FRFI correspondent in Bolivia Juanjo Rivas spoke with Jaime Solares, Executive Secretary of the Central Obrera de Bolivia (COB), just after the fall of President Mesa in early June. The COB was formed in 1952, and was nearly destroyed as an organisation in the 1980s when Bolivian governments implemented IMF and World Bank-dictated structural reforms. It is a significant component of the Bolivian anti-imperialist forces, and consequently it is important to consider Solares’ views. This is an edited version of the interview.
Can you describe the COB and explain its historic development?
The COB was founded in 1952 with the overall aim of socialism. It was created as a means for workers to confront a corrupt government and above all to confront imperialism. In 1985, the government imposed structural reforms that sought to destroy the revolutionary union movement, but they did not completely succeed. The fundamental aim was to destroy any political consciousness amongst the workers. The best union movement for the neo-liberals is a ‘yellow’ one that has sold out. After 1985, almost all the COB Executive Secretaries made an art of destroying trade union life. When I joined, the COB was on the floor. Now in Latin America a united union movement exists only in Cuba, Uruguay and Bolivia. This is a threat to imperialism. In Argentina and Venezuela imperialism has been able to divide the trade union movement.
What is your position in relation to the call for hydrocarbon nationalisation?
The imperialists have come to exploit us and seize our raw materials. It is the same with Bush’s and Blair’s invasion of Iraq: they wanted war because Iraq has huge potential oil reserves. And we have to pay for that war through the servicing of the foreign debt. In Bolivia, economic struggle has become a social necessity. We need to recover our hydrocarbon resources, and other natural resources such as wood and water that have also been privatised. The first thing that can unite us is the nationalisation of hydrocarbons, and after that, the recovery of all our resources.
What strategies do the social movements have to develop to secure the leadership of the movement?
COB statutes dismiss neither legal struggle nor revolutionary struggle. In the enormous assembly we held [on 6 June in La Paz] the workers were asking themselves: When are we going to have parliamentarians that defend the working class? When are the parliamentarians going to fight for workers’ rights, for economic sovereignty?
In tomorrow’s meeting, I am going to argue that the workers can start to develop the political structures we need on the basis of what we have created already: the Asamblea Popular Nacional Obreros (APNO), which includes federations of miners, of peasants and of other social sectors. This is of concern to imperialism, to the ruling class and to the multinationals that are taking advantage of us. There will be a condition that any representative who serves in government has to share the conditions that the people are living in now. This isn’t the case today, as they have free telephones, free social security, tickets, dinner expenses, and so on whilst people are dying of starvation.
How do you see the Movement towards Socialism (MAS)?
Some years ago [during the 2002 elections], the US ambassador to Bolivia said that people should not vote for MAS and that it was against the interests of Bolivia. People reacted with rage and voted for MAS. But the MAS, despite its name, is not a left-wing movement. In truth it should be called ‘Movement away from Socialism’, because of its agreement with and support for the neo-liberal government.
It would be nice if Evo were a revolutionary, but he believes it is necessary to live with foreign capital, and he criticised those in the armed forces who wanted to join the battle on the side of the Bolivian people.
Is the MAS clearly opportunist or is it possible to establish an alliance with it?
The MAS hasn’t got any philosophy, it has no principles. A revolutionary party has to have an ideological, political, organic standpoint and if necessary a military one as well to reach power. But the MAS is politically ignorant. If it wanted to behave properly, it would first have to remove Evo Morales. I believe the revolution will fail if there is not unity between the working class and the peasantry. This is not the MAS position: Evo Morales is a sectarian who discriminates against the working class; he does not want their support. He equivocates, he is on the right, or he is anyway a false leftist. If he wants to be in government he will have to have a pact with the working class, but one without conditions, because otherwise he will be on his own as a plain cocalero and he won’t get the votes he got at the last elections.
Two colonels recently declared themselves to be in favour of nationalisation and a Constituent Assembly. Could there be a fraction in the armed forces that would take part of the side of the working people?
We have no knowledge of who these gentlemen are who are against the established regime, but as Mao Zhe Dong said, ‘power grows out of the barrel of a gun’. We won’t make the same mistake as Allende, who was overthrown because he did not understand the importance of armed struggle.
One of the factors that impeded the real transformation of Bolivian society in October 2003 was the absence of a collective strategy. Is this now changing?
It has been changed a lot since then because of the COB. We believe that the people’s consciousness has been awakened and we want the widest possible unity of all of the workers around the COB.
I believe that we should talk about a broad front, about Latin American unity, with the broadest unity of anti-imperialist workers fighting the capitalist philosophy that one man should be a wolf to another. I don’t want anyone to say that the Church will resolve the conflict by playing the role of Jesus Christ. They are hypocrites: in the name of God, they steal, exploit us and want us on our knees when the neo-liberals have looted our raw materials, abused our cheap labour and made the rich richer.
Against this, the working class must aim for a planned economy that can save the planet. I am convinced that the only thing that can save the planet is socialism with its rational use of resources, its support for bio-diversity and where the fundamental rights of mankind are not subordinated to capital. This is a class struggle and as much as Tony Blair insists, there cannot be a third way, as his alliance with Bush proved. The only option is socialism.
FRFI 186 August / September 2005
