The latest round of protests erupted after Bolivia’s Congress passed legislation that would raise the taxes foreign energy monopolies pay to the state from 10 percent to 32 percent, in addition to existing royalties of 18 percent. Protesters’ demands range from calls for a 50 percent tax to the nationalization of oil and natural gas exploration and production.

The Bolivian ruling class is divided over the new measure. Congress approved the bill by a 59-48 vote, partly as a concession to mass protests over the past year. Bolivian president Carlos Mesa called the bill “suicidal,” saying it discourages foreign investment. He had called for a 12 percent tax.

The Movement Toward Socialism, one of the main opposition parties in parliament and a force involved in the protests, has pushed for a hike in the tax to 50 percent instead of nationalization, reported the Bolivian daily La Razon. Other organizations, such as the Federation of Neighborhood Committees of El Alto and the Bolivian Workers Federation, have called for nationalization of the gas and oil industries.

On May 16, the day before the bill was signed, some 10,000 people marched on La Paz from the industrial city of El Alto, near the capital. A week later, an eight-day, 120-mile march from the rural town of Caracollo culminated at the center of La Paz with a rally that included tin miners, teachers, and students. By May 24 protesters had blocked highways leading into La Paz.

Police barricaded Murillo Plaza, where the presidential palace and Congress are located, to prevent protesters from approaching. Mesa dispatched three troop carriers to reinforce the riot police already in the capital. The cops fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons on protesters, injuring several. The bus company in the capital suspended service into the interior of the country because of roadblocks in La Paz and other cities, the daily El Deber reported.

Meanwhile, a group of junior army officers calling itself the “Generational Military Movement” appeared on national television May 25 calling for Mesa’s resignation and for a “government of the people.” Defense Minister Gen. Gonzálo Arredondo called the officers “seditious” and said they could be expelled from the army, the Bloomberg news service reported.

Protests over natural gas reserves led to President Gonzálo Sanchez de Lozada’s ouster in October 2003, when his plans to export gas through Chilean ports was met with mass protests. Popular outrage erupted after Sanchez de Lozada deployed the military to break up the demonstrations, and the army shot and killed 80 protesters.

Bolivia is rich in minerals and other natural resources. It is a leading producer of tin and has the second-largest known reserves of natural gas in South America, after Venezuela. Imperialist investors and domestic capitalists have profited from the plunder of the country’s resources and exploitation of its labor. At the same time, about half the population gets by on less than $2 a day and 70 percent of the people live below the official poverty line. Workers and peasants are also being squeezed by never-ending payments on Bolivia’s $5.3 billion foreign debt, which transfers the nation’s wealth into the coffers of banks in the imperialist countries.

“We have the right to defend our natural gas, our natural resources,” Maria Valdviezo, a 37-year-old peasant who joined the recent protests in La Paz, told reporters there, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We live from our land. Our children can only study up to the fifth grade, and then they’re left to their own devices.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home