Vigorous and almost constant demonstrations are a feature of Bolivian life, as Bolivians continue to struggle against poverty, environmental destruction, and for Buen Vivir. May Day demonstrations in Cochabamba, 2014. (Photo: Chris Williams)
Can Bolivia chart a sustainable path away from capitalism?
By Chris Williams and Marcela Olivera, Truthout, Jan. 28, 2015
As through so much of its history, the small Andean nation of Bolivia sits at the center of a whirlwind of political, social and climatological questions. Arguably, no other country thus far in the 21st century raises the question of an "exit strategy" from neoliberal capitalism more concretely, and with greater possibility and hope, than Bolivia. That hope is expressed specifically in the ruling party, MAS, or Movement Toward Socialism. The country's leader, former coca farmer and union organizer Evo Morales - South America's first indigenous leader since pre-colonial times - was overwhelmingly elected to his third term of office in 2014.
The Power of the spectacle: Evo Morales’ inauguration in Tiwanaku, Bolivia
By Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, Jan. 28, 2015
For critics on the left, the Tiwanaku event embodied the contradictions of a president who champions indigenous rights at the same time that he silences and undermines grassroots indigenous dissidents, and who speaks of respect for Mother Earth while deepening an extractive economy based in gas and mining industries.
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Bolivia leads UN efforts on debt restructuring
The first United Nations meeting on creating a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring, chaired by Bolivia concluded Thursday. The Andean nation was elected earlier this week to oversee the group. Last December, the U.N. General Assembly passed a landmark resolution that mandates the U.N. to create a legal framework that seeks increase “efficiency, stability and predictability of the international financial system” in a resolution drafted by Bolivia on behalf of the Group of 77 (G-77) developing nations and China.
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Bolivia: lower gas prices and Andean deities
By Andres Schipani, Financial Times, Jan. 22, 2015
The man who is arguably the world’s most successful socialist will face a tough time in his third term, as plunging global oil prices slash the country’s key earnings from natural gas. Morales, a former llama herder and coca farmer, nationalised Bolivia’s gas industry in 2006. Nine years later, he won a landslide third term on the back of a gas-fuelled boom in consumption. Gas exports to neighbouring Argentina and Brazil plus other mineral exports, coupled with prudent macroeconomic and fiscal policies and popular welfare programmes, have been key to the president’s success.
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In Bolivian prisons, blood is thicker than bars
By Sara Shahriari, Al Jazeera America, Jan. 12, 2014
Every weekday morning, the large door separating the prisoners of San Pedro from the populace of La Paz opens, letting out a trickle of humanity: mostly women carrying babies cocooned in colorful fabric slings and backpack-wearing children in school uniforms. These are the unofficial inmates of San Pedro, who live with their jailed husbands and fathers because it is more economical — and according to interviews, perhaps safer — behind bars than outside in the world. Bolivian law allows the children to live with their mothers, but only in women’s prisons and only till the age of 6. Once they are older, the law says, the children must go live with extended family or, if that is not an option, into group homes with orphans and other children whose families cannot care for them. But in reality, hundreds of kids, many of them well beyond age 6, live in low- and medium-security men’s prisons.
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