In face of a deep economic crisis and government measures that have devastated the livelihoods of working people in Bolivia, unions and peasant organizations have been carrying out a wave of protest actions since early April.
The latest actions were initiated by small coca farmers, who are being ruined by the government's policies in the countryside. They have organized mass marches and blocked highways around the country.
Transport workers held a one-day national strike, which was attacked by riot police. They later organized protests against the death of two people as a result of the cop assault. Retired workers have conducted a hunger strike in La Paz, demanding reductions in their rent.
The Bolivian Workers Confederation (COB) called a nationwide strike starting May 1, as well as a march from the city of Oruro to La Paz, the capital.
COB leader Zósimo Paniagua said the labor movement opposes the sell-off of state companies, demands the reinstatement of laid-off workers, and calls for raising the minimum wage from $60 to $150 a month, among other demands such as improved health care.
A plan by the United Union Confederation of Working Peasants (CSUTC) to set up roadblocks on highways connecting Bolivian cities with Peruvian and Chilean ports on the Pacific has been postponed for 30 days.
To try to undermine the large-scale protests, the government of President Hugo Banzer announced it would be "flexible" with its austerity demands. Officials said the regime would consider "pardoning" the debts of 20,000 peasants who have no more than $5,000 in debts to the state bank.
The farmers are demanding the government halt the campaign to destroy the coca crop in the rural regions of Chapare and Yungas as long as it offers no alternatives for peasants to earn a living.
Under a U.S.-backed program labeled the "Dignity Plan," which began in 1998, the Bolivian government has sent troops to storm the tiny coca farms and forcibly uproot the crops of 40,000 peasant families in the Chapare jungle, 200 miles from La Paz.
Coca provides the raw material for cocaine. While coca farmers eke out a living, capitalist drug traders in both the United States and South America rake in millions of dollars in profits.
The U.S. and Bolivian governments brag about the "success" of their program, reporting a reduction in "illegal coca" from 74,000 to 6,600 acres. "Bolivia has done in the past two to three years what no other country has done in the drug war in Latin America," the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, declared.
Another 24,000 acres of coca in the Yungas lowlands are planted legally for traditional indigenous uses such as easing hunger pains and for herbal tea.
The peasants have angrily protested that the government's "solution" is U.S.-financed military attacks that are wiping out their livelihood, without providing assistance to plant alternative crops.
In the rural village of Paraíso, Silverio Mamani, 35, told reporters the government has promoted pineapples as an alternative crop. But he said there is only one technician per 300 families, and that his family has received virtually no help on how to grow the plants. As a result, only half the crop has bloomed and the rest, attacked by a jungle fungus, lies rotting in the fields.
Until the government stops abandoning the farmers to their fate, "we are not going to stop growing coca," said Evo Morales, leader of the Federation of Coca Growers and a member of Congress. "And we will defend ourselves from this government, which has decided to blindly obey the orders of Washington with no thought given to its own citizens."
Thousands of people joined and supported a march by coca farmers that set off from Chapare and Yungas to La Paz on April 9. Many peasants and others swelled its ranks as it crossed the countryside.
At several points along the way hundreds of police in full riot gear attacked marchers with tear gas. A number of peasants were forced back to their towns, while others were arrested. The remaining marchers arrived in La Paz April 23.
Since then the coca growers have organized roadblocks on the highway connecting Santa Cruz and Cochabamba.
Protesters demand president resign
The unions and other protesters have been demanding Banzer's resignation. The main opposition party, the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR), has tried to channel the opposition off the streets and into electoral politics. The MNR, while joining the call for Banzer to step down, has offered to form a "national salvation government" headed by the current vice president, Jorge Quiroga. Banzer supporters in Congress, however, have taken a hard-line stance, saying they will push for revoking the MNR's legal status as a party.
Banzer was the head of a bloody military dictatorship from 1971, when he led a coup against the government of Juan José Torres, to 1978. In 1997, with other capitalist politicians discredited by the growing economic crisis, Banzer was elected president with only 22 percent of the popular vote, but with the necessary congressional majority.