Bolivia

The Eighth Indigenous March is not alone!

30/09/2011

For a plan of struggle so that the indigenous demands are achieved!

For a national coordinating committee of workers’, indigenous and popular organizations in struggle!

Last Sunday, after the brutal repression by the MAS against the Eighth
Indigenous March, a big political crisis began, that has already cost the
job of Cecilia Chacón first, then Farfán, and finally LLorenti, because of
an escalation of mobilizations and protests, that has not been seen for a
long time. The concern for the government is greater, since if this
class-struggle dynamic continues, the failure of the judicial elections is
an element that cannot be ruled out. Since the repression, new and more
social groups are beginning to join the struggle, in solidarity with the
peoples of the TIPNIS, against repression and for their own demands.
However, in this escalation of conflicts, we see old figureheads from
bourgeois parties trying to limit the demands of the mobilization, trying to
restrict this struggle to mere ecology, by devaluing the struggle against
the transnational corporations, for the rights of the indigenous peoples to
self-determination. These same groups, that are limiting the program, are
also seeking to limit the methods of struggle and action, and they fear that
the indigenous mobilization will be joined by miners and industrial workers,
that it will be joined by the workers’ and popular districts.

From the LOR-CI, however, we consider that it is only possible to win, if the
indigenous march joins forces with, and is reinforced by, the joint action
of workers, campesinos and the poor. Only in a clear struggle against those
who are trying to plunder the TIPNIS, like the oil and timber transnational
corporations, is it possible to think about a development plan at the
service of the great national majorities. The COB strike must become the
first step in an escalation of mobilizations that should be guided by a real
plan of struggle to realize the demands of the TIPNIS and of all the workers
and people. We must draw up this plan of struggle democratically, and to
that end, we consider it urgent to set up a national coordinating committee
of workers’, campesinos’, and indigenous organizations in struggle. This
coordinating committee, in which the COB, miners, industrial workers, and
the native campesinos’ communities participate, should be composed of
delegates from factories and enterprises, and from the communities, and only in a way that will genuinely reflect the will of the workers in struggle.
Only in this way is it possible to guarantee a leadership at the service of
the mobilization, by fighting against the union bureaucracy and by removing,
all at once, the social climbers and opportunists that are trying again to
get on the shoulders of the indigenous movement.