[A-List] Updates, statements and eyewitness accounts from the crisis in Bolivia

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Social movements lift blockades, but continue to demand resignation

Telesur, January 12

In an exclusive interview with Telesur, Bolivian Minister for Social
Movements, Alfredo Rada, informed on Friday that campesino sectors
that have been demanding the resignation of Cochabamba prefect,
Manfred Reyes Villa, have begun to lift road blockades that have
blocked off the city from other departments...."We think this decision
to lift the road blocks is a satisfactory one, we consider that the
popular mobilisations have demonstrated that they have the grand
backing of the people of this department and we think that the right
wing represented by Reyes Villa in the prefecture has been put into a
corner and are at a crossroads where the prefect needs to make a
decision as to whether he will resign or not" explained Rada......
rest at
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/social-movements-lift-blockades-bu
t.html

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Reyes Villa in "exile", cocalero leader threats to "hang him like
Saddam Hussein"

Pablo Stefanoni, January 14

The weekend helped lower the accumulated tension in Cochabamba, but
the mobilized sectors ratified once again their decision: to not take
a backward step until they receive governor Manfred Reyes Villa
resignation, who is refusing to return to his city, something that the
government of Evo Morales is asking him to do. On Thursday and Friday,
violent clashes between supporters and opponents of the governor - who
was force to back down on his idea of convoking a referendum for
autonomy in the region - finished with two deaths... rest at
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/reyes-villa-in-exile-cocalero-lead
er.html
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Social Movements in the East and West prepare for mobilisations

La Jornada and Agencia Boliviana de Information, January 12-13

The Regional Workers Central (COR) and the Federation of Neighbourhood
Committees (FEJUVE) from the city of El Alto announced that on Monday
15 they would march onto the headquarters of the Government to ask for
the resignation of the prefect for the department of La Paz, Jose Luis
Paredes.....In Santa Cruz, the president of the Popular Civic
Committee, Saturnino Pinto, informed today that preparations are
continuing for the mobilisation on Monday January 15 where the
marginalised sectors of the Crucena population will aim to have their
demands heard... rest at
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/social-movements-in-east-and-west.
html

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COR-El Alto: "Articulate a revolutionary front that contributes
towards consummating these profound changes", plus report on FEJUVE
meeting

Resolution of the 18th emergency meeting of the Regional Workers
Central of El Alto (COR-El Alto), January 12

The workers of this city, considered the vanguard of the 21st century
revolution of Bolivia, faced with the offensive of the neoliberals who
are once again utilizing fascism massacring the cocalero and campesino
companeros from Cochabamba, are standing up in struggle, with the
objectives and struggle of October 2003, to defeat the offensive of
the neoliberals and their apparatuses such as the prefectures,
business owners organisations, the fascist youth, that is, all their
repressive apparatus.....Meanwhile Mario Ronald Duran Chuquimia
reports on the meeting of the Presidents of the Neighbourhood
Committees of El Alto....You could feel it in the air that the
sorrowful events of Cochabamba had inflamed the social environment and
had scattered the necessary fuel for a social explosion with
consequences difficult to predict......
rest at
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/cor-el-alto-articulate-revolutiona
ry.html

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CONAMAQ: "The scenario we are now in is one of an undeclared war"

The National Council of Ayllus and Markas from Qullasuyu, CONAMAQ,
makes this pronouncement in the face of the process of political
destabilization in the country. We denounce that the oligarchy has not
recognized the validity of this democratic process....In reality, the
scenario we are now in is one of an undeclared war. This fact is part
of a plan designed to abort our process of construction of a
Plurinational State.... rest at
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/conamaq-scenario-we-are-now-in-is-
one.html

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plus 3 eyewitness reports

Death and Democracy - Nick Buxton
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/death-and-democracy-nick-buxton-re
ports.html

Democracy Centre's Jim Schultz
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/jim-schultz-reports-direct-from.ht
ml

"The city feels like April 2000 and its way more tense than October
2003 or May 2005" Paula Pfoeffer
http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2007/01/eyewitness-account-on-recent-event
s-in.html