This is the latest news we've received from the few radio stations reporting on the massacre at Aymara de El Alto, in Bolivia.

This horrendous massacre is a fight of David and Goliath proportions as thousands of Aymaras armed only with stones defend the nation against an abusive military force (armed with tanks, armored trucks, machine guns, and gases) that is massacring women, children and very poor people. A majority of the mass media continued with regular programming, as some radio stations played festive music, as the massacre continued. However, Radio Pachamama continues transmitting phone calls from people of El Alto and reports from within the city by station reporters amidst the fighting. The people of El Alto have set up speakers in their houses so the whole neighborhood can stay informed of what is happening.

The Highway
The police descended mountain trails to reach the highway. Police on motorcycles fired shots and soldiers shouted. The police fired shots, as they got nearer. Police have fired a large number of shots and fired tear gas from freeway overpasses. The police mounted their motorcycles. As an old woman sobbed ?My god what is this! Please, in Bolivia there is a war??

A reporter from Radio Pachamama is reporting all of this in a shaky voice as he can hardly speak. He is under an overpass, behind a wall from where the police are shooting.

Neighbors of El Alto have not even lifted a stone, as they are not even aware of this repression. An empty red van on the highway caused this attack.

Guarding the entrance to La Paz, the barrios of Villa Exaltacion primera y segunda have not been active until now, as they have risen in indignation over the attack on the city of El Alto.

Teofila Guarachi, a reporter with Radio Pachamama, informs us that she is in the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) where the executive of the COB, Jaime Solares met with representatives from the Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (Permanent Assembly of Human Rights) Waldo Albarracín y Sacha Llorenti and media representative Freddy Morales, to coordinate plans on how to reach the city of El Alto.

Descending from a checkpoint in Lima (in the city of La Paz), a group of people has closed stores in solidarity with their neighbors killed in El Alto.

From El Alto, we have been informed that people are lying face down in their houses, while women and children are scared by shots fired from soldiers passing by shooting. People in El Alto have also lit a bonfire to avoid the tear gases. Despite the shootings, many people have gathered outside.

It is now noon time in Bolivia, of October 12, 2003. The civil war continues against the Aymara city of El Alto. Crimes continue to be committed against the unarmed, humble and poor people of El Alto. It is an unequal and cowardly confrontation, sticks and stones against tanks, machine guns and rifles!

In Santiago segundo, a tank fired indiscriminately while the wounded were carried off in beds, and there are no ambulances or help available for the wounded. Because the tank is firing indiscriminately, people do not know how to transport the wounded. They are desperate as two people have been killed and various are injured. Near the terminal, many people who have gone out of their homes have been shot at.

In the city of La Paz, the national coordinator for the defense of the nation is reminding people in La Paz and the mountain regions to remember the invasion by the Spaniards, and is calling for the resignation of the very unpopular President of Bolivia, Sanchez de Lozada, because of the massacres against so many people.

Another person has died. In the Germán Bush hospital, in the city of El Alto, a doctor has announced that a person of unknown identity died because of gunshot wounds. A majority of the injured are coming in with gunshot wounds or injuries caused by tear gas.

There are ten injured people in the Germán Bush hospital, which includes:
Anacleto Paredes (27), Paulina Ramos (22), Julio Abdón Mamani, Macario Cruz (26), Javier Huaihua Primo Alejo (27), Sr. Mita. One of the dead has been identified as José Miguel Tórrez Pérez 23 years old, while one remains unidentified.

At another hospital, Hospital de El Kenko, a number of people are also reported injured, and they are identified as Raúl Murga Eustaquio Cachi, Pedro Condori, Ramiro Colque, Hector Valdéz, and Andrea Valeriano. Remember, this is just a partial list.

As people in the Germán Bush hospital talked to the media, an indignant and sobbing Aymara woman said: ?As women we are grieving and as women we will fight this civil war because our brothers have been murdered like dogs, murdered like animals.?

Another person, an old man said with his voice drowning in sorrow said: ?They have bathed our brothers who live in the mountains in blood, because of this we declare civil war on el gringo Sanchez de Lozada and Sanchez Berzain ) a minister notorious for his cruelty). It is amazing how those soldiers submit to the orders of the gringos! Let them come, we will resist, here we declare civil war until he resigns, we will not retreat anymore. El Alto will always be on its feet never on its knees!?

A reporter has said that this is about murders in cold blood, and that various people have testified that they have seen a captain take out his revolver and kill a humble man execution style. How do you pacify with bullets?

It is noontime of another tragic day in Bolivia as soldiers kill unarmed urban Aymaras, workers, and poor people. This is terrible. In Semkata, a neighborhood of El Alto, people are so indignant that they are looking for the homes of policemen to attack, after a terrible massacre where three people were killed and dozens were wounded.

Radio Pachamama, located in El Alto, which is transmitting the voice of the people, received threats and people have gone to guard their facilities. Despite the great fear felt amongst announcers and reporters for Radio Pachamama, their work in these bloody days, is quite historic. The Director of Radio Pachamama, Lucía Sauma, has delivered pacifist messages to the people of El Alto, but unfortunately not to the police who are doing the killing. Of the entire dead and wounded, not one is a police officer.

A woman called and said that she detests violence and did not think she would go out, but she has seen how the city of El Alto has been taken over by the military, which has machine gunned the city from a helicopter all morning. It is as if it were a war with another country. Crying she said that there are many dead, and that she did not want this to happen. The reporter cuts her off. Because of lack of medical care, one person has died, and the woman keeps on weeping. The voice of the people is so affecting, that reporters are afraid in so many ways.

Murdered by soldiers this morning, José Miguel Pérez lays in a simple coffin surrounded by dismayed neighbors who under the threat of a military helicopter conduct a wake and funeral procession on the streets. A sign placed on the coffin says: ?Martyred for Gas, José Miguel Perez, a hero murdered by the machine gun of Chilean government influenced Sanchez de Lozada.?

A human rights group as well as a press association has released a joint press release asking that the city of El Alto be de- militarized.

In the barrio 25 de Julio, people have accompanied Radio Pachamama reporter José Luis Gutierrez to Semkata, where there has been another massacre and it appears as though there are many injured. No other media outlet has sent any reporters there. Many disdain that the rest of the media outlets are in the midst of celebration oblivious to the massacre and many wonder what repugnant role the mass media played in this moment of mourning.

It is one in the afternoon on this bloody day October 12, 2003, in Bolivia. The military forces of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada continue to attack the city of El Alto. Police, who are also of indigenous origin, are killing their brothers and sisters to protect the interests of Sánchez de Lozada., a millionaire-mining executive.

The tyrant, Sánchez de Lozada, and his acolytes will go down in history as worse repressors than those of the dictatorships.
The worst thing is that these leaders are not aware that this massacre has surpassed the issue of gas exportation. This massacre is racist and displays the characteristics of dictatorships.

Attention. Radio Pachamama has been threatened. We are in solidarity with the radio station and we echo their call to the international media outlets to use their voices to report on the massacre as well as the threatened shutdown of this station.

Three more people have died, and the newest victims are Vidal Pinto, Efrain Mita Quispe and Carmelo Mamani, who in their poverty were very generous and gave all they had to give. Their neighbors have made small contributions, and have built a small chapel with a calamine roof. These men died when a heavily guarded caravan transporting chickens and gas storage tanks, fired shots at the victims as if this were a war.

!:35 PM, Oct. 12. 2003, a tragic day in Bolivia. Another convoy of death prepares to descend from Semkata (from where storage tanks containing natural gas depart to provide gas to La Paz). How many more lives will violence from the murderer Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada?s bloody government cost?
Glory to the Fallen in the Aymara city of El Alto
More information on the massacre at El Alto, it is 2pm, on October 12, 2003.
In the highway, caravans of police are passing by and throwing tear gas and shooting as people of El Alto throw stones from the hills above. The caravan is made of a vehicle loaded with chickens to supply the rich neighborhoods of La Paz, also some taxis have been able to make it through and one police vehicle stopped to repress the people of El Alto. Once again, the caravan stopped and shots were fired from the head of the caravan. The entire area is full of tear gas and the path of this caravan is sinister.


(more to follow/ mas en seguida)

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