The New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus (NDPSC) would like to express its support for the ongoing general strike in Bolivia. This strike is calling for the illegitimate government to hold elections on September 6th as scheduled and not push them further back to October 18th. The junta is attempting to use the COVID pandemic as an excuse to avoid the election.
Juan Carlos Huarachi, head of the Bolivian Workers Center, has countered that it is not the virus but government mismanagement and political persecution that is the real threat facing Bolivians. On July 28th the Bolivian Workers Center organized a march on the capital La Paz, joined by thousands of workers. It ended with a workers council declaring an indefinite general strike and organizing future mobilizations.
Starting in late 2019, the ruling class and their upper middle class allies in Bolivia conspired to overthrow the elected, leftist government of Evo Morales. They engaged in weeks of anti- government protests, and anti-government disinformation. The Organization of American States, the United States, Canada, the European Union, and major corporate media all worked together against the elected Bolivian Government. They all legitimized the coup against the government by claiming that the Morales administration had engaged in electoral fraud.
The current government headed by Jeanine Áñez seized power on Nov 10th in a violent coup. This led to suppression of peasants, workers, and Indigenous people. All of these people have been stripped of their right to decide who governs Bolivia. Áñez has given security forces a license to act without oversight and has made deals to sell resources like rich lithium deposits to foreign mining and industrial corporations.
Thanks to independent investigations by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, John Curiel and Jack R. Williams, and the University of Pennsylvania, it has been established that there was no electoral fraud on the part of Morales administration. Some of the parties who had spread the disinformation admit their “mistake”, but the OAS has still taken no responsibility.
The NDPSC stands in solidarity with workers, peasants, and oppressed groups all over the world. The Bolivian working class is today taking action to regain their political freedom. Without political freedom, they have no defence against the corporations that would impoverish them. The NDPSC stands against all capitalist exploitation and political persecution. We stand with the people of Bolivia in their fight to participate in the shaping of their society. We hope they can smash this twisted political circus and the violent security forces that have taken hold of their nation.
