Bolivia - August 9 2024
Transnational corporations and imperialist banks steal billions of dollars with the looting of hydrocarbons and minerals and through the repayment of fraudulent debt to the IMF and World Bank
Bolivia: a nation bled dry and strangled by imperialism
A brutal looting that has been guaranteed with every government in power, yesterday with Evo, then the coup leader Añez and today with Arce... Now USA is coming for everything and this servant government is preparing huge gas price hype, redoubling its attack on the people
Bolivia is going through an economic crisis that deepens every day. This is expressed in the rise of the price of the parallel (unoficial) dollar, which last week reached 15 bolivianos per dollar (today stagnating at 12 bolivianos per dollar) when less than a year ago, it barely exceeded 7 bolivianos. The official price remains at 6.90 bs but the banks are not selling dollars.
In tune with this inflation has skyrocketed; it has been growing since 2021 at an average of between 2 and 3% annually. This 2024 it already accumulates 3% as of July when in all of 2023 it was 2.1%. The government itself estimates that all-year inflation will be 3.60%, the highest in recent years. (Newspaper: La Razón)
The lack of dollars is mainly due to the drop in hydrocarbon exports (especially natural gas). This largest source of dollar income in Bolivia has fallen to the lowest rates in the last 20 years. The few dollars that the State collects in relation to the gas boom are completely taken up by the repayment of external debt services (capital, interest and commissions) that the Arce government promised to pay. This lackey of the imperialist banks in 2021 canceled the millionaire credit contracted by the fascist coup government of Áñez with the IMF for US$327.7 million plus the payment of additional amounts of US$24.3 million and commissions and interest for US$4.7 million.
Transnational companies deplete gas reserves, redouble the theft of minerals and are coming after lithium
In a decade, natural gas exports have fallen 58.6% in volume and 68.7% in value, according to the National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia. Revenue from the sale of natural gas has plummeted. From US$6,011.1 million in 2014 (its highest peak) they fell to US$ 2,058 million in 2023. Exports to Argentina fell by 70% and to Brazil by 67%. These represented 47% of the total value of Bolivia's exports.
The drop in natural gas exports is due to the fact that its reserves are being depleted. According to Yacimientos Petrolferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB - Bolivian State Oil Fields), Bolivia reached the peak of natural gas extraction in 2014 when it reached, on average, 59.6 million cubic meters per day (MMm3d). But by 2022 this has plummeted to 41.3 MMm3d and continues to fall. (Newspaper: La Razón)
Arce admitted that gas reserves “have been falling until they hit rock bottom”. They are liquidating the gas reserve and can only resort to the sale of lithium, whose enormous reserves would serve to raise dollars; but there is no place for intermediaries. The USA, in their plan to colonize Latin America, are coming for the “lithium triangle” (Bolivia-Argentina-Chile) and will not allow any “native” bourgeoisie to keep a slice of the income from this resource, which they consider completely theirs. With the coup attempt in Bolivia, US imperialism once again has put the military party on the national scene, to take care of US businesses and discipline the native bourgeoisie of Arce so that it does not move even a millimeter from the US imperialists’ colonization plan.
Given the shortage of dollars, Arce's government is preparing to remove fuel subsidies, whose prices have been frozen since 2005, for which it spends between US$ 1,500 and US$ 2,000 million per year.
The government has already cut US$ 400 million from the fiscal resources allocated for this purpose as compared to the 2023 amount for this subsidy. On August 6 it announced a public referendum for the population to decide whether the subsidy should be eliminated or maintained. This is a farce, the government is forced to remove the fuel subsidy to repay the debt. The Minister of Economy, Marcelo Montenegro, already anticipates this when he says “It is like when the doctor must cut off an arm to save the body; the patient's consent is needed”. This servant of imperialism says that “By eliminating the subsidy, we not only reduce smuggling, but we also ensure that fuel and diesel are available within the country”. But he knows that it could happen to him like in Ecuador, when the “gasolinazo” caused a revolutionary uprising of workers and peasants against the government and imperialism. That's why he said in an interview, “Taking away something that people are used to is complicated”. (Newspaper El Deber)
With the brutal drop in hydrocarbon exports, the growth of mineral exports gives the government a break because it allows the entry of dollars. But this is not enough. Mining is 90% looted by USA and Japanese transnationals that only leave crumbs for royalties (which on average do not exceed 5%).
Since 2021, mineral exports equal and exceed natural gas as a source of dollars collected by the State. According to data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE - National Institute of Statistics), in 2021 mineral exports reached a value of US$ 2,650 million and hydrocarbon exports reached US$ 2,270 million (Newspaper La Razón). In 2023, hydrocarbons worth US$ 2,058 million and minerals worth US$5,601 million were exported. The main minerals exported: gold (US$2,531 million), zinc (US$1,276 million), silver (US$960 million), tin (US$392 million), lead (US$203 million). According to the report given by the Minister of Mining and Metallurgy, Marcelino Quispe, in the 2023 Final Public Accountability. (Bolivian Information Agency)
The fraudulent foreign debt with the imperialist banks: the other great blood drain that strangles the nation
The Central Bank of Bolivia reported that as of July, 62% of the external debt service stipulated for this year for US$ 938 million had been paid. The main creditors, which have been the same for 12 years, are the IDB, CAF, World Bank and China, France and Japan. (Central Bank of Bolivia).
According to the BCB, the external debt closed in 2023 at US$ 13,588 million (30% of GDP) and the internal debt was US$ 22,746 million. A total debt that reached 81% of GDP (which was US$ 45,464 million in 2023). These figures represent an increase compared to 2022. (Newspaper Los Tiempos).
According to the Newspaper La Razón, in 18 years, from 2006 to 2023, Bolivia contracted external debt for a total of US$ 22,982.9 million. That is, the State contracted debt at a rate of US$ 1,276.8 million per year. Although it has settled part of that debt, around US$ 9,394 million, mainly with income from the export of minerals and hydrocarbons, Bolivia continues to go into debt every year.
Faced with the brutal looting that is bleeding the nation… We must retake the anti-imperialist cry of the workers and poor peasants of 2003-2005: Gringos out! Neither 30% nor 50% (of royalties), hydrocarbons for Bolivians!
Hydrocarbons and minerals must be nationalized without payment and under workers' control! We must expropriate the expropriators! To be able to have bread, salary and all our demands.
No to the repayment of the fraudulent foreign debt! Out with the World Bank, the IMF, the IDB and other imperialist banks!
The MAS has been just a detour for imperialism to redouble the plundering of the nation...
Arce, another “La Rosca” government that guaranteed the businesses of USA transnationals and the fascist oligarchy of the Media Luna
Out with the collaborationist bureaucracy! Workers and peasant Congress now! For the COB's breaking with the anti-worker Arce government of the MAS!
Open the road to the revolution, to the worker and peasant militias as in the COB of 1952. We must put an end to the caste of coup-mongering officials who are lackeys of USA and seek to irrigate the streets with worker and peasant blood as in Senkata and Sacaba.
Open the road to the unity and anti-imperialist struggle of the workers and peasants of Bolivia and the continent!
We will only be able to expel imperialism if we conquer a common struggle of the working and peasant masses of all of Latin America together with our best allies, the US working class.
Out with the USA military bases in Latin America!
From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, the same class, the same fight against the same enemy: imperialism and its servant regimes and governments!
Liga Socialista de los Trabajadores Internacionalistas de Bolivia
(Socialist League of Internationalist Workers of Bolivia) |
