On March 15 the Bolivian Workers Federation (COB) stepped up the protests with a 48-hour strike. The popular unrest has been fueled by worsening conditions faced by working people.

In a move to deflect the protests, President Carlos Mesa offered his resignation March 6. A few days later he announced he would remain in office after receiving an anticipated show of support from all parties in Congress except for the opposition Movement toward Socialism (MAS), which has led many of the protests.

Middle-class demonstrators, fearful of the economic and political uncertainty, took to the streets to back Mesa, who had taken office in October 2003 after his predecessor, Gonzálo Sánchez de Lozada, resigned in face of a popular explosion against his economic policies.

The ongoing protests have been led by the MAS, the COB, the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement (MIP), and other Indian organizations. Their central demand is an increase in royalties paid by foreign oil companies—including Repsol of Spain, British Petroleum, and Petrobras of Brazil—from 18 percent to 50 percent.

El Alto, an industrial district with a population of one million near the capital city of La Paz, was shut down in early March by protests over the water company, Aguas del Illimani, owned by the French-based Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux. Since the utility was privatized, water rates have been jacked up. Many homes remain without running water or sewer service despite the company’s promise to increase hookups. Although the Mesa government canceled the company’s contract in January, neighborhood leaders in El Alto continue to demand that the company be expelled.

Less than one out of four Bolivians have running water, less than 1 percent have sewage service, and only 15 percent have electricity.

While Bolivia has the second-largest gas reserves in South America after Venezuela, it is the poorest country on the continent. Over the past decade, successive governments in La Paz have implemented “free market reforms” that allow greater investment by imperialist-owned companies in state-run industries, while removing price subsidies on essential goods and cutting other social programs.

In a country forced to make unending interest payments to imperialist bankers on its $4 billion foreign debt, nearly half the population of 8.7 million lives on less than $2 per day. Bolivia’s per capita gross domestic product is about $900—one-seventh of that in neighboring Chile, itself a semicolonial country.

It was the struggle against these conditions that brought down the previous government in October 2003. At that time, the catalyst for the mobilizations by peasants, tin miners, indigenous groups, and others was the plan by the Sánchez de Lozada regime to begin exporting natural gas to the United States. It was seen as a plunder of Bolivia’s national patrimony, resulting in a bonanza for the foreign energy monopolies and few benefits for the majority of Bolivians, many of whom cannot even afford gas for cooking or heating.

To try to squash the protests, Sánchez de Lozada deployed the military, which fatally shot 80 demonstrators and injured hundreds. Bolivia’s rulers forced out the discredited president and replaced him with the vice president. Mesa posed as an untainted journalist-turned-politician, “independent” of the hated traditional parties that have ruled the country for decades. With demonstrations continuing even as he was sworn into office, Mesa pleaded, “Give me time, give me space.”

Economic conditions have continued to deteriorate, however. Since Mesa took office a year and a half ago, the government has faced more than 800 protests—over problems ranging from fuel rates and the price of bus tickets, to opposition to government coca-eradication measures that are devastating working farmers.

Since January Bolivia has been rocked by mass antigovernment mobilizations. “Impoverished Indians have halted traffic on major roads for weeks,” the Reuters news agency reported March 15. “As many as 1,500 trucks with rotting cargoes are stranded on highways in the central region of Chapare,” a coca-growing center. El Alto has also been a focal point of working-class protests.

Bolivian capitalists have increasingly clamored for Mesa to crack down on the working-class and peasant protests. People from the middle classes, afraid that Mesa’s resignation would lead to deeper upheaval, have rallied in his support.

According to a March 7 article in the Bolivian daily El Diario, demonstrators in La Paz waved flags and chanted, “We do not accept your resignation! We don’t want a thief or a murderer to take office.” One woman told a local television station that she supported Mesa because “we don’t want to fall into the hands of coca growers, thieves, and communists.” Protesters blamed Evo Morales of the MAS and indigenous groups for “dividing” Bolivia and “plunging the country into chaos.”  
 
 
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