-class objectives.

Social gains achieved by the MAS-led government and its program of modest wealth distribution seemed to cement its place in history and certainly inflamed the animosities of reactionaries in Santa Cruz and nationally.

As a new constitution was being shaped—it was approved in 2009—Santa Cruz and its neighboring eastern departments staged a separatist revolt fueled by racism. A failed assassination plot against Morales in 2008 was part of it. During this period, the Morales government expelled a U.S. ambassador and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

The U.S. government and the Organization of American States, serving the United States, facilitated the coup that removed the Morales government in 2019 after his election to a fourth term. Luis Camacho of Santa Cruz led the coup and reportedly delivered the U.S. moneys used in various payoffs. Bolivia’s military participated.

The president of the coup government, Jeanine Áñez, is now in prison, in part because of human rights abuses and killings by soldiers during her tenure.

The current MAS-led government came into existence in 2020 following the first-round electoral victory of Arce and Choquehuanca. Its approval rating currently is 51%. The present strike has set back governmental efforts to restore a national economy devastated by the coup government’s neoliberal reforms and by pandemic effects.

Arce, reporting to the Legislative Assembly on Nov. 8, indicated that “We have complete certainty that our people are fully behind us and that they recognize a national patriotic government that looks out for the national welfare, which stands above sectarian and regional interests.” He observed that “in times of crisis, it’s always the poor that end up losing more, or losing everything.”

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/bo ... -uprising/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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