Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:04:54 -0400
From: "Fred Fuentes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
X-ASG-Orig-Subj: Bolivian social movements: We
will defend the constituent assembly with our lives
Subject: Bolivian social movements: We will
defend the constituent assembly with our lives
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
[see also
The Opposition Tried to Stop the Government From Imposing Its
Majority: Fights in the Bolivian Congress Over a Political Judgement
Pablo Stefanoni, Clarín, August 23 (plus video)
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/08/opposition-tried-to-stop-government.html
Bolivia's Constitutional Assembly Temporarily Suspended: Conflict
Trumps Compromise
Andean Information Network, August 24, 2007
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/08/bolivias-constitutional-assembly.html]
"We will defend the constituent assembly with our lives"
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/08/we-will-defend-constituent-assembly.html
Resolution from the National Emergency Gathering of the Social Organisations
United Confederation of Unions of Campesino Workers of Bolivia
(CSUTCB), National Federation of Women Campesinos of Bolivia
"Bartolina Sisa" (FNMCB "BS"), Confederation of Unions of Colonizers
of Bolivia (CSCB), National Association of Water Irrigators and
Communitarian Systems of Potable Water (ANARESCAPYS)
Sucre, August 23, 2007
Considering:
That the oligarchy, out of desperation, is using all its means to
ensure that the process of revolutionary democratic change and the
constituent assembly fail, which is why at the moment they are
pushing the idea of Sucre becoming the full capital, aiming to provoke
a confrontation between brothers from the department of La Paz and
Chuquisaca, like during the times of the "Federal War" of 1899, which
cost the lives of thousands of our indigenous, originario and
campesino brothers.
That, for this reason, the state powers should remain in the place
where we all feel secure to continuing to recuperate the dignity of
Bolivian men and women, recuperate natural resources and continue
with the process of revolutionary, democratic, social and cultural
change. In summary, this is the result of a process of growing
political consciousness, and of not allow ourselves to be fooled by
this corrupt oligarchy.
That, the constituent assembly has expressing the sentiment of the
people, the achievement of structural changes in favour of the
originarios, workers and the people in general, that it is why it is
the obligation of the social organisations to defend it in the face of
the destabilising acts that the representatives of the corrupt
oligarchy have incited.
Therefore, we resolve:
1. We will defend with our lives the constituent assembly, the unity
and integration of the country, the process of democratic change
driven by the majority, and the proposals we have presented. We
demand the immediate installation of the plenary sessions of the
constituent assembly by next week. If not we will see ourselves
obliged to take up radical measures in defence of democracy and the
constituent assembly, and to change the place of the sessions to
another department, without affecting its headquarters.
2. We will not allow minority oligarchic groups who, using fascist
shock troops made up of the Cruceñista Youth Union and university
youth from Chuquisaca lacking in revolutionary consciousness, are
attempting to provoke the failure of the constituent assembly, which
is the only scenario of originario and foundational deliberations in
the country.
3. We repudiate and condemn the physical and material aggressions
against the headquarters of the social organisations of the Unity
Pact, perpetrated by fascist oligarchic groups in the hours of the
night of August 22, 2007, who entered violently, destroying doors,
windows, mirrors, computers and Radio New Homeland, with the sole aim
of terrifying the leadership of the social organisations. We declare
the members of the supposed Inter-institutional Committee of the Full
Capital, PODEMOS and Tuto Quiroga, the intellectual authors behind
this, as enemies of the constituent assembly and democracy.
4. We demand that national and international human rights
organisation pronounce themselves and denounce internationally this
persecution of leaders, burning of symbols (Whipala) and destruction
of headquarters of the indigenous, originario and campesino peoples.
5. We demand that the forces of order comply with their role of
safeguarding the assembly delegates who are suffering physical and
verbal aggressions at the hands of hired shock troops, and that they
guarantee the functioning of the constituent assembly.
6. We condemn the attempts at division and confrontation, favoured by
the oligarchs of the Half Moon, and we reject the idea of the
constituent assembly dealing with the issue of the full capital,
because it is an imposition by the oligarchs who are trying to distort
and truncate the process of change that our country is living through
and take us to a civil war.
7. We applaud and support the revolutionary organic constituent
delegates and the constituent assembly in full for having taken the
wise decision to not deal with the issue of the full capital, because
it is an issue that goes against the unity of the country, and as
national organisations we guarantee the defence of this decision.
8. We fully support the United Federation of Workers of the
Originario Peoples of Chuquisaca and the United Federation of Women
from the Originario Peoples of Chuquisaca "Bartolina Sisa" and the
Regional Federations of Chaco and North and South Cinti for their
revolutionary decisions and actions and the dialogue between
Chuquisaca and La Paz, as well as the peaceful march set for August
27, 2007 in defence of the constituent assembly.
9. We support the decisions taken by the chamber of deputies to put
on trial the four magistrates of the Constitutional Tribunal who
committed the crime of perversion of justice, who were elected through
the quota system of those same traditional parties that today defend
them, whilst seeking to impede the trial of responsibility against
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
10. We declare ourselves in a state of emergency, with vigils and
permanent marches in each department, in order to guarantee the unity
of Bolivia, the functioning of the constituent assembly, in defence
of our natural resources, and the enforcement of indigenous,
originario, campesino autonomies.
This was decided upon in the city of Sucre on the twenty third day of
the month of August of the year two thousand and seven.
By the social organisations of Bolivia
¡¡Jallalla constituent assembly!!
¡¡Jallalla la unidad!!
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
