Lessons from Bolivia
By Elias Jaua
I write these lines in the hours when the humble people of Bolivia wage a tremendous battle for their existence, for their dignity. A coup d’etat, a military, very violent, cruel and racist coup in the 21st century, has been consummated. The military high command committed the felony under the argument of not wanting to repress the fascist gangs of Luis Fernando Camacho who had been burning and lynching from the city of Santa Cruz to La Paz to overthrow the constitutional President Evo Morales, who beyond the results Elections of last October of this year 2019, has a legal and legitimate mandate from 2015 to January 2020, the result of the validated elections of 2014.
After the coup, after the forced resignation of our brother Evo Morales and the unconstitutional self-proclamation of Senator Jeanine Áñez, current dictator of Bolivia, the armed and police forces have unleashed a massacre of proportions not seen, in such a short time, since the coup against President Martyr Salvador Allende, by Augusto Pinochet, in 1973, against the Chilean people and the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez against our people in February and March 1989.
It is not time to point out mistakes or regrets, but to learn the lessons that the Bolivian case is giving us in real time, namely:
- As Che said, “You cannot trust anithing coming from Imperialism.” There are no lobbies that are worthwhile, when the White House is determined to truncate processes of democratic transformation, its historical enemies. In the shade, it is more dangerous.
- The revolutionary leadership must always have an ear on the ground, to listen to the telluric movements. These coup processes do not occur overnight. Less than useful are the self-convictions that “Everything is under control.”
- The unconditional ones are not always the most loyal ones. A truth told and heard in time can save a revolutionary process.
- Government works and policies are necessary but not sufficient. Without ideology, without attachment to programmatic principles, the true course of victory is lost. With Bolívar we say “To vacillate is to lose ourselves”.
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- Once again, Augusto Sandino’s phrase “Only workers and peasants will reach the end” is checked. In the streets of Bolivia, opening their chest and spilling their blood to raise their flags, the tricolor of Independence and the multicolored Wiphala of cultural diversity, are the Indians, the peasants, the workers, the miners, the humble people. In those streets there are no businessmen, no bankers, no glittering artists, or the plugged in. They are not here, they are all time opportunists. Only the people save the people!
- The revolutions must be peaceful, democratic, electoral, but as our Comandante Chávez said “not unarmed.”
- With the people there will always be tomorrow. Institutions can be a circumstance. It is the people that make revolution. The people are always going to fight, the people don’t give up.
Go, our admiration for the poor of Bolivia, for their conscience, for their dignity, for their courage. Victory belongs to them. Fascism will not advance. Venceremos!
Translated by JRE/EF
