The A-B-C of Popular Revolt
Or, How They Got Rid of a Tyrant in Bolivia
By Andrea Arenas Alípaz and Luis Gómez
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 18, 2003
source: http://narconews.com/Issue31/article885.html
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA; OCTOBER 17, 2003: It wasn’t a coup. It was the people.
And nobody, not even Viceroy David Greenlee, could stop it.
Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada had to resign from the Bolivian presidency after weeks of popular mobilizations, for having massacred the people, for lying and trying to hang on to power by all means necessary. Now, vigilant and festive in the streets, the Bolivian people are the live expression of a democracy constructed from below.
In these sentences, kind readers, we will try to give you the clearest picture possible of what has occured in this country where the people have rewritten history...
A. Who and How
“If Goni wants money, let him sell his wife,” the women and men of deep “Bolivia Bronca” began to chant two months ago. It all began there: The sale of the country’s natural gas reserves, a multi-billion dollar business deal that the administration of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada tried to make with the multinationals Pacific LNG and Sempra, passing a gas pipeline through Chile to the Pacific. “Not the multinationals, nor the Chileans, should benefit from the Bolivian people’s wealth... We are going to recover our natural resources,” was what Congressman Evo Morales, leader of the coca growers, said during a session of the national Congress.
Congressman Felipe Quispe, national peasant farmer leader, began, in the first days of September, a hunger strike demanding that the gas not be for sale. The well-known “El Mallku” made it clear: “This is a personal business deal for Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.”
The national labor union – Central Obrera Boliva, or COB in its Spanish initials – led by Jaime Solares (a miner with 35 years of experience in the union struggle), launched a series of marches in different regions of the country... But the government, that didn’t see any strength in the mobilizations, thought they weren’t important... That was a mistake.
After the first blockades, confrontations, and deaths in the high plains of Sorata and Warisata (the Athens of the Aymara world, because the first indigenous school was built there), the movement from the towns and neighborhoods snowballed. The leaders of the principle popular organizations began to instruct their bases: radicalize the fight with pressure tactics.
On Wednesday, October 8th, in El Alto, with 800,000 residents, the majority indigenous migrants, awoke semi-paralyzed. The neighborhood councils began to adhere to the COB’s action plan, based on an indefinite General Strike. That set the course for the fight, because to paralye this city of poor people, where the median age is 22 years old, is the same as leaving the City of La Paz without resources, without workers, without communication, and without food.
The massacres of the following days brought determination to the people. El Alto resisted, with sticks and stones, the rain of teargas and bullets. And nearly all the cities of Western Bolivia then mobilized. While Goni insisted that he would not go, because the Bolivian people were with him, the general strike hit Cochabamba, Oruro was paralyzed, Potosí too, and Sucre saw 25,000 people take to the streets day after day. In La Paz, the residents came out to receive the marches from El Alto, and, together, they took the Plaza of San Francisco various times, demanding that “the gringo” – as they called the president, raised in the United States, who spoke Spanish with a North American accent, who had assassinated them...
B. What
Well, kind readers, first it was the gas and the call not to sell it to the multinationals so that they could pump it out through Chile. But when the massacres began, all the leaders joined together under one banner: The resignation of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. The now ex -president called for a dialogue without conditions on Tuesday morning and issued a decree to have a non-binding referendum regarding the gas and hydrocarbons. But it was already too late. The snowball was closing in on his house...
“How can we have talks with an assassin,” said Felipe Quispe.
“The people know. The people think. The people decide. There will be no talks until the president resigns,” added Evo on Wednesday afternoon, from the war room of the “Coordinadora” for the Defense of Gas and Sovereignty, in Cochabamba. Via radio, the voice of the people began to be heard, plus the voices of their leaders and some analysis committed to the social movements: NO... he must go.
Yesterday morning, thousands of coca growers from the Yungas region arrived in La Paz, with hundreds of miners from the South. El Alto came down from the hills again, into the city. An open meeting was held to decide what to do, and the popular clamor was to refuse to move one step from the demand that the president resign.
Never in the history of the young (21-years-old) democracy of Bolivia had there been a demonstration like this one: 200,000 people chanting, marching, deciding, from below, the future of their country.
There had been other factors that ended up placing Sánchez de Lozada off balance. He was already thinking of causing a “self-coup” and maintaining himself in power through the Armed Forces. On Thursday afternoon, intellectuals and artists, journalists, and the middle and upper classes began to join the opposition. The former Public Defender of the nation, Ana Maria Romero, launched a hunger strike, also demanding his resignation, and, together with her, six intellectuals and human rights defenders, and a Catholic priest. Ten hours later, there were already 400 people in the hunger strike from diverse points throughout Bolivia.
“Goni, you bastard, we want you to resign...”
C. When
When the popular sectors of Bolivia march, there is common call and response: One of the marchers asks the contingent: “What do we want?” The response varies according to the demands of the mobilization. The demonstrators begin to call out, “When?” And then the response, “Now!” Today, there was no time for that... The “now” of the popular revolt became reality. After killing more than 80 Bolivian citizens, after wounding more than 400, and receiving the rejection of more than 400 hunger strikers, Sánchez de Lozada literally flew out of his post... toward Miami.
This day in history, that feeds our last words on Narco News with happiness, was overwhelming.
It was 9:00 a.m. and the envoys from the Brazil and Argentina governments entered the presidential palace, which had become, since Monday, the office of the entire administration. At 10:00 a.m., the mediators sent by Lula and Kirchner headed from there to the house of Vice President Carlos Mesa, who minutes before had bid Viceroy Greenlee goodbye. “We will not permit that democratic institutionality be violated,” said the viceroy, assuredly terrified at the panorama of Indiands that watched him from afar. At 4:00 p.m. on this day, dozens of soldiers arrived at the United States Embassy to protect it.
Or, How They Got Rid of a Tyrant in Bolivia
By Andrea Arenas Alípaz and Luis Gómez
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
October 18, 2003
source: http://narconews.com/Issue31/article885.html
LA PAZ, BOLIVIA; OCTOBER 17, 2003: It wasn’t a coup. It was the people.
And nobody, not even Viceroy David Greenlee, could stop it.
Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada had to resign from the Bolivian presidency after weeks of popular mobilizations, for having massacred the people, for lying and trying to hang on to power by all means necessary. Now, vigilant and festive in the streets, the Bolivian people are the live expression of a democracy constructed from below.
In these sentences, kind readers, we will try to give you the clearest picture possible of what has occured in this country where the people have rewritten history...
A. Who and How
“If Goni wants money, let him sell his wife,” the women and men of deep “Bolivia Bronca” began to chant two months ago. It all began there: The sale of the country’s natural gas reserves, a multi-billion dollar business deal that the administration of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada tried to make with the multinationals Pacific LNG and Sempra, passing a gas pipeline through Chile to the Pacific. “Not the multinationals, nor the Chileans, should benefit from the Bolivian people’s wealth... We are going to recover our natural resources,” was what Congressman Evo Morales, leader of the coca growers, said during a session of the national Congress.
Congressman Felipe Quispe, national peasant farmer leader, began, in the first days of September, a hunger strike demanding that the gas not be for sale. The well-known “El Mallku” made it clear: “This is a personal business deal for Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.”
The national labor union – Central Obrera Boliva, or COB in its Spanish initials – led by Jaime Solares (a miner with 35 years of experience in the union struggle), launched a series of marches in different regions of the country... But the government, that didn’t see any strength in the mobilizations, thought they weren’t important... That was a mistake.
After the first blockades, confrontations, and deaths in the high plains of Sorata and Warisata (the Athens of the Aymara world, because the first indigenous school was built there), the movement from the towns and neighborhoods snowballed. The leaders of the principle popular organizations began to instruct their bases: radicalize the fight with pressure tactics.
On Wednesday, October 8th, in El Alto, with 800,000 residents, the majority indigenous migrants, awoke semi-paralyzed. The neighborhood councils began to adhere to the COB’s action plan, based on an indefinite General Strike. That set the course for the fight, because to paralye this city of poor people, where the median age is 22 years old, is the same as leaving the City of La Paz without resources, without workers, without communication, and without food.
The massacres of the following days brought determination to the people. El Alto resisted, with sticks and stones, the rain of teargas and bullets. And nearly all the cities of Western Bolivia then mobilized. While Goni insisted that he would not go, because the Bolivian people were with him, the general strike hit Cochabamba, Oruro was paralyzed, Potosí too, and Sucre saw 25,000 people take to the streets day after day. In La Paz, the residents came out to receive the marches from El Alto, and, together, they took the Plaza of San Francisco various times, demanding that “the gringo” – as they called the president, raised in the United States, who spoke Spanish with a North American accent, who had assassinated them...
B. What
Well, kind readers, first it was the gas and the call not to sell it to the multinationals so that they could pump it out through Chile. But when the massacres began, all the leaders joined together under one banner: The resignation of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. The now ex -president called for a dialogue without conditions on Tuesday morning and issued a decree to have a non-binding referendum regarding the gas and hydrocarbons. But it was already too late. The snowball was closing in on his house...
“How can we have talks with an assassin,” said Felipe Quispe.
“The people know. The people think. The people decide. There will be no talks until the president resigns,” added Evo on Wednesday afternoon, from the war room of the “Coordinadora” for the Defense of Gas and Sovereignty, in Cochabamba. Via radio, the voice of the people began to be heard, plus the voices of their leaders and some analysis committed to the social movements: NO... he must go.
Yesterday morning, thousands of coca growers from the Yungas region arrived in La Paz, with hundreds of miners from the South. El Alto came down from the hills again, into the city. An open meeting was held to decide what to do, and the popular clamor was to refuse to move one step from the demand that the president resign.
Never in the history of the young (21-years-old) democracy of Bolivia had there been a demonstration like this one: 200,000 people chanting, marching, deciding, from below, the future of their country.
There had been other factors that ended up placing Sánchez de Lozada off balance. He was already thinking of causing a “self-coup” and maintaining himself in power through the Armed Forces. On Thursday afternoon, intellectuals and artists, journalists, and the middle and upper classes began to join the opposition. The former Public Defender of the nation, Ana Maria Romero, launched a hunger strike, also demanding his resignation, and, together with her, six intellectuals and human rights defenders, and a Catholic priest. Ten hours later, there were already 400 people in the hunger strike from diverse points throughout Bolivia.
“Goni, you bastard, we want you to resign...”
C. When
When the popular sectors of Bolivia march, there is common call and response: One of the marchers asks the contingent: “What do we want?” The response varies according to the demands of the mobilization. The demonstrators begin to call out, “When?” And then the response, “Now!” Today, there was no time for that... The “now” of the popular revolt became reality. After killing more than 80 Bolivian citizens, after wounding more than 400, and receiving the rejection of more than 400 hunger strikers, Sánchez de Lozada literally flew out of his post... toward Miami.
This day in history, that feeds our last words on Narco News with happiness, was overwhelming.
It was 9:00 a.m. and the envoys from the Brazil and Argentina governments entered the presidential palace, which had become, since Monday, the office of the entire administration. At 10:00 a.m., the mediators sent by Lula and Kirchner headed from there to the house of Vice President Carlos Mesa, who minutes before had bid Viceroy Greenlee goodbye. “We will not permit that democratic institutionality be violated,” said the viceroy, assuredly terrified at the panorama of Indiands that watched him from afar. At 4:00 p.m. on this day, dozens of soldiers arrived at the United States Embassy to protect it.
