Bolivia smells of insurrection…

After resisting 48 hours of slaughter, automatic guns and death, the rebellion of the poor, with its main force in the city of El Alto, has expanded into the whole plateau region, attracting workers, coca growers and peasants of other regions like the valleys and the east. Bolivia smells of insurrection: the poor people are standing up.

In the first hours of Monday, thousands of locals filled the hills of La Paz , armed with stones and slings, confronting the soldiers and the police who guard the 12 kilometer long highway that connects La Paz with El Alto. There are barricades, there is machine-gun fire and now and then a helicopter flies over.

In the middle of smoldering bonfires, set to fire during the night to prevent an attack of troops loyal to president Gonzalo (Goni) the Sanchez de Lozada, the locals, demanding his resignation, organized themselves to descend to the center of La Paz where the government is housed.

"La Portada has risen in support of our brothers in El Alto", says a local, while he imitates a bullet and an enormous amplifier produces the sound of cavalry. There is an air of insurrection.

With the breakdown of public transportation (due to the fuel shortage and the strike of the busdrivers), the streets of La Paz appear almost deserted, although it should be noted that the call to the teachers, retailers, students and workers to concentrate in their places of work and study and consequently seal off the center has worked.

In the residential districts, there is indignation about the massacre. “We must all descend to the centre, to San Francisco, to San Francisco”, "Goni will go”, the masses shout.

At 9:30 in the morning, in San Francisco, at the central square of the La Paz, a youngster was wounded by gunfire. "Without armed civilians, the government agents are the ones that do the shooting”, witnesses to the attack say.

Two blocks away, at la Garita de Lima, barricades are raised. In El Alto, where this Sunday 26 residents were killed by gunfire and another hundred were wounded, the skirmishes continued.

In the Alto Lima district, another youngster was killed by bullets and three were wounded during the early evening, increasing the casualties in defense of the gas and petroleum, in defense of the life and dignity of the poor.

In community centers and private houses, the residents, many of them immigrants from the rural areas, wake the dead with coca, pain and anger. There, at four thousand meters above sealevel, there is no mercy for Goni, the man the poor hate the most. People continue fighting with what they have. Trapped in a corner by the growing protests, the President runs out of time and room to manouevre in.

A presidential decree, sent at 2 in the morning, that promises not to allow free passage to the project to export gas to the United States, at least until the end December and after consultation and debates with the social sectors, has been rejected immediately. "El Alto, with all its districts, with all its organizations, has already spoken its last words: Goni should resign and go to jail. He can walk to the devil with his decree”, said the leader of the rebellion in El Alto and director of the Regional Workers Union, Robert de la Cruz.
"The country is rising up to tear down this murderer and to retake the gas and the oil for the Bolivians, to use our own gas in our own country", he added.

The first reports from this morning tell that the blockade of La Paz, already 5 days old, is still getting tighter.
From the Viacha neighborhood, on the way to Oruro, it is reported that hundreds of people are travelling to El Alto, to support the struggle.

Other communities of the plateau also are asking their young, the same slogan, the same objective: to tear down the millionaire who governs the poorest country of South of America.

"The miners have said that they are going to grab the mines from Sanchez de Lozada", Eva Morales, the head of MAS (the socialist movement), reports from Cochabamba. He has instructed his supportes in El Chapare, in the center of Bolivia, to fully join the blockades of highways. Until now this has only happened sporadically there, just like the campesinos that are loyal to Morales have not participated much with the blockades in the valleys.

Until now, the participation of the coca farmers and the peasants has been minimal, which has caused much criticism on Morales. Other, much more radical coca growers, like those of Yungas near La Paz have totally cut off another one of the pricipal access ways to La Paz for two weeks. On this route, the blockade has intensified, like the other blockades on the plateua, cutting off La Paz from access to its provinces abd wuth others and lesser so from the border regions of Peru and Chile.

The blockade over land is complete, and since this morning, transportation via the air has also been suspended. The road that connects the airport with La Paz, which used to be under control of the army, has been taken over by youths and regionals. The passengers arriving at the airport yesterday night can not go down to the city, and therefore are forced to take a plane back to their region.

Other reports talk about new blockades and marches in the south and East of the country. Communiquees from trade union and popular organisations are calling for people to go out to the streets and use stones and bravery to finish the government of the millionaire president once and for all. The millionair that has made a fortune in the mines of Oruro and Potosi, which have turned into holes of fear and poverty. The insurrection of the poor is on its way.