A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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On May 29, 2000, at 7 a.m., in the city of Alto, thousands of demonstrators blocked the country's most important highway. The three main groups of people who participated in this demonstration were young people and their families who were demanding the creation of an autonomous university for this city of one million, unionists who were challenging the draconian tax reforms, and local residents challenging the increases in charges for electricity, sewage and fuel. There were also unionists who were protesting the fascistic policies of the genocidal former dictator, now President, Hugo Banzer.
The three main groups began marching from separate points and converged at the city hall at about 11 a.m. The police guarding the building sprayed the demonstrators with tear gas. The demonstrators reacted by throwing rocks and large firecrackers. After a while, they entered the building and smashed computers, furniture, and windows, and set fire to parts of a reactionary display of the Virgin Mary that the mayor had in an office. Finally, they set parts of the building itself on fire.
About 20,000 people participated in the protest, chanting denunciations of the demagogic mayor and the President, the murderer, General Hugo Banzer. The police pulled back in fear of the popular fury. Then, at 1 p.m. they returned to attack the protesters. Several people were injured, and six people were arrested and charged with damaging public property.
The following day, the government accused anarchists of instigating the rebellion.
The people who participated in these events are residents of the poorest city in Bolivia. And Bolivia was classified by the UN at the end of March as having the second poorest economy in the world; only the economy of Bangladesh is poorer. Bolivia is a country which is currently governed by a murderer, who, in the 1970s headed a brutal military dictatorship which perpetrated numerous disappearances, hundreds of murders, tortured thousands and sent thousands into exile. It incarcerated thousands in concentration camps.
During February and April of this year, the people of Cochabamba took direct action and created an openly pre-insurrectionary situation to expel the multinationals International Water and Abengoa, which had raised the water rates by 300 percent.
Also this year, university students in the cities of Potosi, Sucre, Santa Cruz and La Paz fought the repressive forces with dynamite. In some cases, they were able to stop the plans for the privatization of education.
During the 1940s, popular demonstrations culminated when a huge crowd overwhelmed the army and the police, entered the government palace and proceeded to hang then President Villarroel from a lamppost.
During the 1950s, urban and rural workers' militias defeated the army, even though later sections of the rising bourgeoisie stole the social revolution.
Today the Bolivian state has been weakened by a nonhierarchical movement from below. On several occasions this movement has gone beyond the tutelage of the union and Leninist party bureaucracies. Mass spontaneity and popular initiative have been of great importance in the movement, even though there have been very few local anarchists involved. The basic weakness of anarchist organizations has made it difficult for them to be involved as much as they should.
Still, there are many reasons for hope in this so-called forgotten corner of the world.
JUVENTUDES LIBERTARIAS. Contact: juventudes_libertarias at latinmail.com Bolivia 31.05.00
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