International Supplement of the Internationalist Trotskyists of Bolivia and Argentina
Jointly Issued by
Octubre Rojo Internacionalista (Bolivia) – Liga Obrera Internacionalista-CI (Argentina)
Members of the Leninist Trotskyist Fraction (LFT)

Bolivia
Revolutionary internationalist workers stand up joining the heroic wage-earning miners of Huanuni!

Out the coUntErrevolutionary Shock forces of the cooperativista bosses, sent by Evo morales` GOVERNMENT and the transnational companies to divide and massacre the miners!
Stop the “Bolivarian Revolution” fraud!
for the worker and peasant revolution!

The heroic resistance of Huanuni’s miners made the counterrevolutionary forces of the cooperativistas, Villarroel and Morales` government to step back

After two days of tough combats against the attack of the counterrevolutionary forces of the small cooperativista bosses pushed and armed by Walter Villarroel –back then the mining Minister in Morales` government and a cooperativista boss himself- the heroic Huanuni`s miners prevented their attackers’ taking of the mine. In numerical inferiority, 500 wage-earning miners and their heroic wives, sisters and daughters in the Housewives Committee confronted 2000 cooperativistas and defended their mine, their houses, their town, their families and their historical gains. They had to pay the price of several comrades fallen in the struggle.

Thus while bargaining with the fascist Media Luna bourgeoisie and the transnationals in the fake Constituent Assembly, (Morales) intended to secure the huge tin reserves of Huanuni`s mine, and specially those in Posokoni`s Hiil –948,000 tons valued in 4000 million dollars- for the despicable “cooperativista” native bourgeoisie. This in a moment when tin price in the world market has gone from U$S 4890 per metric ton in 2003 to….. U$S 7385 in 2006!

The attack of the cooperativistas was the answer of Morales` government to the struggle of Huanuni`s miners that, together with the poor peasants, the unemployed and even a sector of the workers exploited by the cooperativista bosses, had imposed a victory. They had just won the creation of 1500 jobs in Huanuni and forced upon the government the creation of a state company under the Comibol (Corporacion Minera Boliviana, or Bolivian Mining Corporation) to work the mine in Posokoni Hill.

This triumph had meant that thousands of unemployed miners and of those enslavered by the cooperativista bosses from all over the country, started to arrive to Huanuni with the hope of getting back to work in the state mines, and take back their rights, their old gains and their dignity.

The popular front government of Morales, servant of the transnationals, would not allow this triumph of Huanuni`s miners to consolidate. That is why it encouraged and organized the cooperativista bosses’ shock forces to smash Huanuni`s workers in iron and fire.

But Morales’ plan crashed against the heroic resistance of the miners and their workers self defence organs, that made it fail. On 6 October evening, a provisory truce was signed between the wage-earning miners and the cooperativista bosses, and negotiations were open.

During the next weekend, the wage-earning miners and Huanuni townspeople set a wake on the dead and then buried their five comrades fell in combat, with the three Huanuni neighbors murdered by the dynamite of the cooperativista bosses. Glory to the fallen comrades! (see article in page 5)

Alter Huanuni massacre, both Evo Morales and the bourgeoisie, and their clique want cynically to present themselves, as “peace” champions. But it is them, together with the imperialist transnationals, who steal the richness of Bolivia, sink the masses in misery and send the fascist bands, the army, the cooperativista bosses horde to massacre the workers.

Reaching the height of cynicism, Evo Morales has asked to the press to “be understanding with” these “mistakes” that he made due to his “inexperience” as he “had never governed” and that he is “learning”. “Learning”….. yes! “learning” how to kill workers, as bosses do, to the likes of every bourgeois government, servant of the transnationals and imperialism like the one he is leading! There is no doubt that Morales has turned to be a very apt “student”: in just a few months, he has murdered in Oruro a worker from the Movimiento Sin Techo (Movement of the Home-Roof-Less); in the Chapare, two coca peasants, and now those heroic Huanuni wage-earning miners.
2ns part 

After sending the cooperativistas to massacre, Morales “denounced” everything as a “conspiracy” against his government and waged the ghost of a coup being prepared by a “united front of destabilizers”, supposedly integrated by some police and army officers, the separatist bourgeoisie of the Media Luna and… the school teachers with the wage-earning miners and their unions, the COB, the COR of El Alto, etc.!

Bastards! The only “conspiracy” here is that between Morales` government with Villarroel and the cooperativista bosses to massacre Huanuni miners and steal their mines! It is the transnationals and the native bourgeoisie together who conspire against the exploited masses of Bolivia to steal its hydrocarbons and its minerals! It is Morales` class collaborationist government and MAS members in the parliament together with the fascist bourgeoisie of the Media Luna, who conspire against the people and the worker and peasant revolution in that fake Constituent Assembly! It was Evo Morales with MAS and the collaborationist leaderships of the worker and peasant organizations who in October 2003, conspired at the rebel masses’ back, expropriated their triumph at overthrowing Goni and handed power over to Mesa! And they conspired again in June 2005, when the masses in struggle had overthrown Mesa: they delivered the power to Rodriguez overnight, within a session of an unlawful parliament brought together in Sucre and fenced by the hate of those masses!

Morales` government -as every class collaborationist government led by the native bourgeoisie associated through many businesses to the transnationals and the international financial capital- has not even thought about confronting the bourgeoisies from Santa Cruz/ Media Luna –which are openly secessionist and are barefacedly arming fascist brigades in order to smash the workers and peasants.

Before taking charge, Morales went to Santa Cruz to ask the oil and landowner oligarchy to “teach him how to govern” because he was going to take care of controlling the rebel worker and peasant masses. He has learnt perfectly from his teachers, to kill workers and poor peasants. This is the government that pacts with the secessionist bourgeoisie of the Media Luna in the Constituent Assembly, while sending the counterrevolutionary forces  to massacre the miners. This is the infamous role of the popular front, of the old Stalinist policy of class collaboration with which hundreds of revolutions and the world proletariat have been strangled for decades; a policy supported today by that den of counterrevolutionary bandits of the World Social Forum.

Down with the pact between the anti-worker and repressive government of Morales and the native slave-owner bourgeoisie, the Cruceña oligarchy! Enough of putting the proletariat and its struggle organizations to the feet of the bourgeoisie! Let’s regroup forces now around Huanuni heroic miners resistance! The Bolivian working class needs a program and a strategy to triumph and put up the revolution that, from October 2003, has been snatched by the World Social Forum!

The leaderships of the COB and the FSTMB call for the “militarization” of Huanuni to subordinate the workers to the supposedly “patriot” soldiers and give away the tin business to them.

Spilling their blood in their struggle, the heroic Huanuni miners spoiled the counterrevolutionary plan of the popular front.  They prevented the mine from being stolen and opened the prospective for the worker and peasant revolution, already expropriated to stand up again. They could have re-conquered –this time in Huanuni- the “headquarters of the revolution”, holding up its driving demands. Nationalization without compensation and under workers’ control of all the mines and the hydrocarbons! Out with the transnationals, expropriation of the landowners! Land for the peasants, bread and sound jobs for all the workers!, etc. But this prospective has been barred time and again until now by the collaborationist leaderships of the worker organizations (as those of the COB and the FSTMB) that support Morales` bourgeois government

Facing this counterrevolutionary attack of the cooperativistas against the Huanuni wage-earning miners, these leaderships called for “pacification” and asked their “friend” Morales to send the armed forces to Huanuni to “defend” the mine, as the COMIBOL is state property. Moreover, these leaderships use the possibility of a new attack by the cooperativistas, as a gun in the miners’ heads to scare them and their families so to force them to accept the policy of leaving their fate in the hands of the “nationalist” sector of the murderous military. 
 
Montes and the COB leadership are asking “their” government, “their” friend Morales to send the supposedly “nationalist” officers that support him, to impose order in front of the danger that the workers in Huanuni fighting back could mean the regrouping of the whole Bolivian proletariat.

The policy of COB and FSTMB leadership is only one more step in their unfaithful class collaborationist politics of keeping the workers subordinated to the bourgeoisie, their ranks divided, and the worker and peasant revolution strangled. Because this leaderships -and COB`s bureaucracy in the first place- were who abandoned thousands of unemployed to their fate, without organizing them, so allowing for their being enslaved and super exploited by the cooperativista bosses that today use them as a counterrevolutionary shock force against Huanuni unionized miners. COB`s bureaucracy –Solares before, now Montes- have devoted themselves to dissipate the incipient dual power organisms that the masses had put up; moreover, they handed power twice over to the bourgeoisie, first to Mesa, then to Rodríguez; and on top of that they called to support their “friend” Morales.

Today when demanding the “militarization” of Huanuni, Montes and the Miners Union leadership are only repeating the old treacherous Lechinite (from the MNR union bureaucrat, Lechin, that stranded and sold the 1952 Bolivian revolution, NT) policy of COB bureaucracy of seeking for “patriot”, “antiimperialist”, “red” soldiers to subordinate the proletariat to those “saviors”. In that way the bureaucrats manage to deepen the division in the proletarian ranks, keeping them subdued to the popular front so preventing the workers and peasant alliance to be again wielded.. As a reward for this “service”, they lure the sector of the Armed Forces that supposedly goes for the national bourgueoisie- offering it the juicy tin business.

This policy of finding “patriot officers” had been already raised by Solares during May-June 2005. Then he went to knock the doors of the barracks so betraying the masses’ complementary revolutionary days of struggle with which they aimed to disorganize completely the bourgeois power institutions. It is the same policy of Juan Lechin Oquendo in the COB, together with Stalinism and Lora`s POR, with which they betrayed the 1971 revolution. Then they put the revolution to General Torres` feet –who even talked about “socialisim”-, and built with him a “Revolutionary Anti-imperialist Front” while Banzer`s bloody dictatorship was massacring the workers and poor peasants.

The imposition of this infamous class collaborationist policy of the leadership, meant the expropriation of the triumph that the miners had won through their joint struggle with the poor peasants and the unemployed, winning 1500 jobs under COMIBOL collective contract conditions. This class collaboration policy is one more that deepens the division in the workers’ ranks because it separates Huanuni wage-earning miners –supposedly “guarded” by the armed forces- from the thousands of cooperativista poor miners. That leaves these super exploited workers to the will of the cooperativista bosses to enslave them and use them as shock forces against the working class. This policy also separates Huanuni miners from the poor peasants, because, how are the miners going to join the poor peasants that have had their martyrs murdered by the killer Armed Forces in 2003, or that suffer at every step the repression of the “anti-drug” army brigades in El Chapare or Las Yungas!
The COB called to a “national strike” for last October 10, precisely with this program of demanding Huanuni`s militarization.  A program that means to make the miners and the whole working class kneel down before the criminal policy of class collaboration with the supposedly “nationalist” sector of the murderous army officers caste!. But this totally symbolic measure wasn`t followed by the wide majority of Bolivian workers that hate the murderous officers caste and still claim for justice for their class brothers massacred in October 2003.

But once more, COB and FSTMB leaderships enjoyed the decisive help of the renegades to Trotskyism to impose this policy, Lora`s POR in the first place, which joined the chorus of those that are asking for the militarization of Huanuni, applying that old policy of Stalinism of searching for a “red” military to subdue the proletariat to. (see box)
The same Stalinist old policy of search for a “patriot” military has already meant a tragedy for the Latin American proletariat. Thus, during the glorious Chilean revolution of the “cordones industriales” (industrial belts, the name given to the linked nuclei of sovietic organizations in that revolution) in the ‘70s, the Socialist Party and the Comunist Party –both of the supported by the same counterrevolutionary policy of the Castroite bureaucracy-, made the Chilean workers believe they could get the “pacific way to socialism”.  They made them believe that, without arming themselves they could defend their gains; that without putting up a dual power, destroying the army and the murderous officers caste, they could achieve the national liberation. In hundreds of revolutions this counterrevolutionary Stalinist policy had been already probed. In the Chilean tragedy, the “patriot” officer that they got and who was put by Allende as Comander in Chief of the Amy, wasn`t other than…… Pinochet, the murderer who massacred the Chilean workers and poor peasants.

Stop putting the working organization to the feet of Morales` government and its pacts and business with the Cruceña oligarchy! Down with the murderous officers caste of the Bolivian army! For committees of rank and file soldiers that democratically choose their officers and send delegates to all the worker and peasant organizations!

Against the policy of Morales and COB Castroite leadership, we Trotskyists say that the only way to stop the massacre in Huanuni and of smashing fascism that is been prepared, is to follow the way of the heroic Bolivian revolution of 1952 that destroyed the army and put up the worker and peasant militias of the COB.

Out of the working class organizations the bosses’ agents and the murderous officers’ caste of the armed forces! Everybody to Huanuni! Assemblies all over the worker and peasant movement to send delegates to Huanuni now! The Bolivian revolution deserves to stand up, to have again built its headquarters, to expel from its ranks the treacherous leaderships that collaborates with the class enemy, and and retake the way of October 2003 and of the Bolivian revolution of 1952.
Against the fraud of the “Bolivarian Revolution” proclaimed by the holders of the businesses of the native bourgeoisies and their major imperialists partners all over the continent as in the MERCOSUR and the TLC (businesses that are the cause for their supporting the governments and regimes against the avenging fury of the masses as in Mexico and Chile); against those who put the proletariat to the feet of Chávez whose oil supply feeds the US-UK war machinery  to massacre in Iraq, and who together with Fidel Castro gets ready to restore capitalism in Cuba; in short: against that den of betrayers of the revolution in the World Social Forum, and to the honor the workers of the World, the Bolivian revolution must stand up again and succeed as a worker and peasant revolution, demolishing and destroying the machinery of the bourgeois rule.

The renegades –fake Trotskyists-, a fundamental pillar of the infamous class-collaborationist policy and the betrayal to the proletariat of the leaderships of the COB

Facing the Huanuni`s events, Lora’s POR played again the same role it has been playing since October 2003: as the fundamental support of the Castroite bureaucracy (Solares first, now Montes).at the head of the COB

POR leads unions as those of La Paz city teachers, retired miners of Cochabamba, etc., also student unions in different Bolivian universities, etc. POR could have sent dozens of delegates with mandate from the rank and file, voted by grass-root assemblies of the organizations it leads, in support of the wage-earning workers. Those forces, together with Huanuni`s miners, could have called for El Alto`s worker organizations to break with the collaborationist leadership of Patana and Mamani and to put up again the headquarters of the revolution. POR has done nothing of this.

Far from this, speaking about Morales` government, POR wrote in its paper:“Faced to the looming bloody facts due to the systematic assaults of the cooperativistas whose objective is to control all of Posokoni Hill, (Morales government) refused to use the public force to prevent the confrontation. And when the bloody events happened, it showed all its incapacity to prevent the slaughter choosing to transferring its responsibility to (the state office for) Human Rights, the Ombudsman and the Clergy (Masas Nº 2012, 13/10/06, our stress).

That means Lora`s POR, the same as Montes of the COB and the leaders of the FSTMB do, makes Evo responsible for not having sent the “public forces” –that is, the cops and the murderous Armed Forces- to Huanuni. Not very surprising!: it is the same old POR policy of telling the workers they have to build an alliance with the (supposedly) “red officers” of the army, whom that party has organized for decades in the organization “Vivo Rojo”.(Red Rim) Today the POR advances the same policy that 35 years ago contributed to the strangling of the 1971 Bolivian revolution, by supporting –together with COB bureaucracy and the Stalinist lot- General Torres the then-president of Bolivia whom they introduced as an “anti imperialist” and even “socialist” military.

So, while the leadership of the COB, the Stalinists, POR and other groups were entertaining themselves through long discussions in the Popular Assembly, they adamantly refused to organize the workers and peasants’ militias to confront the coup General Banzer was openly preparing. As a result workers and peasants were utterly defeated and massacred, while Lechín (then COB’s head), Lora and his POR and General Torres (already deposed), organized abroad, far away “in the exile” a “Revolutionary Anti-imperialist Front” that had the goal of seizing power and achieving socialism in Bolivia.!!!

But POR`s infamous policy doesn’t end here. Its press also says “…in this struggle, the wage-earning miners embody Bolivian interests and it is inconceivable that the State doesn’t assume its responsibility of keeping its own wealth (…). The wage-earning miners` struggle is the struggle of the entire country. It is all about the destiny of the national economy and that is why a big mobilization of the exploited is imperative to force this government to invigorate the state mining business. Which means the restitution to the COMIBOL of the management of the most important mining fields, today managed by the private (both native and transnational) medium and large mining companies (idem, our stress).

It is impossible to speak more clearly. Lora`s POR calls to exert pressure on the popular front government and the bourgeois state. It is feeding illusions on the possibility for a bourgeois government, which on top of it is a servant of the transnational monopolies, to solve the Bolivian miners and entire working class’ demands of nationalization of the whole mining business without payment and under working control! Alas, it is the same government that comes from handing over El Mutun hill, the same that has just sent the fascist cooperativistas’ shock forces to kill the Huanuni miners!...

POR proves once more to be the party of the Castroite bureaucracy in the Bolivian revolution, the same role played by all the liquidators of Trotskyism in our continent, having put the Fourth International’s flags to the feet of Stalinism.
 
As a fifth leg of this infamous class-collaborationist policy, there also comes PTS from Argentina and its satellite group in Bolivia, LOR (CI). Thus, PTS is so cheeky as to say “the wage-earning miners had got the solidarity not just from their community but also from other miners, students and popular sectors of Oruro. The Bolivian Worker Center (that is, the COB) marched on Tuesday along La Paz streets in solidarity with Huanuni and its demands” (LVO 208, 12/10/06), hiding Montes` policy of “militarization”, so whitewashing its face and supporting this class-collaborationist leadership.
 
In these matters of life and death for the proletariat, PTS and its satellites don’t show the least interest. Why bother? they already have their Constituent Assembly, that which they claimed during 2003 had to be set up in Bolivia! For them, the masses would be now “having their experience with bourgeois democracy”. PTS’ policy for an IPT (Workers Political Institution, a euphemism for PT, NT) has already failed as well as their flirting with Solares (former COB’s head, NT) and COB`s bureaucracy. They are unquestionably a useless link in Bolivian reformism, but always happily hanging from the skirts of those responsible for the handing over of the Bolivian revolution -COB bureaucracy.

We may well ask them: Would you please show us a program to confront fascism with a tactics of united front of all the working class and popular fighting organizations in Bolivia? Silence. Perhaps, a policy to remove definitely COB treacherous leaderships, of sending delegates to fight in Huanuni and reagroup working class ranks? Silence. What do you think about “national” armed forces going to “defend” the miners, as Montes and POR proclaim? Silence…. Silence is the only answer.