The fascist coup has started in Santa Cruz, denounces the Bolivian government
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(Bolpress) translated by NIck Buxton.
The Bolivian government communicated today to the national and international community that a civil coup has been put into action in the departmental capital city of Santa Cruz, led by the President of the Civic Committee, Branco Marinkovic, and supported by Prefect Ruben Costas. The national government will not respond to “provocations by fascist groups” and will defend democracy and national unity without declaring a state of emergency in the convulsed regions.
The government denounced several times in the last few weeks that there were preparations for violent protests with internal and external support. Today the predicted events materialized and began a “civic prefectural coup against the unity of the country and democracy,” said the government minister Alfredo Rada.
Students and activists of the [neo-fascist] group the Santa Cruz Youth Union (UCJ) and shock groups of thugs paid by the business-led civic movement from Santa Cruz attacked on Tuesday offices of Internal Revenue, the National Institute of Land Reform (INRA) and the National Company of Telecommunications (ENTEL).
The vandals stole computers, televisions, telephone equipment and other public goods, and burnt furniture and documentation. They beat conscripts and police guarding the State properties with sticks. After destroying public entities that had been taken over by the State recently, the fascist groups burnt the offices of the human rights organization, Centre for Juridical and Social Studies (CEJIS). In addition they burnt installations of Radio Patria Nueva, attacked offices of the State television company Channel Seven in Santa Cruz and robbed equipment. They forced Radio Alternativa to suspend broadcasts and intimidated other media that are not aligned to the movement for elite-led autonomy, in scenes reminiscent of the previous week in Cobija, where four radio broadcasters had to stop their work in order to protect the safety of their journalists.
They have installed a type of “regional and civic terrorism in four regional departments in order to take hostage the people’s voice and the free ability to express one’s opinions,” lamented the Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana. The curious fact is that the National Association of Press (ANP), a strong defender of private media, has not said a single word in defense of “freedom of expression” in the light of these events.
The Defence Minister Walker San Miguel praised the restraint of the soldiers and police who faced off vandals “without firing a bullet” even at risk to their own personal security, conscious that the ultra-right are looking for deaths and wounded for political manipulation.
The Minister Rada blamed the events in Santa Cruz on the civic leader Marinkovic and the Prefect Costa, who failed to comply with their basic obligation to guarantee security and peaceful coexistence for its inhabitants and who from the “shadows incite these types of violent acts. These two people incited, promoted and carried out this fascist and racist violence.”
San Miguel revealed that opposition groups planned in the coming hours to take the refinery of Palmasola and interrupt fuel supplies, but the “fascists will not pass.” “What they are attacking essentially is democracy. They want to overthrow the institutional order that has been built with such difficulty, but we will not allow it, as we have popular support,” promised Quintana.
The government will not declare a regional state of emergency, as this extreme constitutional measure will only radicalize further the ultra-right shock groups. Furthermore, the democratic liberties of more than a million inhabitants of Santa Cruz must not be affected by the works of 500 or a thousand thugs, said the Minister San Miguel.
The national government says that confronting criminals and vandals who respond to a terrorist regime shows that they are without political arguments and incapable of debating democratically. The government will use legal and constitutional instruments to stop the fascist civic coup.
The big land and cattle owner and head of the right-wing PODEMOS party benches, Antonio Franco “applauded” the taking of offices in Santa Cruz. The looting was also encouraged by deputy Pablo Klinsky (PODEMOS) who is close to Marinkovic.
“We will not be beaten, if we are talking about confrontations let’s talk about confrontations, if we are going to talk about war, let there be war, but they will not impose anything on us. We are sufficiently strong to split off from the country, and if I have to take a stick, a sling, a gun, I will do it. I will go and defend my territory because no-one will push me around,” warned the PODEMOS deputy from Santa Cruz Oscar Urenda.
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If you’re interested by the position of the Bolivian workers’ movement, which sees Morales as selling out by offering negotiations with the fascists, failing to mobilise against them while breaking up miners’ blockades, we have a few articles here - http://thecommune.wordpress.com/category/bolivia/
It is not simply a case of Morales against the fascists, but also an acute class struggle.
Comment by David Broder — 13 September, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
I think a bit of solidarity with Morales, the indigenous and the working class is appropriate, like your new blog though Dave.
Comment by Derek Wall — 13 September, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
I don’t want to set out any programmes for the Bolivian workers’ movement - we have an awful lot to learn from them!
Nevertheless the question of working-class self-defence is sharply posed. The police and army are unwilling to fight fascist militias like the Union Juvenil Crucenista, and Morales is trying to hold it all together by not reaction. But the indigenous people and trade unions are subjected to savage fascist attacks.
We should collectively pay a lot more attention to this and build solidarity.
Comment by David Broder — 13 September, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Statement by mineworkers at Huanuni, the largest tin mine in Bolivia (not new, but of interest…):
1.- The Huanuni mineworkers unanimously condemn of the savage attacks committed against our peasant brothers by groups in the pay of the oligarchs and landowners in Sucre and the east. We warn that this fascist savagery will continue unless miners march in defence of our class brothers to punish thosse responsible for these attacks, which have become commonplace in Sucre and the provinces controlled by fascist bands financed from abroad.
2.- The cowardly repression of our peasant comrades in Sucre by fascist groups is a fresh provocation against the majority national groups and the working class, which is tires of these attacks and humiliating abuses organised and financed by the multinational and landowning oligarchy which is openly conspiring against the established order, promoting systematic violation of the laws of the republic.
3.- The class struggle is ever more polarised. Attributing these continuous attacks against our indigenous and peasant brothers, of which we are part, to racism alone, would be an error we must go beyond. The minorities we crushed in 2003 and 2005 must be eliminated once and for all, as these are the financiers of the anarchy and crimes carried out under the great smokescreen of regional autonomy. The written and spoken press, in its majority, lies in the hands of these scroungers, who use it to spread disinformation, distort the truth and foment discord between class brothers.
4.- Our struggle must be directed at cutting off the sources of the economic power of this oligarchic and landowner minority. This means fighting for the implemation of the demands raised in 2003 and 2005, nationalising the multinational companies and taking back privatised businesses. This will strike a deadly blow against the wealthy, stop the carve-up, generate jobs and overcome the poverty which capitalism and neoliberalism has long subjected us to.
5.- The government must not be irresponsible and avoid taking this path. Enough of working with the conspirators and those who sabotage the real process of change! Change must not be an empty slogan but rather should mean structural change to take back our natural resources: these should be extracted by the state under social control. Nationalising and developing our wealth must be the immediate objective. Experience shows that this can only be done via the state.
6.- The sustainability of the Huanuni Mining Compani depends on these structural changes taking place. Investment to prevent the imminent crisis in tin prices, which could happen at any moment, is the number one priority of the workers, the five thousand of us dedicated to making our workplace the national leader and a model of a state mining company in the service of Bolivians.
7.- Finally, we express our solidarity to our working-class brothers and the indigenous people in the east for their valient struggle against the fascist lodges and mafias who want to enforce statutes of autonomy which will only serve the interests of the rich minority who are in power in these provinces. Autonomy, unless it is carried out by the workers and the majority populations, is a virtual split which only serves to sow confusion and distract from the struggles of Bolivians.
Comment by David Broder — 13 September, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
There is a picket of the US Embassy on Wednesday evening in reaction to what is going on in Bolivia and Venezuela, with support from Jeremy Dear and Johh McDonnell and peole from the relevant embassies. Also supported by Latin American groups in London who have recently come together to form the ‘Coordinadora Latinoamericana’ (Latin Am. Cooridnating Committee) in an attempt to pull together. Some of these groups are more ’solidarity focussed’ and some are more community activism focussed - both in terms of migrant and trade union struggle here,and exercising their influence onpolitics back home as a diaspora. They have set up a blog which is still a bit bare but will hopefully develop in time as an interesting forum where perhaps, amongst other things, latinos and non-latinos to debare these issues, as well as serving as a noticeboard for action.
Details of the picket are on the blog:
http://www.luchalatinoamericana.blogspot.com/
Comment by Jake — 13 September, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
allende did nothing while the workers in chile demanded guns to fight the fascist coup in 73. Result - allende gets his head blown off and the chilean working class was butchered! Morales take note!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by leigh — 13 September, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
Leigh wrote:
**allende did nothing while the workers in chile demanded guns to fight the fascist coup in 73. Result - allende gets his head blown off and the chilean working class was butchered! Morales take note!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**
Somehow, the correct strategy & tactics of a revolution are always so much easier to determine from an armchair thousands of miles away, than they are for the actual leaders of the process. What a peculiar paradox.
Check this for a consideration of the complex problems faced by the Chilean Popular Unity government:
http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/remembering_allende_and_popular_unity_01726.html
The article is written by someone who lived through the experience.
Now to David Broder. Hi David, I remember you from our trip to Bolivia in early 2006, and I wish you well.
I checked your blog, in which you claim:
“…Morales is a political lame duck and is clearly unable to assert his authority. His vacillating rule has sapped the confidence of most of the social movements who have taken part in the prolonged popular contestation since 2000…”
Morales has just been ratified as president with a big increase in his electoral support- 67.41% of the vote, and with a majority in 95 out of 112 provinces.
A most bizarre result, considering that it was delivered by a people whose confidence has been so sapped, and given to a vacillating “lame duck” president.
I suspect that this duck is not so lame, and may yet surprise both the US-backed elites and the Western ultra-left experts on how to make a Third World revolution.
Comment by noah — 13 September, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
Morales got a very big vote, yes. But the problem facing him, and elaborated on at length in many articles on www.econoticiasbolivia.com (a couple of which are on the commune’s site), is that electoral success is not enough to stop the right. They are using violent fascist militias and seizing government buildings.
As it happens, most of the right-wing governors up for election also got very strong results. The election did not show Morales’ strength but rather the depth of division. It did not resolve anything, it merely emphasised that there is a deadlock.
Furthermore, it’s quite obvious that people turning out to vote does not necessarily mean that the confidence of the social movements is what it was. The level of mobilisation is much lower than three years ago, and the situation far less optimistic.
Noah makes a sneering reference to “Western ultra-left experts”, counterposing this to Morales “making a Third World revolution”. I am not an expert. I can only rely on the information I see in the media. But I am particularly willing to trust and take careful note of the information and ideas broadcast by the Bolivian workers’ movement and their allies, for example econoticiasbolivia.com, which features a large number of reports on strikes and communiques from unions, as well as the(irregularly updated) miners’ union website, rather than supporting the Morales government, which has repeatedly let down and even violently attacked the workers’ movement. I don’t know why Noah is so dismissive of such ideas as a union like the COB or FSTMB upholds.
The fact that Bolivia is in the third world - the poorest country on the continent - has nothing to do with whether or not you focus support on the workers’ movement (which is subject to vicious attacks by fascists in the here and now) rather than just making propaganda for the Morales government.
The COB has a slogan for fighting the fascists which refers to Morales, “march separately, strike together”. This makes sense. Clearly, to the extent that it is possible to persuade Morales to do anything but sit on his hands and plead for negotiations, it makes sense to aim your fire at the fascists “alongside” him. But when Morales makes deals with the oligarchy or uses the police to smash picket lines there is no prospect of unity.
The phrase “third world revolution” apparently does not mean ‘a socialist revolution which happens to take place in the third world’, but rather a vague, ill-defined process which doesn’t have any particular objectives and in which Noah does not have to make any class or political differentiation. That is not the agenda of the COB or the FSTMB.
Comment by David Broder — 14 September, 2008 @ 2:16 am
How ironic that that site is called “21st century socialism”, when it is in fact riddled with Stalinism, a disease which I doubt has much of a future.
Comment by David Broder — 14 September, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Further to #5
Details of the picket and public meeting on Wednesday, taken from , are:
Wednesday, September 17
picket of the US embassy
Grosvenor Sq, London
4 to 6 pm
public meeting
NUJ headquarters
308 Grays Inn Road, London
from 7pm
speakers:
* Maria Beatriz Souviron (Bolivian ambassador)
* Jeremy Dear (NUJ)
* John McDonnell (MP)
* Félix Plasencia (Venezuelan embassy)
Please forward as widely as possible.
provisional list of supporters:
* Hands Off Venezuela Campaign
* Bolivia Solidarity Campaign
* Movement of Ecuadorians in the UK
From
Comment by Julian — 14 September, 2008 @ 7:43 am
Re #10
The link was removed from the post. I’ll try again and see if this gets through. The information is taken from http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/defend_bolivian_venezuelan_revolutions_london.htm
Comment by Julian — 14 September, 2008 @ 7:47 am
Bolivian government to arrest leading fascist:
http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINN1340057920080914
Comment by Joepolitix — 14 September, 2008 @ 11:31 am
As opposed to Trotskyism, that has no past and even less of a future, if the bitter disputes on this site are any guide.
I can just see a beleaguered Chavez in his palace, as the coup jets zoom overhead, muttering to himself: “Wow, if only I had followed the advice of that Trot micro-group handing down tablets of stone from highly revolutionary England…”
Comment by Okhotnik za fashistami ha ha ha — 14 September, 2008 @ 11:39 am
There is some good analysis coming out of El Pais on the developing situation in Bolivia but you will need to be able to read Spanish. The left as usual have confused what is happening in Venezuela with what is happening in Bolivia and concluded that there is CIA plot to overthrow both governments.
Bolivia stands separately from Venezuela for a number of reasons. It is the poorest country on the continent but is sharply divided ito the resource rich eastern frovinces of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija and the much poorer ones of the Alti Plano. The “Criollo” that is the descendents of the original Spanish and the descendents of waves of European immigrants are mainly settled in the eastern areas. The political allegiances of many of these groups are extremely right wing and one of the main players is Branco Marinkovich whose father was Croatian. Many of the leaders of the wartime fascist Croatian Ustachi fled to Bolivia, Chile and Argentina after the war taking a large amount of cash with them and became prominent in politics, business and the military.
There is a long time connection between the militaries of these three countries and the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. In the twenties and thirties a German military mission trained the Bolivian Army and one of the officers was Ernst Rhom later to be murdered in the 1934 night of the long knives.
The area was the stamping ground of some of some of the most notorious war criminals of the Third Reich, including Hitler’s favorite soldier Otto Skorzeny and Klaus Barbie the torturer of Lyons who remained at liberty until the 1980’s.
The country also hosted the presence of dozens of former OAS murders and torturers as well as, after the fall of the Salazar regime in Portugal,ex PIDE security operatives. They were joined after the crackdown in Italy on the resurgent fascist right by many people like Stefano Delle Chiaie wanted for bombings and murders of trades unionists and leftists.
These individuals actually got contracts from the government to torture and murder trades unionist and peasant activists. The leaders of the current unrest are well versed in fascist ideology and racial supremacy and at the moment it seems can count on the inactivity of the Army and Police. In fact the head of the armed forces Genreral Luis Trigo yesterday warned Chavez and the international community by name that the armed forces would deal with any outside interference from wherever it came.
On the face of it it would seem that the situation is a classic one of the army moving in to restore order but the right and big business don’t have the freedom to act that they would seem to and would have had even twenty years ago. The world and South America has moved on and even though every single army on the continent has mounted dozens of coups public opinion and the international community have now to be taken into account as does the opinion of the multi nationals which prefer orderly democratic changes of power.
One option for the right being floated is the secession of the five affected provinces to form a new country. There are two problems with that, which of even their immediate neighbours are going to recognise them and is the army going to standby and watch a dismembering of the country?
In many ways the group behind the current unrest is in the situation of the French settlers in Algeria. Both groups are far to the right on the political spectrum and although well organised are outnumbered by the racial group they need to work their industries and whom they regard as racially inferior. Although this lot are armed to the teeth unless they can detach a section of the armed forces they have no hope of a national coup or a break away state.
The reaction of the surrounding states is also important. Lula da Silva President of Brasil has offered to negotiate and has also said that he will not tolerate any rupture of the country or a putsch against Morales. This is tough talk as Morales could, if his own armed forces failed to act or moved against him, call on neighbours to help. Argentina and Chile have recent memories of military regimes and both countries have put former military leaders on trial and behind bars, a fact that will not be lost on the Bolivarian military.
Other things to ponder, besides the Joint Russian/Venezulan naval exercises Chavez has allowed Russian strategic bombers to land in the country. His client state of Honduras has also refused to allow the new US anbassador to present his credentials and three of his senior officials have had US bank accounts frozen for “Arming, protecting and financing the FARC”.
Comment by terryfitz — 14 September, 2008 @ 11:59 am
Cheers for the information terryfitz - good to know the social origins of these scum.
Comment by Joepolitix — 14 September, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Good thread and an improtant subject. Another article here http://permanentrevolution.net/entry/2299
Comment by Jason — 14 September, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
@ David Broder. Sure, electoral victories alone do not by themselves ’stop the right’. Elections, though only one component of the struggle, are an extremely important one.
As for Evo Morales “making deals with the oligarchy”. Morales is seeking to act in a way which will ensure the maximum solidarity with the Bolivian government from the rest of Latin America, reduce to a minimum the opportunity for the US to intervene, allow the right-wing to discredit themselves, and ensure the unity of the armed forces. Thus, if and when the moment comes for the government to take the offensive against the secessionists, it will have the greatest chance of success.
These are a matters of strategy and tactics. It is not even remotely likely that you are in a better position than Evo Morales and the MAS leadership to determine the best way to act in the circumstances.
Comment by noah — 14 September, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
In the past, have any of you found that protesting US embassies was very effective?
Comment by acumensch — 15 September, 2008 @ 2:06 am
As a socialist myself i must realize that though the events that transpired in the month of September are regrettable, the government of Evo Morales is no different from the “fascists” in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. His hunger for power and greed has permitted him to keep an entire race (the indigenous people) ignorant of his true intentions of maintaining power! not redistributing it!! He is no different from Hitler who also came to power through a socialist party…if only people could see this.
Comment by Truth — 23 February, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
The reason they can’t “see this” is that they’re not using the BizarroVision glasses that “socialists” like you tend to use.
Comment by external bulletin — 23 February, 2009 @ 9:29 pm
I tend to agree with Noah, I do believe in taking a critical attitude but we in the UK left don’t have a lot of experience of building succesful revolutionery movements or even social democratic governments…a bit of modesty is appropriate…nobody is going look at the Brits and say they are really building socialism.
Comment by Derek Wall — 23 February, 2009 @ 9:33 pm