by Tanya M. Kerssen & Roger Burbach - September 24, 2008

A popular upheaval is sweeping Bolivia, threatening the departmental capital of Santa Cruz, the bastion of the right wing rebellion against the government of Evo Morales. Some twenty thousand miners, peasants and coca growers are moving on the city to reclaim state institutions occupied by autonomist [right-wing] forces. They are also demanding the resignation of the Santa Cruz prefect (governor), Rubén Costas, and the apprehension of Branko Marinkovich, an agro-industrial magnet who heads up the Santa Cruz Civic Committee comprised of large land owning and business interests.

By Stephen Zunes - September 21, 2008

The history of U.S. intervention in support for rightist elements in Bolivia is long. The United States was the major foreign backer of the dictatorial regime of René Barrientos, who seized power in a 1964 military coup. The CIA and U.S. Special Forces played a key role in suppressing a leftist peasant uprising that followed...The apparent triumph of the neoliberal model of globalization in the early 1990s...made it appear as if the days of cruder forms of U.S. interventionism in Latin America were a thing of the past...Recent events...may be a frightening indication that this is no longer the case.

by Haider Rizvi - September 18, 2007

Who in Bolivia is receiving millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars? That is what many Latin America policy analysts in Washington want to know...[Independent researcher and writer Jeremy] Bigwood has made several attempts to obtain detailed information about the nature of current U.S. spending in Bolivia, without success...However, one [Freedom of Information Act] request he filed revealed that the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy had funded programmes that brought 13 young 'emerging leaders' from Bolivia to Washington between 2002 and 2004 to strengthen their right-wing political parties.

By Justin Podur - September 15, 2008

At this point in Bolivia, the international media campaign against the government is on in full force, the US has helped to organize the opposition, and since September 10 the requisite massacres have been produced, by the opposition itself, its victims the government's supporters. If the regional governments support the Bolivian government and the armed forces remain loyal, as they are likely to, the Bolivian government will survive this crisis.

By Ben Dangl - September 17, 2008

The recent conflict in Bolivia and the subsequent meeting of [South American] presidents raise the questions: What led to this meltdown? Whose side is the Bolivian military on? And what does the Bolivian crisis and regional reaction tell us about the new power bloc of South American nations?

By PATRICK IRELAN - Counterpunch

Bolivia...had friends in nearby countries—Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, and many more. But far away...the North American Empire made fearful noises. Morales was a bad Indian. Free medical care was a violation of God’s laws. Poor people should not complain...George II, Condi Rice, and [Dick]...Cheney appointed Philip Goldberg as their ambassador to Bolivia. He would know what to do...Phil the ambassador went to see the prefects of the five lowland departments that had all the white faces. In his previous job, he had worked in Yugoslavia, where he learned how to tear a country apart.

Three articles on the current crisis in Bolivia where the government of Evo Morales, the democratically-elected President, is being attacked by the right wing opposition supported by U.S. imperialism.

LA PAZ  - Bolivian President Evo Morales was Monday preparing a redoubled nationalization push and other socialist reforms after winning huge support in a weekend referendum. But his victory in Sunday’s vote, with more than 60 percent of voters backing his mandate according to unofficial results, was tempered by strong gains also handed to political enemies, leaving the country sharply divided.

By Medea Benjamin - Znet

On one side of this struggle is the impoverished indigenous majority in the western highlands who, along with Bolivia's first indigenous president Evo Morales, are trying to redistribute power and wealth towards poor communities. Pitted against them is a mostly white elite based in the eastern part of the country who want to keep tight control over the nation's wealth and are using their money and control of the media to foment widespread discontent...[T]he U.S. government...is aiding and abetting the opposition.

by Benjamin Dangl - The Progressive

Declassified documents and interviews on the ground in Bolivia prove that the Bush Administration is using U.S. taxpayers’ money to undermine the Morales government and coopt the country’s dynamic social movements—just as it has tried to do recently in Venezuela and traditionally throughout Latin America.

Havana, Oct 9 (acn) "The ideals and actions of Commander Ernesto Guevara are examples for those who defend equality and justice," said Bolivian President Evo Morales in his closing speech of the main rally to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of the revolutionary leader held on Monday in Valle Grande, Bolivia.

by Mahir Ali
ZNet
October 09, 2007

IN a small Bolivian town called Vallegrande, somewhat to the discomfiture of the resident priest, local Catholics commonly offer prayers not only to the Lord but also to a certain Saint Ernesto. The reference is not to some revered religious figure from the distant past but to a devout atheist who blazed a revolutionary trail in the latter half of the 20th century.

Remembering His Death, Celebrating His Life

On October 9, 1967, 40 years ago today, Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia by his CIA-assisted and -directed captors.

He told the frightened soldier who was sent to execute him in the small room where Che lay, seriously wounded: “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."

An Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui

by Andalusia Knoll, Rustbelt Radio, Pittsburgh

The South American nation of Bolivia has filled the headlines of the global press with its fight against water privatization, struggle for nationalization of gas, non-compliance with free trade policies, and the 2005 election of the continent’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales. These struggles are rooted in the long history of indigenous resistance to colonialism and imperialism in Bolivia.

"What happened in Bolivia is that there have been two official histories: the official history written by the [Revolutionary] Nationalist Party—MNR—that basically denies all the agency of both workers and peasants and indigenous peoples; and the official history of the left that forgets about anything that was not Marxist, thus eclipsing or distorting the autonomous history of anarchist unions."

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
Tuesday October 2, 2007 | The Guardian

The Bolivian soldier who executed Che Guevara 40 years ago has had his sight restored by Cuban doctors, turning him into an unlikely advertisement for the revolutionary's ideals.