We revolutionary militants favor all kinds of united actions or united front with the aim of accomplishing the essential tasks posed by the struggle now unfolding in Bolivia. Right from its beginning, we have insisted on the need to set up bodies for coordination on all levels in order to make all the struggles come together and strengthen them, while organizing self-defense in the face of the vicious crack-down unleashed by the government.
The LOR-CI submitted the following motion for discussion at the COB Plenum held on October 13.
Open letter to the COB in the face of the serious events of the day.
Draft resolutions for the October 13 emergency Plenum
1. The latest events that have occured in El Alto, where the ruling coalition has not hesitated to resort to the combined intervention of various forces, unleashing a new carnage that has provoked a number of casualties, a hitherto unknown number of injured people and detainees, and the full militarization of the city, are the most dramatic developments of the day. We believe it is possible to defeat the government, on condition that we deepen and extend the demonstrations and protests. We cannot wait any longer. We have to strike a decisive blow now.
2. The heroic and bold uprising by the workers and the people from El Alto is a beacon for all of us. It is not enough to show our moral outrage. We say: stop the bloodshed! The brothers and sisters in El Alto have clearly grasped how dire the situation is, and are spontaneously rising against a government bent on a vicious repression and the sell-out of our country. We cannot leave El Alto on its own. We have to step up the protests all across the nation, bringing the whole country to a halt, so as to kick out Sánchez de Lozada and his vicepresident Carlos Mesa.
3. We need to set up demonstrations committees on all levels: the districs, the provinces, the regions, as well as in every single community. These should encompass the neighbors" juntas, the factory unions and all the workplaces on a local level, the teachers" union"s branches, the college students" unions and also the secondary school students, and finally all those organizations committed with this fight.
4. The aggregate instructs all the neighbors" juntas, the unions and the number of institutions making up the COR in the city of El Alto, to immediately incorporate all those delegates voted at grassroots" meetings -this is already taking place in many neighbors" juntas in the city of El Alto. Let us build real protest coordination committees on a local level, which should in turn be coordinated among them so as to grow into regional and national decision-making bodies. Such organization will be indestructible and will open the door to the victory of the struggle being waged by the toilers and the people.
5. As a first step in this direction, the COB Plenum dictates that any person under arrest, injured in combat, or who has else played a major role organizing the resistance in the neighborhoods, the neighbors" juntas, the unions or any other social organization, will be given the right to speak in all the leading bodies of the COB.
6. The Plenum, on the basis of the glorious experience of the COB and his political command back in the 1970s, dictates that, from now on, all labor and revolutionary organizations committed to the fight in defense of gas and against multinational corporations will have the right to speak in all meetings. This same right is extended to all grassroots" organizations —shopfloor, teachers", health workers" and miners" branches. In this way, the discussion and the political combat will both enable us to forge an alternative workers" and peasants" power, in preparation for the eventual demise of the current government.
7. El Alto and Warisata are a living testimony that the government considers that the working class and poor neighborhoods, along with peasant communities, are military targets. We might be facing a generalized crack-down allthroughout the land in no time, by means of a siege or, in the worst scenario, through a self-staged coup d"état. We have to prevent that. The brothers and sisters in El Alto have shown to us the way fight against that danger. Given the harsh military onslaught unfolding now, the people there have spontaneously set up mechanisms to protect the demonstrations and their legitimate aspirations, in defense of gas and their own families. They have done so by erecting barricades everywhere and by challenging the military and police onslaught by any means necessary. This grandiose example of struggle and resistance must be spread allthroughout the country to prevent new carnages such as the ones in Warisata, Ventilla and El Alto. Let us build self-defense committees and pickets of union police in all our fighting organizations!
8. The Plenum instructs all labor, peasant and people"s organizations to do their best to try and win over the military and police troops, demanding them not to crack-down on the people and calling them to disobey the orders emanating from the reactionary officers.