Bolivia’s working class and indigenous majority are once again being forced to mobilise in support of the country’s progressive government. Since 20 October, the far-right forces based in the prosperous province of Santa Cruz – the same forces that led the 2019 coup against socialist President Evo Morales in 2019 – are attempting to stir up a new coup against his successor Luis Arce. The neo-fascist Pro-Santa Cruz Committee is using the pretext of a delayed national census to whip up reaction and attempt to cripple the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) government economically.
Led by Santa Cruz governor Luis Fernando Camacho (who spearheaded the 2019 coup), the Committee, and its paramilitary youth group the Union Juvenil Crucenista (UJC), have been blockading the streets of the city of Santa Cruz, preventing food and fuel from being distributed to the rest of the country; roadblocks – often manned by criminal gangs extorting money from workers who attempt to cross them – have obstructed emergency services. Those who oppose the strike and attempt to open their shops or set up their street stalls have been violently driven out and beaten up. Parts of the city – particularly the district of Plan Tres Mil where resistance to the blockade has been strongest – now resemble war zones, after almost daily clashes with the UJC’s armed thugs as the working class attempts to dismantle the barricades. On 11 November fascist thugs torched the headquarters of the Santa Cruz branch of the indigenous workers’ federation and government buildings and have attacked indigenous Bolivians across the city. Felipa Montenegro, the leader of the Bartolina Sisa Movement, which represents rural indigenous women, says she and others have received death threats. There are reports that, far from being restrained by the security forces, these right-wing thugs have been protected by the National Police – which played a crucial role in the overthrow of Morales in 2019. Four people have been killed, including a worker beaten to death for crossing a barricade, and there are reports of numerous other abuses, including sexual assaults and attacks against journalists. The Bolivian Labour Union and other organisations are organising national demonstrations opposing the Santa Cruz strike.
Santa Cruz – bastion of reaction
The national census determines regional funding and the number of politicians different parts of the country are entitled to. It is usually carried out every ten years, but was pushed back from 2022 to 2024 because of logistical issues including the disruptive legacy of Covid-19. The Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee is arguing that the census will show that its rapidly-growing population needs additional funding from central government and entitles the province to many more seats at Congress at the 2025 election. It is demanding the census be held in 2023 and has so far resisted all attempts by the government to negotiate a compromise. This is simply an excuse for the organisation to attempt to undermine a socialist government that it loathes.
Santa Cruz – a vast province that covers a third of the country – is the wealthiest region of Bolivia, with hydrocarbon deposits and a huge agribusiness sector; it accounts for around a third of Bolivia’s GDP. The city of Santa Cruz is home to many of Bolivia’s numerically tiny (5%) white population of European descent which find political expression in the Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee and its youth wing – which have their roots in the falangist groups that supported General Franco in Spain. Fascist salutes are openly given at their rallies. They are characterised by the most profound racism towards the country’s indigenous majority. The huge majority won by MAS in the 2020 election may have temporarily put paid to these racists’ hopes of controlling the whole country, but alongside demands for a 2023 census is a continuing lobby for autonomy for the province.
The actions of the Committee are serving in the first instance to paralyse an economy that has been bouncing back rapidly from the ravages of Covid-19, with growth of 4.3% in the first quarter of 2022. This allowed the MAS government to channel money into social projects. However, the ‘indefinite strike’, which is calculated to have cost the economy nearly $750m, has forced the government to reduce its growth projections for the coming year from 5.1% to 4.8%. Shortages of agricultural products coming from Santa Cruz are so severe that President Arce was forced to temporarily suspend exports of soya products, beef, sugar and oil to guarantee domestic supplies. The masses, however, are demanding a much tougher response to the strikers, including for Camacho to be jailed for his criminal activities.
In imperialism’s sights
There is no doubt that behind the murderous violence of the Santa Cruz militias lies the covert support of US and British imperialism. Bolivia has the world’s largest reserves of lithium, a key factor in imperialism’s support for the 2019 coup. In a keynote speech to the UN General Assembly in October, Arce made it clear that Bolivia would resist their exploitation by multinationals: ‘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… we affirm the sovereignty over our natural resources, their industrialisation, 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.’ Citing a statement by the commander of the US military’s Southern Command, Arce warned that South America’s ‘lithium triangle’, made up of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, was ‘in the sights of the United States’. We stand in solidarity with the Bolivian working class and its progressive government against the pro-imperialist forces now mobilising against them.
Cassandra Howarth
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 291 December 2022/January 2023
