Today's Combat in La Paz

Guest what, kind readers…. as authentic journalist Claudia Espinoza said at midday, when we ran into each other in the middle of today’s marches: “Once again, we have to write about thousands of marchers who shut down La Paz and clash with the police as they try to take Plaza Murillo.” Well, exactly right… today, everyone again descended from El Alto into La Paz, this time with the addition of several contingents of miners. The miners numbered several thousand today, and arrived heavily armed with dynamite.
And while the clashes with police have still not ended at this hour of the afternoon, the “professional” politicians are still wrapped up in Carlos Mesa’s resignation, the presidential succession and the pressure from the Santa Cruz right wing… but nothing has changed, except for a considerable rise in the people’s anger.  

Last night, while crybaby Carlos Mesa said that he was again putting up his resignation for consideration by the National Congress, Narco News asked an Aymara leader (from the Omasuyos province) if that would change the situation… “No, this doesn’t resolve things. As long as we haven’t nationalized, our position does not change. We will come down into La Paz tomorrow, prepared to fight,” was his brief anwer.

Evo Morales, a few minutes after the resignation (and yes, kind readers, Mesa appeared once again before national television cameras), said that it had all been just “a new show from the president of the republic.” And Evo, making it clear that Hormando Vaa Diez could not be allowed to take power by right of succession, said that the best thing would be for Vaca Diez and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mario Cossio, to renoune that right.

If those two congressional leaders will not accept the office, the president of the Supreme Court, Eduardo Rodriguez, has already announced that he would accept, in order to guarantee that general elections would be held within three months.

Today, while the politicians of the National Congress, particularly from the right, spoke of whether to accept the resignation of still-president Mesa, the Aymara peasant farmers united with the residents of the two slopes of poor neighborhoods rising above La Paz. Then unionized miners and miners organized into cooperatives arrived. Everyone arrived, between 10:30 and 11:30, at the enter of the protest, the Plaza de los Héroes. “Let’s go to Plaza Murillo,” said the miners; “let’s go,” said the Aymara peasant farmers… “let’s go…” and today’s battle began.

The combatants carry dynamite blast caps and rocks on one side, and tear gas and rubber bullets on the other. There have been several arrests and the police confiscated hundreds of dynamite cartridges and a few Molotov cocktails. The explosions shook nearby windows, and white clouds have been rising constantly from various points in downtown La Paz.

Confidentially, we had learned that, since an emergency session of congress was expected for today to consider Carlos Mesa’s renunciation, the social movements did not plan to take the capital buildings today… they were going to give the politicians a chance, one last chance, to answer them.

But Hormando Vaca Diez and the members of congress from the eastern departments of Bolivia (those working for autonomy), refusing to meet “while there are no guarantees (of security).” That is, not in La Paz…. Are they afraid of something here?

Are they afraid of the more than 100 blockades around the country. Because, for example... Santa Cruz is now living through its third day with all the highways connecting it to the rest of the world blockaded… the region’s peasant farmers and indigenous have not moved. In La Paz as well, the shortages are now obvious… since yesterday there is no bread being sold, no gasoline, no gas for cooking…

Or are Hormando Vaca Diez and the other politicians afraid of the groups fighting in the streets of La Paz? Today, one of the slogans was clear: “Send Vaca to the slaughterhouse!” (“Vaca” is Spanish for “cow.”)  The shouts of “die!” hurled against the Congress president (who seemed quite excited yesterday at the prospect of taking power) were no joke… the leader of the Movement of Unemployed Workers of La Paz, Jaime Alanoca, told us at the beginning of the day: “This is the big one…  we won’t allow Hormando to govern for even two hours.”

“Tomorrow, we will sack this place,” was one of the slogans heard among the Aymara… and, surely taking that as a warning, the police tried to disperse the people unsuccessfully. This, and, for example, the march of more than 20,000 people today in Cochabamba (which the local farmers, the same ones behind the “water war” of 2000) have also blockaded, is what Hormando Vaca Diez is afraid of: he knows that we are now in outright civil war, and that if he assumes the presidency, it could get worse.

The basic demands on the Bolivian state, which have caused it its worst crisis in two decades, have not changed… as the Aymara leader said, nationalization (and, for many, going ahead with a constitutional assembly) remain the most important.

A few blocks from where Carlos Mesa sits in turmoil, while the guillotine of fate falls on him, the demonstrators are regrouping, enduring the teargas, raising barricades, and nothing can stop them…

What is next? We don’t know, but in these moments we are heading towards the front lines of combat to find out what the people, fighting for democracy from below, have to say… prepare yourselves, readers, because the teargas can take your breath away…