[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [sftalk] From Maria Silva -- Fwd: Bush and Bolivia

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 12:46:54 -0500
>Subject: [sftalk] From Maria Silva -- Fwd: Bush and  Bolivia
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>>
>>Dear Jenny would you please forward this to sf-?
>>     thanks maria
>>
>>"Soldiers moved into the shantytown neighborhoods of El Alto on Sunday
>>and Monday with shoot-to-kill orders. Their objective was to break the
>>siege that protesters had imposed on the capital city of La Paz as part
>>of a nationwide protest over the government's plan to sell off Bolivia's
>>natural gas to a consortium of energy multinationals seeking to export
>>the fuel to California and Mexico...
>>
>>"According to the report in Pulso, a US military command has taken
>>effective control of the Bolivian army in the face of the mass
>>upheavals. Leading this operation, according to the magazine, is the US
>>military attaché, Col. Edward Holland. Another officer has been
>>assigned to oversee troop deployments and tactics, the article said,
>>adding that it was he who made the decision to bring in units from
>>Bolivia's eastern lowlands, for fear that local troops would hesitate in
>>firing on civilians. According to one report, a Bolivian officer shot
>>and killed an Aymara Indian conscript who refused to shoot down the
>>predominantly Aymara protesters."
>>
>>http://wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/boli-o17_prn.shtml
>>
>>World Socialist Web Site
>>Nearly 90 killed by troops
>>Bush administration backs massacres in Bolivia
>>
>>By Bill Vann
>>17 October 2003
>>With at least 86 workers, peasants and students confirmed killed by army
>>and police bullets and hundreds more wounded during the last three weeks
>>of mass protests, the Bush administration has solidarized itself fully
>>with the repressive regime of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
>>
>>There is also mounting evidence that the CIA and US military are playing
>>a direct role in organizing the bloodbath that has been unleashed
>>against Bolivia's rebellious population.
>>
>>"The American people and their government support Bolivia's
>>democratically elected president," the US State Department declared in
>>the aftermath of last Sunday's massacre of poor and indigenous residents
>>of El Alto, the sprawling industrial suburb of La Paz that has been the
>>center of the strike and protest movement. Adopting a threatening tone
>>toward the popular revolt, it warned that Washington "will not tolerate
>>any interruption of the constitutional order in Bolivia, nor will it
>>support a regime that results from undemocratic means."
>>
>>The statement was seconded by the US Embassy in La Paz, which declared
>>its "full support for this constitutionally and democratically elected
>>government. This government should not be replaced by one imposed by
>>criminal violence." It added that "sticks and stones are not a form of
>>peaceful protest, nor is the burning of vehicles or businesses."
>>
>>Washington had no such words of condemnation, however, for the
>>machine-gunning of unarmed demonstrators, including a five-year-old
>>child, last weekend.
>>
>>Soldiers moved into the shantytown neighborhoods of El Alto on Sunday
>>and Monday with shoot-to-kill orders. Their objective was to break the
>>siege that protesters had imposed on the capital city of La Paz as part
>>of a nationwide protest over the government's plan to sell off Bolivia's
>  >natural gas to a consortium of energy multinationals seeking to export
>>the fuel to California and Mexico.
>>
>>Opponents of the government have charged that, while the gas plan will
>  >yield ample profits for the foreign firms and their Bolivian partners,
>>it will produce scant public revenues.
>>
>>The fight against the gas deal has awakened mass resentment against the
>>deepening poverty and social polarization produced by two decades of
>>International Monetary Fund-dictated "free market reforms." Large
>>sections of the Bolivian working class, including tin miners and public
>>sector workers, have seen their jobs wiped out by the wave of
>>privatizations and budget-cutting that has swept the country. At least
>>60 percent of the population subsists on $2 a day or less.
>>
>>The government's attempt to drown the mass protests in blood has for the
>>moment produced the opposite effect. The killings in El Alto were
>>answered Monday by a mass protest in La Paz in which another 11 people
>>were killed. The capital remains completely paralyzed by a general
>>strike, with banks, businesses and public offices closed and no vehicles
>>moving on the streets.
>>
>>Meanwhile, two columns made up of an estimated 20,000 peasants and
>>another consisting of over 2,500 miners are converging on the capital.
>>Two miners were killed and dozens more wounded in a confrontation with
>>troops in the town of Patacamaya, about 60 miles from La Paz on the
>>route of their march.
>>
>>Thousands of residents of El Alto poured into the capital for
>>demonstrations this week, some carrying the bodies of relatives killed
>>in Sunday's massacre. The protesters said that they were no longer
>>seeking the president's resignation, but rather his head. Sanchez de
>>Lozada remains holed up in the presidential palace, which, like other
>>government buildings, is ringed by tanks and machine-gun emplacements.
>>
>>Residents of El Alto have reported that security forces are continuing
>>to make house-to-house raids in the city in an attempt to capture strike
>>leaders.
>>
>>The general strike has spread to Cochabamba—where residents attempted
>>to burn down the government building—as well as Potosí, Oruro and
>>Chuquisaca.
>>
>>US military said to direct repression
>>
>>Meanwhile, an issue of the weekly magazine Pulso published a detailed
>>account of the extensive US role in organizing the government's
>>murderous repression against the protest movement. Security forces
>>confiscated the edition as soon as it was distributed. Also seized was
>>the daily newspaper El Diario, which carried a headline "Bolivians
>>have the right to demand the resignation of the president." Security forces
>>have also shut down a radio station that broadcasts in the Aymara
>>language and have threatened to move against other media.
>>
>>According to the report in Pulso, a US military command has taken
>>effective control of the Bolivian army in the face of the mass
>>upheavals. Leading this operation, according to the magazine, is the US
>>military attaché, Col. Edward Holland. Another officer has been
>>assigned to oversee troop deployments and tactics, the article said,
>>adding that it was he who made the decision to bring in units from
>>Bolivia's eastern lowlands, for fear that local troops would hesitate in
>>firing on civilians. According to one report, a Bolivian officer shot
>>and killed an Aymara Indian conscript who refused to shoot down the
>>predominantly Aymara protesters.
>>
>>Another US official has been assigned to organize logistical support for
>>the military repression, assuring adequate supplies of ammunition, food
>>and materiel for the Bolivian army, the magazine added. It said that the
>>US military has organized regular flights from Miami for this purpose, a
>>charge that has also been confirmed by opposition legislators. Paulo
>>Bravo, an opposition deputy, reported that a US Hercules military
>>transport landed Tuesday at an airfield near La Paz with a cargo for the
>>Ministry of Defense that apparently included fresh weapons.
>>
>>The declarations of support from the State Department and the US Embassy
>>in La Paz marked the third time thus far this year that the Bush
>  >administration has felt compelled to throw its weight behind the
>>Bolivian president to prevent his ouster. During the same period, at
>  >least 200 Bolivians have lost their lives in police-military repression.
>>
>>Sanchez de Lozada was installed in the presidential palace in August
>>2002 largely through US intervention. On the eve of last year's
>>presidential election, the US ambassador threatened that if Sanchez de
>>Lozada's principal opponent—Evo Morales, the former coca grower and
>>candidate of the MAS, or Movement towards Socialism—won, Washington
>>would impose an economic blockade on Bolivia.
>>After neither candidate secured a majority, the US Embassy maneuvered to
>>secure Sanchez de Lozada's victory by cobbling together a majority in a
>>run-off vote by the Bolivian Congress.
>>
>>In Sanchez de Lozada, the Bush administration has a fitting
>>representative for its "free market" policies. One of the richest men in
>>the country, he is widely known as "el gringo," for having grown up in
>>the US and gone to the University of Chicago, as well as for his servile
>>attitude toward Washington. As a recent protest statement issued by the
>>association of Bolivian sociologists noted, the 73-year-old Sanchez de
>>Lozada is "profoundly linked to the United States, the country in which
>>he lived the better part of his life, to the point where he cannot even
>>speak Spanish correctly."
>>
>>The apparent direct US military intervention in Bolivia is aimed not
>>merely at rescuing a trusted servant, but at quelling a social revolt
>>that Washington fears could spread throughout Latin America, where in
>>country after country successive IMF-backed austerity and privatization
>>programs have produced mounting poverty, unemployment and unrest.
>>
>>Moreover, the Bush administration is pursuing a strategic policy that is
>>directly linked to its unleashing of military aggression in Iraq,
>>Colombia and elsewhere. Having built up its military presence in Bolivia
>>under the guise of combating the production of coca, the plant from
>>which cocaine is made, Washington has sought to gain control over the
>>country's natural gas supplies and divert them to the US market.
>>
>>Similarly, in Colombia, an intervention carried out in the name of
>>fighting drug trafficking and "terrorism" has evolved into a military
>>program for securing the country's significant oil reserves.
>>
>>For his part, Sanchez de Lozada made an implicit case for further US
>>intervention, claiming that the mass upheavals against his government
>>were the result of "sedition" by "anarchists and narcos" who have been
>>"organized and financed from abroad." Meanwhile, the president's
>>spokesman charged that the protesting workers and peasants were
>>supported by "the Colombian and Peruvian guerrillas."
>>
>>The Bolivian president has attempted to defuse the protest movement by
>>promising to put off any decision on the natural gas project until the
>>end of the year and offering to organize a popular referendum on the
>>issue.
>>
>>The Confederation of Bolivian Workers (COB) as well as other opposition
>>groups have rejected these proposals, demanding that Sanchez de Lozada
>>resign. In the wake of last Sunday's massacre in El Alto, four ministers
>>have resigned from the government and Carlos Mesa, the vice president,
>>announced he had withdrawn his support for Sanchez de Lozada.
>>
>>Morales, the deputy of the MAS, has indicated he is willing to accept
>>Sanchez de Lozada's replacement by Carlos Mesa, insisting this would be
>>a "constitutional" solution. There is no reason to believe, however,
>>that such a replacement of one representative of the ruling oligarchy by
>>another will do anything to satisfy the pent-up social demands of the
>>country's workers, peasants and the majority indigenous population that
>>have erupted in Bolivia's so-called "gas war."
>
>Jenny Barrett
>453B Psychology,
>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (motto: Learning and Labor)
>333-1929
>www.psych.uiuc.edu/~jbarrett/.
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu