Bolivia - August 7, 2026

The government of Rodrigo Paz, supported by the Banzerist officer caste and the murderous police, is now intensifying the persecution and imprisonment of the fighting vanguard

Down with the state of emergency! Freedom of all the political prisoners! Disband the repressive forces!

Under the orders of Trump and the IMF, the puppet government is redoubling its surrender of the nation to imperialism and starving the people

Out with the gringos (US imperialism NT),
the IMF, and the OAS! Bolivia is not for sale!

For a National Resistance Committee of workers' and peasants' organizations, without traitorous union bureaucracy or collaborationist leaders!

The 90-day state of emergency and the abdication of the parliament have granted the absolute control of the nation to the Armed Forces, the police, and to a president with full powers. This is a Bonapartist regime directed by the IMF and the Southern Command. Therefore, the Banzer-era Armed Forces and the Camacho-era fascist police are patrolling the streets to intimidate, persecute, and imprison the vanguard that, for 53 days, has dared to fight in a revolutionary uprising of workers and peasants against the plans of US imperialism to impose colonialism, plunder of our natural resources, and the privatize of state-owned enterprises. This situation against the workers is a product of the betrayal by Argollo, in the leadership of the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB), who has made a pact with the pro-US government and acts as a veritable "minister without portfolio" within this pro-US government.

Under the state of emergency, the government is carrying out a counterrevolutionary coup, persecuting leaders and the vanguard, seeking to erase all traces of the revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggle of workers and peasants who set up their dual power through road blockades, threatened to split the Armed Forces horizontally, and overthrow the Paz government, an agent of the IMF. The government, along with the army and the police, has already been imprisoning leaders and persecuting the vanguard. Thus, at the end of June, the La Paz prosecutor's office reported that 323 people were being investigated for "terrorism," 150 of whom were already under precautionary measures and 22 in pretrial detention.

Today we are witnessing the tragedy of this historic betrayal by the COB bureaucracy, which shattered the worker-peasant alliance. Now the government, backed by the OAS, which recently came to Bolivia to endorse this infamous pact, is deepening the colonization plan of US imperialism. As we will see below, with the devaluation of the Bolivian currency, they have already stolen 72% of workers' wages, along with the removal of subsidies for flour and fuel, all to raise money to pay the IMF and imperialist banks, leaving workers and peasants to starve. That is why the state of emergency was decreed under the IMF’s orders, to plunder Bolivia alongside transnational corporations and starve the workers and peasants. And for this purpose, the police and armed forces have been given powers to try to prevent a new revolutionary uprising.

And the government is moving forward in tying us to imperialist banks. It has already borrowed $1.9 billion from the IMF with conditions that state subsidies, such as fuel subsidies, are to be cut, and government spending cut down, including cuts in ministries. The IDB also approved a loan of $204.2 million and announced loan commitments with CAF, the IMF, the IDB, and the World Bank for more than $10 billion. And they will be paid by the impoverished masses. The change from a stable dollar exchange rate (6.96 bolivianos) to a floating one caused the boliviano to devalue by 72% (by the end of July), fueling rampant inflation. With the dollar soaring, import prices have risen between 3% and 10%, according to complaints from trade unions. A new mining law is already being prepared that favors the owners of cooperatives and private mines, granting them, for example, a monopoly on gold. With the announcement of the "bankruptcy" of 15 state-owned companies, progress is being made in the privatization of all state-owned enterprises; with "garbage" gasoline and while there is still a shortage of diesel and a recent decree announced the removal of the liquefied gas subsidy by the end of the year... all this as an economic blow to the poor masses who have only swelled the ranks of the unemployed, while wages are insufficient because they have been eaten away by inflation.

Enough is enough! Either the COB bureaucracy is defeated and the traitors are expelled from the workers' organizations, or it will end up as a supporter of the government, which will further advance the imperialist plans for the colonization of the nation, the privatization of state-owned companies, and the privatization of all our natural resources. Today, the vanguard is gritting its teeth in anger at the betrayal of its leaders, starting with the COB bureaucracy that sidelined the working class. Meanwhile, the leaders of Colquiri and Huanuni also made deals with Paz, saying that this would benefit them. Now, the miners have lost 72% of their wages due to the devaluation, along with all their hard-won gains. Prices are soaring: transportation, electricity, and if we don't resist now, tomorrow they will privatize the mines. These traitorous leaders must be held accountable for this attack by the government, because they took out the masses out of the picture.

Similarly, organizations that claim to be Trotskyist, such as the POR and the LOR-CI, are now repositioning themselves and calling for the defeat of the COB bureaucracy, only after the masses have been sidelined by the betrayal of their leaders. But when the conditions were right during the blockades and there was an opportunity to defeat those treacherous leaderships, they unfortunately chose to support them.

The workers and peasants have fought. Their leaders have betrayed them.

Down with the COB's infamous pact with the government and its repressive forces!

Out with the union bureaucracy
and the peasant leaders who collaborate with the gringo regime!

The MAS government under Morales and Arce (who released the fascists, police officers, and high-ranking military officers responsible for the Senkata massacre) co-opted and corrupted the entire leadership of the COB (Bolivian Workers' Center), who, for a pittance, bowed down to the MAS and the fascist Añez, and now is supporting the murderous government of Rodrigo Paz. This government has also led to attacks on workers' organizations, such as the recently announced elimination of mandatory union dues, the anti-blockade bill that even condemns the use of dynamite, and the push by employers to implement labor flexibilization through layoffs, preventing workers from fighting because of the "state of emergency.”

Hands off the state from workers' organizations! Down with all bourgeois laws that regulate how workers have to organize! We workers will organize as we see fit! For the broadest workers' democracy within the unions: Down with the bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy! Down with the compulsory deduction of union dues! Enough of lifelong, millionaire leaders in the unions: for leaders who can be recalled at any time by the rank-and-file assemblies, who earn the wage of an average worker, and who, after their term is over, return to work!

This is the way to defend our organizations against the government's attacks and against the corruption of leaders who betray and surrender our struggle. This is the way to maintain political independence from the state and all the bosses' parties.

For revolutionary leadership in the unions! From the rank and file, we must reject and break the treacherous agreement of the COB (Bolivian Workers' Center), which places workers' and peasants' organizations at the feet of this most subservient government in Bolivian history.

From the grassroots assemblies of miners, factory workers, and all workers: We must expel the sellout leaders who conspired with the government to hand over the nation and repress workers, self-organized residents, and poor peasants!

We must regroup our forces and recover the workers' and peasants' alliance by resuming the path of the General Strike. To stop this colonial plan, we must defeat this government and the IMF, which is unloading the crisis onto the backs of the exploited

FOR A NATIONAL RESISTANCE COMMITTEE OF WORKERS' AND PEASANTS' ORGANIZATIONS TO PREPARE THE COUNTEROFFENSIVE TO CRUSH THE REACTION OF THE LACKEYS AND IMPERIALISM

FOR A REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP OF THE COB
UNDER THE LEGACY OF THE PULACAYO THESIS!

Down with the state of emergency! Get the military out of the streets and mining centers like in Huanuni! We must call the rank-and-file soldiers to fight, to disobey all orders from officers to kill the people, and to establish their own Soldiers' Committees. For self-defense committees aimed at building workers' and peasants' militias! Disband the police and all repressive forces and crush the fascist gangs! Unconditional freedom for all those imprisoned for fighting!

Only the working class, in alliance with the poor peasantry, can provide a revolutionary solution to the capitalist crisis:

- To get bread, work, and a living wage, we must expropriate those who have expropriated the people: Nationalization without compensation and under workers' control of hydrocarbons and private and cooperative mining. They are the true jukus (crooks) who are plundering the nation!
- To provide bread for the poor and land for the peasants: Nationalization of the land held by the oligarchy of the Media Luna region.
- Let’s disregard the usurious debt owed to the World Bank and the IMF.
- Opening of accounting books to reveal the millions amassed by parasitic business owners. For a reduction in the workday and an additional shift in all factories and mines so that the unemployed can find work! A minimum wage, adjusted to inflation!
- Justice for those killed in the Senkata and Sacaba massacres in 2019 by the Añez government! Justice for those killed by the Paz government!

The future of Bolivia depends on the collective anti-imperialist struggle of the Latin American and North American masses. For a single anti-imperialist struggle against Trump's "Shield of the Americas" and his subservient governments, like the Paz administration that has resumed relations with Israel—the genocidal Zionists who have slaughtered the Palestinian people! For a single struggle of the Latin American working class alongside the US working class who is fighting against Trump's fascist ICE police!

Bolivia and Latin America are not for sale! Out with the IMF! Bolivia will be socialist or a colony of Wall Street!

Liga Socialista de los Trabajadores Internacionalistas (LSTI) of Bolivia,
adherent of the FLTI