BOLIVIA: farmers occupy oilfield

translation | 29.08.2004 13:25 | Globalisation | Social Struggles | World

Econoticiasbolivia.com (La Paz, 16th of august 2004) - In the early morning of 16th of august hundreds of farmers and communards of El Chore in the northeast of Bolivia occupied the facilities of the multinational company British Petroleum and paralyzed the oil production. The occupation of the oil field marks the beginning of a new wave of protests, which develop in the rural area of Bolivia: further actions are carried out in the south of the country, where the gas export to Argentina is threatened to get interrrupted, while marches to La Paz are prepared by landless farmers from different regions . after La Paz.

On monday 16th of august, at 4 o'clock in the morning, the farmers blocked the access road to the oil field Humberto Suárez Roca in the east of Bolivia and occupied quickly its installations. They demanded the immediate discontinuation of the work and explained that the occupation of the oil field was a direct action against the government for the acquisition of the just entitlements [ titulación ] to their properties.

Intimitated, the entrepreneurs of the company British Petroleum, which operates in Bolivia together with the Bolivian state via the financial company Chaco, issued orders, to stop "all work, to guarantee the security of the personnel and the farmers, who block the access road to the oil field”, as it says in a statement of the company.

The entrepreneurs assured, "that they would have no conflict with the municipalities, which are settled in the direct neighbourhood of their oil fields in the area Santa Rosa del Sara and that [the company] accomplished a successful program of social investments in health care and the maintenance of roads with an intended and firmly obligatory [? ] investment of 673,000 dollar."

The production in the region Humberto Suárez Roca, which includes also the oil fields Los Cusis and Patujusal, amounts to approximately 1,800 barrel oil, which is used on the Bolivian domestic market.

They threaten to stop oil exports to Argentina.

There are further mobilizations in the south of the country, nearly at the border to Argentina and Paraguay, where the inhabitants of the place Villamontes finished their sixth day of general strike this same monday. They demand that the government issues a regulation for building a road to connect them with Paraguay.

The protest action threatens to paralyze the gas export from the area to Argentina and Brazil as well as the transport of fossil fuels into the regions inside the country.

Guaraní ready for action

Protesting are also the farmers and indigenous Guaraní, who blocked the rural communication roads in the south of the section Chuquisaca for the past week. They demand the free issuance of identity papers.

"We fight for the right to identity", say the authors and threaten to expand the protests to the cities in the south of the country.

Further protests

In the west and in the Anden valleys more social classes have started to mobilize: the landless agricultural workers and owners of small land plots [minifundiarios],who prepare to march for La Paz, in order to demand the release of the leader of the landless workers movement (Movimiento Sin Tierra - MST), Gabriel Pinto. He has been arrested past wednesday and was jailed, because of being accused of having participated in the kidnapping, murder and burning of the mayor von Ayo Ayo on the 14th of June [ * ].

Pinto denied the accusations, the leaders of MST and the “unity trade union of the workers and farmer of Bolivia” (CSUTCB), like Felipe Quispe have confirmed that this arrest breaches the unions' special right to social protest, and therefore they would have decided to march to La Paz.

A further protest action of the landless is the occupation of unfarmed country estates and huge amounts of land. So far according to a report of the deputy Minister for landreform there are 28 properties occupied by landless farmers.

For the release of Pinto

The mobilization of the farmers and landless had been decided at the end of last week by the leaders of CSUTCB and MST, Felipe Quispe and Ángel Durán, who regarded the arrest of Pinto as an attack by the government. The statement says:

"We want to express that the arrest of our Compañero Gabriel Pinto means the following for us:

1.This is an attempt, to CRIMINALISE the social protest, which is under way since the mobilizations for the occupation of the Hazienda Collana by the inhabitants of the area and the brothers of the MST which clearly signalised, that it is now the time, to expropriate the powerful rich, who stole immeasurable land areas and territories in an illegal and corrupt way from their legal owners.

2.What happened in the municipality Ayo Ayo makes the practice of real justice against the white collar criminals, who destroyed and plundered the country, impossible.
The law apparatus was installed, formed and maintained in absolute subordination to the bosses of the party and the entrepreneur - Mafia by Gonismo [the regime of the fallen president Sánchez de Lozada] and the neoliberal parties,
To these belong Sánchez de Lozada and Kukoc, beside many others, who now run around freely on the streets or hold a post in the state apparatus or in a company and remain absolutely unpunished.

3. We assure that from now on we will fight with maximum exertion for a true LAW/JUSTICE, which should be basis democratic (COMUNITARIA). We promise to dismantle the corrupt law, which only locks up the poors and which favours the rich and powerful.

4.We declare war to the impunity, the unfairness, the fraud [? imposición ] and the
lack of comprehension and prepare, as in every war, for it, not only with ideas, not only with sticks and stones.

"To release our brother Gabriel Pinto means to free the voice of the people, the voice of the collective action for building up a new country with a new law", the Kommuniqué of MST and CSUTCB says.