"Rifle, Shrapnel, Bolivia Will Not Be Quiet!" *

Thursday was relatively calm compared to yesterday in La Paz. The city bus drivers have begun a 48-hour strike, because of which there is practically no traffic in the capital. As the people are now unable to reach the centers of protest, the marches have been small (a leader of the Press Workers Union of La Paz told us that because of this, the busdrivers are working for the government).

El Alto forms the stark contrast in this part of the world. The general strike in this indigenous metropolis neighboring La Paz has returned in full force after a brief pause. Nothing is moving, and this morning there were two enormous marches: the Federation of Neighborhood Committees and the Regional Workers’ Federation have crossed the city. This afternoon the El Alto social movements plan to carry out a symbolic occupation of the Senkata gasoline plant. In general, according to various reports arriving from the country’s interior, there are now more than forty blockades on the country’s roads and highways. Land contact between the principal cities of western Bolivia is nearly nonexistent. In Cochabamba, the peasant farmers have blocked roads into the city.

Yesterday in Santa Cruz, the paramilitary group Union of Cruceñista Youth attacked a march of peasant farmers heading to the center of that right-wing metropolis. There were several injuries, and in response to the aggression, the farmers in the north of that part of Bolivia have closed their territory as well as the highway that connects to the northern city of Trinidad.

Meanwhile, a group of peasant farmers, health workers, journalists, and small merchants from La Paz marched downtown this morning. The city center remains nearly deserted. The seeing that there were now few people in the Plaza de los Heroes, gassed and dispersed the people after the march.

And there have also been further developments on the other side of the trench. Last night, President Carlos Mesa gave a brief speech to salute Congress’s decision to dialog. Mesa, always needing to explain what’s happening without taking any responsibility, said that the present conflict is due to the fact that “the country is living through a state crisis, where the different institutions and persons are weakened, losing legitimacy, and the elements of cohesion that allow one to live in a civilized community are being extinguished.” Has the president of Bolivia forgotten that he is the head of that uncivilized and decadent state?

Because of that, or whatever else, Condi Rice has released a travel warning to U.S. citizens, telling them to abstain from coming to Bolivia until at least August 30. (Would that include her agents and marines? Let’s hope so…)  And for the same reason, or in order to cling to that current form of political life, the members of Congress have been working and talking since last night. It seems that now they will finally get to work and hold a session this evening…

Finally, this reporter would like to remind you, kind readers, that the main protest slogan has not varied (although a few have thrown in their luck trying to pacify the country with electoral solutions coming from Congress): the people are still demanding total nationalization of the hydrocarbons. And now, the Bolivian social movements are beginning to demand a Constituents’ Assembly, but not the one the right wing wants. Rather, an assembly as expressed in a document that the rural Aymara published last night, “according to the logic of the people.”

We’ll return later with the most recent developments…