By Benjamin Dangl Tuesday, 16 September 2008 On Monday, September 15, Bolivian president Evo Morales arrived in Santiago, Chile for an emergency meeting of Latin American leaders that convened to seek a resolution to the recent conflict in Bolivia. Upon his arrival, Morales said, “I have come here to explain to the presidents of South…
By Benjamin Dangl Thursday, 03 January 2008 “Let’s go unblock the road, compañeros!” a man in an old baseball cap yells as he joins a group of people hauling rocks and tires from a central intersection in Cochabamba. This group of students and union activists are mobilizing against a civic strike led by middle class…
By Benjamin Dangl Thursday, 29 November 2007 Nearly two years into the presidency of Evo Morales, government officials and leftist social organizations are determined to break with the past and transform the nation. The opposition calls it a civil war. The government calls it a revolution. Other Bolivian activists and analysts call it business as…
By Benjamin Dangl Monday, 13 March 2006 Within the last six years in Latin America numerous social movements have gained momentum in the fight for human rights, better living and working conditions and an end to corporate exploitation and military violence. Recently, left of center leaders have been elected in Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile and Venezuela.…
By Benjamin Dangl, WireTap Posted on December 15, 2003 http://www.alternet.org/story/17380/ On the second floor of an old building shared by worker unions, lawyers and environmental groups, Cochabamba’s main youth activist group gathered for an organizational meeting. The walls of the room were covered with propaganda from Cuba, feminist posters from Sweden, an anti-FTAA banner, a…
October 25, 2003 By Benjamin Dangl and Kathryn Ledebur Bolivia’s conflicts regarding the proposal to export the nation’s gas to the US through a Chilean port proved to be the spark that fueled a much larger fire of national discontent. Arising from the din of the Gas War were demands for clarity in coca eradication…
October 18 / 19, 2003 By Benjamin Dangl After a more than a month of intense protests against the exportation of Bolivia’s gas to the US through a Chilean port, many protesting sectors are focusing their demands solely on the resignation of their president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Bolivia’s president is currently left with support…
By Benjamin Dangl and Kathryn Ledebur October 13, 2003 In the past three days, in the city of El Alto, a prolonged confrontation between security forces and protesters resulted in thirty dead over one hundred wounded, the great majority from bullet wounds. Protesters in El Alto have been maintaining the most intense road blockades in…
October 04, 2003 By Ben Dangl An intense series of road blockades, protests and strikes continue to gain momentum across Bolivia as new sectors enter the movement against the exportation of the country’s gas to the US. The geographical and political diversity of the groups involved in the movement makes it difficult for them to…
By Benjamin Dangl September 29, 2003 A new cycle of conflict has developed in Bolivia as worker unions, coca farmers and ordinary citizens unite to prevent the sale of the nation’s gas reserves to the United States through a Chilean port. In a country whose economic identity has been strongly shaped by U.S. pressure in…