INTERVIEWS: Inside Bolivia’s deepening political turmoil, hopes meet revolt

Bolivia is in full-scale political crisis mode over one week into an indefinite general strike. Workers are organising against the neoliberal US-aligned administration led by President Rodrigo Paz.

The South American state is fraught with popular mobilisations, fuel and inflationary crises, widespread discontent and blatantly escalating US interference.

Many demonstrators direct their anger against the relatively new Paz-led government. Unions are leading strategic road blockades and walkouts to pressure Paz’s neoliberal regime to not betray the promises which brought him to power.

Security forces have clashed with strikers and protestors in multiple cities, allegedly under government direction to shoot even live ammunition at protestors.

Caravans numbering thousands of marchers are converging on administrative capital La Paz. Unions representing peasant and proletarian workers are leading the charge.

Unions in significant industrial regions, Potosí and Santa Cruz, have now joined. These represent dominant mining and agro-industry regions respectively.

Unionised medical worker Almin Arminda Iglesias explained the situation directly to the Canary:

…the situation here in Bolivia is serious. The workers’ representatives submitted their list of demands as they do every year, but this government turned a deaf ear to our requests, especially the wage increase — in other words, it doesn’t want to raise our salaries.

The cost of the family food basket has gone up, this government is favoring big businessmen by lowering their taxes and allowing free export of certain foods, leaving the population without adequate supply. It has already been several days of strikes and mobilizations.

On top of that, the persecution of workers’ leaders has begun.

Bolivia — On the edge of revolution?

Bolivia’s staunchly militant indigenous, peasant and industrial working classes have sustained peaceful but effective road blockades in the countryside. Demonstrators in the cities have clashed with police forces.

One militant wing, the ponchos rojos (Red Ponchos), was recorded practicing combat-style formations and promising to take up arms against their right-wing government if necessary. They vow to defend their class, their 36 national communities and their natural world by any means necessary.

The Paz government was elected in 2025 on a promise of what was called “centre-right” reform by the global corporate media. Paz campaigned on a platform of “capitalism for all” and quickly bowed to the US.

One of Paz’s immediate moves in office was to cut fuel subsidies, which were a lifeline for many in the low-income country but which also drained the state’s coffers. Bolivia became dependent on imports following the commodity boom and then sold these imported petro-fuels at a discount.

Speaking directly to the Canary, unionised indigenous Bolivian food seller Vilma Paredes said:

The people endure, the people have memory, they neither forget nor forgive. A people that removed two presidents in this century — do you think they won’t be able to do it now? More and more lies are being exposed, coming to light.

If the president doesn’t come clean with the indigenous peoples and ask for forgiveness, there’s no going back. The government is sinking deeper and deeper…

Not without costs

The popular uprising underway in Bolivia is not without costs. ‘Struggle’ bears its name for a reason.

Unionised psychiatrist Roger Peña told the Canary that, although many understand the Paz administration appears to be set on directing wealth upwards, there is genuine need for some reform around fuel. But the illegal US-Zionist war on Iran has exacerbated fuel crises further, and the people are reacting, Peña said.

Some people understand that Evo Morales and the popular movement are trying to carry out a coup, according to Peña, or see it as sedition by the COB. (I contend that the name of a ‘coup’ driven from below, rather than imposed from above, is rightly called a revolution.) Others support the COB but with great difficulty:

There are people who, if they do not work a day, they cannot eat. … Sadly, it’s the poorest.

Certainly, there are people who are against these mobilisations. …

But it’s the government who are presenting charges for sedition.

Yet clearly the mobilisations have drawn out many thousands, if not millions, across the country. Two contacts in Bolivia’s union movement, more and less sympathetic, confirmed to the Canary that it’s led overwhelmingly by indigenous and peasant workers. As white power reasserts itself over the historic progress made by indigenous Americans nationally and regionally, Morales wrote on X:

[Paz,] Being a foreigner, he surely hates Bolivians. He criminalizes, persecutes, and represses indigenous people. He thinks and acts like an imperialist, neoliberal, and neocolonialist.

Separately, Morales wrote of US hypocrisy on X:

The US does not defend democracy nor respect International Law. It finances right-wing coups d’état. It invades countries and steals their natural resources. It defends submissive and sellout governments. The US supported the 2019 coup d’état of the Gringo against the Indian to seize our lithium.

The Bank of Bolivia

Now Bolivians charge, against Paz, that his government seemingly intends to sabotage any potential incoming popular government. Footage emerged of armoured private bank vehicles “vacating” the Bank of Bolivia, with accusations that they seek to empty it like was done to Venezuela under the US-backed anti-democratic Juan Guaidó coup in 2019. The Bank of England holds Venezuelan gold for ransom years later.

In one heart-breaking video shared online, an older man tells viewers that his own son, a policeman, is “there to repress me.” It underscores the structures and divisions that can tear apart a society. See it below:

There appears to be no end in sight for many until the resignation of Rodrigo Paz. Many doubtless recognise that, whatever the immediate costs of popular revolt, the cost of subservience to US empire are greater.

Featured image taken from X via the Canary

By Cameron Baillie

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