A-Infos (en) ALERT Bolivian Marchers Under Threat

["Jim Shultz" <JShultz@democracyctr.org>]

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THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE BOLIVIAN MARCHERS UNDER THREAT

Thursday, April 19, 2001

THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE

"BOLIVIAN MARCHERS UNDER THREAT"

Volume 37 - April 19, 2001

Dear Readers:

Unfortunately, once again, I am writing to you from Bolivia in the midst of
social and political crisis. However, once again, there is something simple
that you can do to help. Ten days ago more than 1,000 workers, farmers, and
other Bolivians set off from the country's major cities for a two week march
to the nation's capital, La Paz. They did so to confront the government with
a series of economic and political demands. Today, as this dramatic "March
for Life" nears the capital, it is faced with the threat of armed and
violent repression by the government, which has declared that it "will not
permit" the marchers to arrive. Every day army units move in to arrest as
many marchers as possible, often beating them while in custody.

Here's how you can help. If you can, send a fax to the office of the
Bolivian President, with this simple message (or your own):


Sr. Presidente Hugo Banzer Suárez

The world is watching your government's violent repression of the "March
for Life".  If the government uses force to stop the marchers from arriving
in La Paz, this will have grave consequences for the Bolivian government's
image all over the world.  We demand that you respect the right of the
people to peacefully protest.

Your fax should be sent to (from the U.S.): 011-591-2-391-216

Thank you for your help.

Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center


"BOLIVIAN MARCHERS UNDER THREAT"

In the next few days the heads of virtually every nation in the Americas
will be meeting in Quebec, with the objective of advancing treaties to
further implement the "unfettered free market" vision of a globalized
economy. In my home state of California these past six months people have
gotten a serious dose of how wrong blind faith in the free market can go, as
deregulation of wholesale energy prices have skyrocketed bills, forced major
utility companies into bankruptcy, sucked up state revenue, and shut out the
lights with rolling blackouts.

Bolivians also know the price of this economic vision all too well. Under
pressure from the World Bank and others, the Bolivian government has spent
the past 15 years "privatizing" its major public enterprises into the eager
hands of multinational corporations -- the electric company, the phone
company, the oil industry, the national airline, and more. Last year when
the Bolivian government handed over Cochabamba's water system to a
subsidiary of the Bechtel corporation, the people rebelled and won back
their water company, which today is serving more people with more water at
rates a half or a third of what Bechtel sought to collect.

"The March for Life"

On Monday, April 9, a broad coalition of Bolivian workers, farmers,
students, and others left Cochabamba to begin a 240 mile long "March for
Life" to the nation's capital of La Paz, to confront the Bolivian government
with a list of ten demands that the government has refused to discuss in any
other way. Among these demands are: legal protections to prevent government
confiscation of people's lands; an end to attempts by the government to
privatize water, education, and the health care system; a return to public
hands of the companies sold off by the government; aid to victims of the
floods that have swept through much of the country in the past few months;
investigation of government corruption; and the right to traditional
cultivation (not for cocaine production) of the coca leaf.

The last demand has recently been the most combative here. Under enormous
pressure from the U.S., the Bolivian government has eradicated by force more
than 90% of the coca leaf crop in the Chapare jungle, long a coca leaf
source for the international cocaine market. Coca growing families charge
that the government has done virtually nothing to create real alternatives
and wants to protect that part of their crop that is for traditional use
(chewing, medicines, etc.). While the U.S. Embassy touts ideas such as
growing bananas for export, the roads in and out of the region are so poor
that products rot before they can ever be brought to market. Conflicts
between the army and coca farmers are getting more violent. Yesterday two
soldiers were shot and wounded in the Chapare and human rights abuses
against farmers by the military are common place.

As marchers left from cities and towns throughout the country, planning to
converge in the capital next Monday (April 23), government officials
belittled the protest, "Let them walk, let them get exercise," declared the
Minister of Government, Guillermo Fortún. Behind the rhetoric, however, army
units were rolling in to try to stop marchers in their tracks. Day after day
soldiers have moved in to arrest as many marchers as possible, forcing them
onto buses, often beating them, and shipping them back to Cochabamba.

One day last week, just before dawn, marchers discovered four undercover
policeman in an unmarked car, equipped with surveillance equipment, loaded
guns, and a copy of Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf". First the police said they
were students, then reporters, then human rights workers. Angry protesters
started to punch the police, an altercation broken up by labor leader Oscar
Olivera, who also led last year's protests against Bechtel. Government
agents then swooped in and arrested Olivera, charging him with attempted
murder (for the protestors' punching of the police) and sedition (for
statements he had made earlier saying that the President Hugo Banzer should
resign). When released hours later, Olivera returned to the march.

In Search of Dialogue

Human rights officials, the Catholic Church and the nation's Public Advocate
have all called on the government to talk with protest leaders, rather than
using government troops to stop the march. Edwin Claros, vice-president of
the Cochabamba Assembly on Human Rights warns that the government has a long
pattern of "protest, violence and death, and only then dialogue." In a
meeting last week with human rights and church officials, Government
Minister Fortún reportedly refused any such dialogue and announced that in
an hour the army would break up the march."

By the time soldiers arrived, with a helicopter and enough caged trucks to
arrest 900 marchers, all they found were a few human rights workers,
reporters and mothers with infants. The marchers, having received advance
word, scattered off into the country side. Accounts of the government's
failed efforts to stop the march are the lead story here every day, with
reporters now referring to the steady progression toward the capital as,
"the invisible march."

"In reality, what the government is doing is acting like it is fighting a
war against guerillas, " said Olivera in a interview by cell phone from the
march. "The people have a right to peacefully march to the capital to make
demands of their government." With marchers now just 90 miles away from the
capital, the government seems to be getting more tense, amidst much public
speculation that it will use all the force required to block marchers'
entrance into La Paz this weekend, perhaps even a declaration of a state of
emergency, essentially a suspension of constitutional rights. The government
has already prohibited all public protest in La Paz and on Tuesday arrested
and beat a 28 year old human rights monitor at the march site, even though
he had a formal Assembly on Human Rights credential and was marching under a
white flag.

If the army does use violence to block the march's entrance to La Paz, march
leaders have threatened to mobilize protests, include highway blockades
nationwide. "We don't want to blockade the roads, that hurts everyone and
that is only a last resort," explained Olivera. "Everything depends on the
willingness of the government to talk and look for solutions to the ten
points we have raised."

When Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, the country's dictator from 1971-78,
left last Tuesday for the Americas Summit in Quebec he made it clear that he
was not willing to consider major changes in the policy of privatization,
"That I can not do." If march leaders do resort to highway blockades, he
also left clear orders in place, "they will be repressed," which here means
forceful military action and suspension of civil rights. As Banzer made his
declaration before leaving for Canada, the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia,
Manuel Rocha, sat silently in a line of government ministers gathered to bid
farewell. As one local paper reported, "strangely...as if he were one of
them."

 THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE is an electronic publication of The Democracy
Center, distributed on an occasional basis to more than 1800 nonprofit
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THE DEMOCRACY CENTER

SAN FRANCISCO: P.O. Box 22157 San Francisco, CA 94122
BOLIVIA: Casilla 5283, Cochabamba, Bolivia
TEL: (415)564-4767
FAX: (978)383-1269
WEB: http://www.democracyctr.org
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