Reply #1: Wow--now what. Here's a background article from CounterPunch [View All]

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A Report from La Paz Boliva in Turmoil

I arrived in La Paz on Saturday October 11, just in time to witness the showdown between the campesinos and the government. These days have been, as Dickens famously wrote of the French Revolution, the best of times and the worst of times. I am writing this on Wednesday the 15th, the third day of a total shutdown in La Paz. Schools, banks, shops, and restaurants remain closed, and transport is shut down, but the kids are playing soccer and volleyball in the streets. In the tension of uncertainty, there is now peace and calm after the confrontations of Sunday and Monday, confrontations that left 54 people dead, raising the total since the confrontation started in August to about 70. This is the second major set of confrontations of the year, the other having occurred in February when 32 people died. So the total for the year is over 100, almost all campesinos.

Since Bolivia is little more than a name for most of us, it will be useful to provide some background and then discuss the issues that divide the country at the present time.

Background

Like most of Latin America Bolivia can be divided, with a little simplification, into city (ciudad) and country (campo), and the campesinos are the part of the population who identify with the country rather than the city. They may have moved to the city but still have roots in the country. There are also, of course, younger people, children of campesinos, who were born in the city and even have advanced degrees and who do not fall easily into either group; they are no longer real campesinos but identify more with them than with the government.

The division between city and country is accompanied by an ethnic difference, the difference between the indigenous peoples and the people with substantial European (mostly Spanish) heritage. The campesinos are wholly indigenous, and it has always been the people of European descent who have ruled the cities and held the reins of political power. During the Spanish period the indigenous peoples were mostly slaves on estates _bought and sold as part of the estates--and it was not until the revolution of 1952 that they could legally be educated.

http://www.counterpunch.org/garver10172003.html