Geography Archives: Bolivia

With the victory of an unlikely opposition candidate in the June 29 election for prefect (governor) of Chuquisaca, the number of opposition-controlled prefectures increased to seven out of nine. The result came as the right-wing opposition plots the extension of its regionalized resistance against Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Sabina Cuellar — a former […]

The decree to nationalize hydrocarbons (1 May 2006), which enjoyed 95% public approval, was the zenith of the Evo Morales government.  Now it has lost the Chuquisaca Prefecture, by a narrow margin, but legally, which lets the referendums that approved the autonomy statutes in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando camouflage their illegality.  It should […]

  Like many third-world countries, Bolivia is experiencing food shortages and rising food prices attributable to a global food marketing system driven by multinational agribusiness corporations.  With sixty percent of the Bolivian population living in poverty and thirty-three percent in extreme poverty, the price of the basic food canasta — including wheat, rice, corn, soy […]

  Two members from a rightwing Santa Cruz youth group were arrested outside the Trompillo airport on June 19 with a rifle, telescopic sight, and 300 rounds of ammunition in a purported assassination attempt on President Evo Morales.  In an unprecedented and highly questionable move, the accused were freed the very next day by a […]

  Bolivia today lives under the most cruel and appalling xenophobic dictatorship of masters whose demented pride has been wounded. If you haven’t already seen it, watch this video. It happened on the 24th of May, in Sucre, the capital of Bolivia and crucible of the failed attempt at Bolivian mestizaje. Those who believed that […]

Abruptly, and at record speed, the Senate passed a law to hold a recall referendum. President Evo Morales invited the opposition governors of the “Media Luna” (the half-moon-shaped region composed of the Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, and Tarija departments) to resume dialogue on Monday afternoon with an agenda for open discussion and offered guarantees for […]

The Right respects legality only when legality favors it.  The history of our America has shown that a thousand times.  The confrontation that is convulsing Bolivia today is no exception. The Santa Cruz autonomy referendum is just the tip of the iceberg.  To limit the debate to a question of legal pettifoggery would be a […]

This is no autonomist victory nor is it a “democratic fiesta” — it’s a violent, failed opinion poll whose rate of abstention is three times the usual rate, says the President. The illegal and unconstitutional referendum resoundingly failed to adopt the statute of autonomy for Santa Cruz, said President Evo Morales, as the poll showed […]

While on May 1st, Workers Day, our people are joyfully celebrating this year, which marks half a century since the triumph of the Revolution and the 70th anniversary of the creation of the CTC, our sister republic of Bolivia, committed to the health, education and guaranteed security of its people, is just a few days or even hours away from suffering dramatic events.

“Bolivia is on the verge of exploding,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on April 21. Speaking on the eve of an extraordinary summit of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA — the alliance made of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Dominica) that was partly called to discuss the situation in Bolivia, Chavez stated the […]

The process of changes in favor of the Bolivian majority is at risk of being brutally restrained. The rise to power of an Indigenous president with unprecedented support in that country and his programs of popular benefits and recovery of the natural resources have had to face the conspiracies of the oligarchy and United States […]

La Paz — In recent days the Haitians have gone into the streets to protest against the brutal increase in the cost of food.  The response of the police — with the support of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) — was repression that cost the life of at least five demonstrators and […]

Evo Morales’ Vice President believes that regional backing neutralized the most radical sectors among secessionists. The 10oC “summer” weather in Bolivia’s capital city is strongly felt in Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera’s house, which has no heating, like nearly all the houses in La Paz. For almost an hour we went over the conjuncture […]

Right & Left confront at blockade “Let’s go unblock the road, compañeros!” a man in an old baseball cap yells as he joins a group of people hauling rocks and tires from a central intersection in Cochabamba.  This group of students and union activists are mobilizing against a civic strike led by middle-class foot soldiers […]

  “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just got out my checkbook and wrote a check for $100 to the Monthly Review Foundation.  That’s on top of my Monthly Review Associate membership, which I […]

  28 August 2007 Bolivia is living through a time of political transition where the verbal masks used prolifically by the television, radio, and press to cover up reality and, as [Uruguayan write Eduardo] Galeano would say, lie in what they say and lie even more in what they don’t say. We live in a […]

United Confederation of Unions of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB), National Federation of Women Campesinos of Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa” (FNMCB “BS”), Confederation of Unions of Colonizers of Bolivia (CSCB), National Association of Water Irrigators and Communitarian Systems of Potable Water (ANARESCAPYS) Sucre, August 23, 2007 Considering: That the oligarchy, out of desperation, is using all […]

It is now more than three decades since neoliberal economic and political ideas began to supplant Keynesian orthodoxies within the treasuries and finance ministries of Western governments and in the policy-making centers of development agencies and financial institutions.  Bolivia was one of the first Latin American countries to adopt a neoliberal approach back in the […]

Evo Morales climbed into his presidential jeep, ducking a barrage of sticks, debris and insults thrown from members of right wing civic groups in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  Cameramen and livid activists chased him until police filled the streets with tear gas.  Bolivia’s first indigenous president, a former coca grower and self-described anti-imperialist, was not welcome […]