EPISODE: Bolivia’s Right-Wing Orchestrates a Civil Strike

GUESTS: Camila Escalante and Ollie Vargas of Kawsachun News and the podcast Latin America in Review

BACKGROUND:

In the last 21 days former coup leader and current governor of the Department of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, has been allowed “to carry out a coup d’état in the city of Santa Cruz,” in the words of Pedro Damián Dorado, vice president of the association of municipalities of the department by the same name. Constant media misinformation is the glue that holds together Camacho’s base, which can be counted in the nearly 230,000, mostly middle-class people who turned out for his latest political meeting. In late October, Camacho launched the shutdown of the city for the foreseeable future. It is Bolivia’s largest and most prosperous metropolis – and the economic motor of the country. Camacho is a very rich man and to preserve the wealth of the few, he is once again acting as a threat to Bolivian democracy.

But, the story from the grassroots has shifted radically since the de facto coup regime that came to power three years ago and lasted less than a year. When the far-right of Camacho declared a total strike and work stoppage in the city of Santa Cruz three weeks ago, the masses refused to comply. 

 FOLLOW OUR GUESTS:

Camila Escalante: https://twitter.com/PrensaCamila

Ollie Vargas: https://twitter.com/OVargas52

Kawsachun News:

https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews

https://kawsachunnews.com

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

What’s Happening in Bolivia: CEPR’s Recent Work

WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean is a Popular Resistance broadcast in partnership with CODEPINK, Common Frontiers, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Friends of Latin America, InterReligious Task Force on Central America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas.