Republic workers captured the attention of the world when they occupied their plant on December 5, 2008 calling for the severance and vacation pay they were due. The sit-in ended six days later when the Bank of America and other lenders to Republic agreed to pay the workers the approximately $2 million owed to them. Recently, the workers won another victory with the arrest of Gillman.

The prosecutors charge that Gillman defrauded creditors of over $10 million, and then went ahead to use company money to complete payments on leases for two luxury cars — while his employees went without pay.

According to court records Gillman also secretly sent three semi-trailers full of equipment from the Republic factory to a non-unionized factory in Iowa without the consent of Republic board members and creditors. Luckily, however, the organized Republic workers followed the trailers, and during the occupation, prevented executives from entering the factory to take company documents that now make up much of the case against Gillman and other Republic officials.

“Gillman and others knew this company was headed for closure,” Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney, told reporters. “And instead of fulfilling their legal obligations to their creditors and their moral obligations to their employees, they devised a scheme to benefit themselves.”

“We knew Gillman was lying to us for a long time, now the rest of the world knows it too,” said Armando Robles, the President of UE Local 1110, the Republic workers’ union. “Workers suffer with bad bosses all the time so this is a victory for all workers.”

Gillman’s arrest is just one of the results of the Republic workers’ actions. In February of this year, Serious Materials ended up buying up Republic for $145 million, promising to put the unemployed workers back on the job. The California-based Serious makes heating efficient windows.

“Having another company reopen the factory was always our hope when we occupied the factory in December,” Robles told the New York Times.

Kevin Surace, the chief executive officer of Serious, was drawn to the Republic workers’ story, leading him to eventually acquire the bankrupt factory. “It was very sad to see what looks like it could be a world-class operation just fall on terrible hard times and then all of the workers quite abruptly laid off,” he said. “We saw a great opportunity with a great facility and great workers.” Another thing that attracted Surace to the Republic plant was that 90% of the equipment was still there — thanks to the workers who prevented the bosses from hauling it away.

However, only fifteen former Republic employees have been rehired so far. According to Chicago-based journalist Kari Lydersen of In These Times, the delay in hiring more workers could have to do with the fact that Obama’s federal stimulus for green jobs and heating efficient windows has been slower in producing results than people had hoped. Yet Lydersen points out that the Republic workers “know they can’t just sit back and wait for the stimulus or the factory’s new owner to make everything all right.”

Meanwhile, Gillman is facing justice thanks to the workers’ actions. Melvin Maclin, a former Republic worker who is currently unemployed and the father of six children, commented on Gillman’s arrest in a UE statement, “We feel like justice has finally come and we all hope that this is the beginning of more bosses being held accountable for their crimes against workers.”

On early Sunday morning, approximately 100 soldiers entered the home of the left-leaning Zelaya, forcefully removed him and, while he was still in his pajamas, ushered him on to a plane to Costa Rica. The tension that led to the coup involved a struggle for power between left and right political factions in the country. Besides the brutal challenges facing the Honduran people, this political crisis is a test for regional solidarity and Washington-Latin American relations.

Manuel Zelaya Takes a Left Turn

When Manuel Zelaya was elected president on November 27, 2005 in a close victory, he became president of one of the poorest nations in the region, with approximately 70% of its population of 7.5 million living under the poverty line. Though siding himself with the region’s left in recent years as a new member of the leftist trade bloc, Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), Zelaya did sign the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2004.

However, Zelaya has been criticizing and taking on the sweatshop and corporate media industry in his country, and increased the minimum wage by 60%. He said the increase, which angered the country’s elite but expanded his support among unions, would “force the business oligarchy to start paying what is fair.”

At a meeting of regional anti-drug officials, Zelaya spoke of an unconventional way to combat the drug trafficking and related violence that has been plaguing his country: “Instead of pursuing drug traffickers, societies should invest resources in educating drug addicts and curbing their demand.”

After his election, Zelaya’s left-leaning policies began generating “resistance and anger among Liberal [party] leaders and lawmakers on the one hand, and attracting support from the opposition, civil society organizations and popular movements on the other,” IPS reported.

The social organization Via Campesina stated, “The government of President Zelaya has been characterized by its defense of workers and campesinos, it is a defender of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), and during his administration it has promoted actions that benefit Honduran campesinos.”

As his popularity rose over the years among these sectors of society, the right wing and elite of Honduras worked to undermine the leader, eventually resulting in the recent coup.

Leading up to the Coup

The key question leading up to the coup was whether or not to hold a referendum on Sunday, June 28 — as Zelaya wanted — on organizing an assembly to re-write the country’s constitution.

As one media analyst pointed out, while many major news outlets in the US, including the Miami Herald, Wall St. Journal and Washington Post, said an impetus for the coup was specifically Zelaya’s plans for a vote to allow him to extend his term in office, the actual ballot question was to be: “Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?”

Nations across Latin America, including Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, have recently re-written their constitutions. In many aspects the changes to these documents enshrined new rights for marginalized people and protected the nations’ economies from the destabilizing effects of free trade and corporate looting.

Leading up to the coup, on June 10, members of teacher, student, indigenous and union groups marched to demand that Congress back the referendum on the constitution, chanting, “The people, aware, defend the Constituent [Assembly].” The Honduran Front of Teachers Organizations [FOM], with some 48,000 members, also supported the referendum. FOM leader Eulogio Chávez asked teachers to organize the expected referendum this past Sunday in schools, according to the Weekly News Update on the Americas.

The Supreme Court ruled that the referendum violated the constitution as it was taking place during an election year. When Honduran military General Romeo Vasquez refused to distribute ballots to citizens and participate in the preparations for the Sunday referendum, Zelaya fired him on June 24. The Court called for the reinstatement of Vasquez, but Zelaya refused to recognize the reinstatement, and proceeded with the referendum, distributing the ballots and planning for the Sunday vote.

Crackdown in Honduras

Vasquez, a former student at the infamous School of the Americas, now known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), went on to be a key leader in the June 28 coup.

After Zelaya had been taken to Costa Rica, a falsified resignation letter from Zelaya was presented to Congress, and former Parliament leader Roberto Micheletti was sworn in by Congress as the new president of the country. Micheletti immediately declared a curfew as protests and mobilizations continued nation-wide.

Since the coup took place, military planes and helicopters have been circling the city, the electricity and internet has been cut off, and only music is being played on the few radio stations that are still operating, according to IPS News.

Telesur journalists, who have been reporting consistently throughout the conflict, were detained by the de facto government in Honduras. They were then released thanks to international pressure.

The ambassadors to Honduras from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were arrested. Patricia Rodas, the Foreign Minister of Honduras under Zelaya has also been arrested. Rodas recently presided over an OAS meeting in which Cuba was finally admitted into the organization.

The military-installed government has issued arrest warrants for Honduran social leaders for the Popular Bloc Coordinating Committee, Via Campesina and the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, according to the Weekly News Update on the Americas.

Human rights activist Dr. Juan Almendares, reporting from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, told Democracy Now! that due to government crackdowns and the electrical blackout, there is “not really access to information, no freedom of the press.” He said, “We have also a curfew, because after 9:00 you can be shot if you are on the streets. So we have a curfew from 9:00 to 6:00 a.m.”

In a statement on the coup, Via Campesina said, “We believe that these deeds are the desperate acts of the national oligarchy and the hardcore right to preserve the interests of capital, and in particular, of the large transnational corporations.”

Mobilizations and Strikes in Support of Zelaya

Members of social, indigenous and labor organizations from around the country have concentrated in the city’s capital, organizing barricades around the presidential palace, demanding Zelaya’s return to power. “Thousands of Hondurans gathered outside the presidential palace singing the national hymn,” Telesur reported. “While the battalions mobilized against protesters at the Presidential House, the TV channels did not report on the tense events.” Bertha Cáceres, the leader of the Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas, said that the ethnic communities of the country are ready for resistance and do not recognize the Micheletti government.

Dr. Almendares reported that in spite of massive repression on the part of the military leaders, “We have almost a national strike for workers, people, students and intellectuals, and they are organized in a popular resistance-run pacific movement against this violation of the democracy. . . . There are many sectors involved in this movement trying to restitute the constitutional rights, the human rights.”

Rafael Alegría, a leader of Via Campesina in Honduras, told Telesur, “The resistance of the people continues and is growing, already in the western part of the country campesinos are taking over highways, and the military troops are impeding bus travel, which is why many people have decided to travel to Tegucigalpa on foot. The resistance continues in spite of the hostility of the military patrols.”

A general strike was also organized by various social and labor sectors in the country. Regarding the strike, Alegría said it is happening across state institutions and “progressively in the private sector.”

The 4th Army Battalion from the Atlántida Department in Honduras has declared that it will not respect orders from the Micheletti government, and the major highways of the country are blocked by protesters, according to a radio interview with Alegría.

The Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), condemned the coup, media crackdowns and repression, saying in a statement: “[T]he Honduran people are carrying out large demonstrations, actions in their communities, in the municipalities; there are occupations of bridges, and a protest in front of the presidential residence, among others. From the lands of Lempira, Morazán and Visitación Padilla, we call on the Honduran people in general to demonstrate in defense of their rights and of real and direct democracy for the people, to the fascists we say that they will NOT silence us, that this cowardly act will turn back on them, with great force.”

Washington Responds

On Sunday, Obama spoke of the events in Honduras: “I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

But the US hasn’t actually called what’s happened in Honduras a coup. Hillary Clinton said, “We are withholding any formal legal determination.” And regarding whether or not the US is calling for Zelaya’s return, Clinton said, “We haven’t laid out any demands that we’re insisting on, because we’re working with others on behalf of our ultimate objectives.”

If the White House declares that what’s happening in Honduras is a coup, they would have to block aid to the rogue Honduran government. A provision of US law regarding funds directed by the US Congress says that, “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available . . . shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.”

“The State Department has requested $68.2 million in aid for fiscal year 2010 [for Honduras], which begins on October 1, up from $43.2 million in the current fiscal year and $40.5 million a year earlier,” according to Reuters.

The US military has a base in Soto Cano, Honduras, which, according to investigative journalist Eva Golinger, is home to approximately 500 troops and a number of air force planes and helicopters.

Regarding US relations with the Honduran military, Latin American History professor and journalist Greg Grandin said on Democracy Now!: “The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government. Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras. Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances. So if the US is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward. Zelaya will return . . .”

The Regional Response

The Organization of American States, and the United Nations has condemned the coup. Condemnation of the coup has come in from major leaders across the globe, and all over Latin America, as reported by Reuters: the Presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cuba have been outspoken in their protests against the coup. The French Foreign Ministry said, “France firmly condemns the coup that has just taken place in Honduras.” Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said, “I’m deeply worried about the situation in Honduras… it reminds us of the worst years in Latin America’s history.”

Even Augusto Ramírez Ocampo, a former foreign minister of Colombia told the NY Times, “It is a legal obligation to defend democracy in Honduras.”

Only time will tell what the international and national support for Zelaya means for Honduras. Regional support for Bolivian President Evo Morales during an attempted coup in 2008 empowered his fight against right wing destabilizing forces. Popular support in the streets proved vital during the attempted coup against Venezuelan President Chavez in 2002.

Meanwhile, Zelaya supporters continue to convene at the government palace, yelling at the armed soldiers while tanks roam the streets.

“We’re defending our president,” protester Umberto Guebara told a NY Times reporter. “I’m not afraid. I’d give my life for my country.”

* * *

Taking Action

If you are interested in rallying in support for the Honduran people and against the coup, here is a list of Honduran Embassies and Consulates in the US.

People in the US could call political representatives to denounce the coup, and demand US cut off all aid to the rogue government until Zelaya is back in power. Click here to send a message to Barack Obama about the coup.

Visit SOA Watch for more photos and suggested actions.

In the early hours of May 1st, Sabino Augusto Montanaro, the Interior Minister in Paraguay during the repressive Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), returned to his country after 20 years in Honduras. Doctors say 86-year-old Montanaro is suffering from senility and Parkinson’s disease. Montanaro’s lawyer Luis Troche said his client returned to the country not to apologize for his crimes or face justice, but because, “according to Paraguayan law, he is too old to go to jail.”

Montanaro served as a minister under Stroessner from 1966 to the end of the dictatorship, and played a key role in the regime’s repression, directing the abduction, torture and murder of political opponents of Stroessner. Now, upon his return to Paraguay, he faces various criminal charges, and thousands of angry citizens, many of whom greeted his return to the country with protests, and calls for the ex-minister’s imprisonment.

Martin Almada, a human rights lawyer and former political prisoner, discovered documents which prove that Montanaro played a key role in Operation Condor, a unified, cross-border network of repression coordinated by military dictatorships in the region throughout the 1970 and ‘80s.

In 2006, Stroessner died at age 93 in Brasilia without facing justice for the repression that took place under his watch, including the disappearance of some 400 people and the torture of 18,000, according to a Truth and Justice Commission.

Paraguayan Bishop Mario Melanio Medina told the ABC Color newspaper that Montanaro was Stroessner’s “right hand man” and “number one [in command] after Stroessner.”

Rubber Bullets and Memory

Around noon at the May 1st rally, some 1,000 protesters began marching toward the private hospital where Montaro was a patient. While pounding drums and yelling political chants, the marchers paraded down the middle of many streets that were empty due to the holiday. The chants and drumming increased in volume when the marchers passed the red headquarters of the Colorado Party, Stroessner’s party, which lost its 60-year long grip on the country with the 2008 election of Fernando Lugo.

The march reached a climax upon arriving at the hospital. Dozens of riot cops surrounded the building, protecting the ex-minister by creating a wall with their thick metal shields, while hundreds of victims, and family members of victims of Montanaro’s repression, rallied in the streets outside, demanding justice.

When the majority of the marchers arrived at the hospital, one group charged the front door, trying to break through the police line and get to Montanaro. The police responded with brutal force that left one man bloody and stunned.

As the numbers of protesters outside the hospital increased, news spread that a judge ordered Montanaro’s transfer from the private hospital to a police hospital. Protesters responded by gathering around the side of the hospital where ambulances leave and arrive. Police formed another wall in this section of the hospital to protect Montanaro’s ambulance and allow for his safe transferal.

When the gates opened, and the ambulance transporting Montanaro began to leave, police pushed protesters back, crashing night sticks and shields on the bodies of the marchers, who responded by throwing stones at the police and ambulance. Protesters managed to get to the ambulance, breaking its windows with rocks as the police repression increased and the ambulance sped off. Police dispersed the crowd with a barrage of rubber bullets that injured a number of protesters.

Later, a vigil including hundreds of people gathered in front of the police hospital. “We, the relatives of the victims, are going to mount a special vigilance so this criminal has no space nor privilege in which to hide, or to argue that he’s insane to escape justice,” said Rolando Goiburu, the son of Dr. Agustin Goiburu who was disappeared under Stroessner, according to EFE.

Earlier in the day President Lugo arrived to echo the protesters sentiments. He spoke of Montanaro’s return: “I promise that there will be justice, the same mistakes that previous governments made will not be repeated, and there won’t be any privileges for anyone.” He told protesters outside the hospital that this is a “good opportunity to recuperate historical memory.”

Judith Rolón, a daughter of Martín Rolón who was disappeared during the Stroessner dictatorship, said Montanaro “will not have peace until he says where the disappeared are.”

However, as the US President, Obama inherits a bloody legacy that is still very much alive in today’s Latin America. Just weeks before the Presidents met in Trinidad, thousands of Argentines marched once again to demand justice for 30,000 people disappeared in a US-backed military dictatorship.

On March 24, 1976 a military junta took power in Argentina, and until 1981, General Jorge Rafael Videla presided over the country in a reign of terror, torture, surveillance and murder.

On March 24, 2009, in Mendoza, Argentina, colorful marches filled the central streets of the city in remembrance of the coup, and to demand justice. The various banners and placards waving above the crowd were a testament to Argentina’s healthy political diversity in activism and politics — from Maoists selling their newspapers to Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo giving teary hugs to supporters and friends.

Though the march was organized around one central theme — justice, truth and memory regarding the dictatorship – other themes arose in the crowd as well, including the negative impact of soy production, rising bus fares and political corruption.

The march was a time to remember when Henry Kissinger gave his blessing to the Argentine military junta in 1976, saying, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly” and reassuring the torturing, bloody leaders when he said, “I don’t want to give the sense that they’re harassed by the United States.”

Marches and protests in Buenos Aires on the same day were attended by the famous Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a powerful human rights movement that for decades has been demanding the truth regarding the whereabouts of their disappeared children. One document read by some of the Mothers explained that still, after all these years, “the slowness of justice generates impunity and impunity only creates more impunity.”

A column by one leading Mother of the Plaza de Mayo, Hebe Bonafini, explained that her movement is also doing more than just marching and lobbying for justice. Their reach has expanded into all kinds of media and walks of life. They have opened a literary café and publishing house, and hold seminars which 2,800 different students attend. Their “Shared Dreams” project provides housing in poor neighborhoods, as well as soup kitchens and daycare centers. Their radio station reaches into neighboring Uruguay and as far away as Brazil.

During the Buenos Aires mobilizations, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo spoke of the fact that “today there have still only been 44 sentences” for the authors of “a plan of systematic extermination” during the dictatorship. Therefore, the Mothers said, “we have to keep on fighting for truth and justice,” as there are still 526 criminals of the dictatorship that still need to be tried. They demanded an “opening of the all of the archives of the Armed Forces and security to know to the truth.” They also called for the appearance of Julio López, the main testifier in a case against Miguel Etchecolatz, a repressor under the dictatorship.

Julio Lopez, a political prisoner during the dictatorship, was disappeared in 2006 a few hours before he was scheduled to testify against Etchecolatz. Lopez was last seen on September 18th, 2006. Journalist Marie Trigona reported that Nilda Eloy, another survivor of the dictatorship who testified with Lopez to convict Etchecolatz, said that, “Most of the evidence suggests that Julio Lopez was kidnapped by the gangsters from the Greater Buenos Aires police force and rightwing fascists…”

Outside Buenos Aires other cities remembered these harsh times that still cast shadows over generations upon generations. But this March 24 was also a time of hope and reconstruction. In Cordoba, Argentina, La Perla (The Pearl), a detention and torture center run by the military dictatorship was transformed into a “Space for Memory” and opened to the public. Emiliano Fessia, a member of the HIJOS human rights organization, said of the space, “This will now be a place of life, after being a place of death.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales just completed a five day hunger strike to push through legislation that allows him to run again in general elections this December. And at this weekend’s Summit of the Americas US President Barack Obama will meet with Latin American presidents who may end up giving some economic advice to their troubled neighbor in the north.

Evo Morales on a Hunger Strike

When opposition party members in Bolivia left a Congress session on April 9, refusing to pass a bill that would allow for general elections in December of this year, Evo Morales began a hunger strike while thousands of government supporters rallied in the streets in support of the bill. Morales began the fast to pressure opponents into passing the legislation, which in addition to enabling elections, would give indigenous communities broader representation in parliament and give Bolivian citizens living abroad the right to vote in the December elections. The opposition blocked the bill in part because they said it would give Morales more power and did not significantly prevent the possibility of electoral fraud. On April 12, opposition members returned to Congress when Morales agreed to changes regarding a new voter registry.

During his hunger strike, Morales slept on a mattress on the floor in the presidential palace and chewed coca leaves to fight off hunger. Morales said that this was the 18th hunger strike he participated in; before becoming president, Morales was a long-time coca farmer, union organizer and congressman. He said the longest hunger strike he had been on lasted 18 days while he was in jail, according to Bloomberg. But Morales wasn’t alone: 3,000 other MAS supporters, activists, workers and union members also participated in the hunger strike, including Bolivians in Spain and Argentina.

Early in the morning on April 14, once it was official that the Senate passed the bill, Morales ended his strike. “Happily, we have accomplished something important,” he told reporters. “The people should not forget that you need to fight for change. We alone can’t guarantee this revolutionary process, but with people power it’s possible.”

This controversy erupted just weeks after Bolivia’s new constitution was approved in a January 25 national referendum. Among other significant changes, the constitution grants unprecedented rights to the country’s indigenous majority and establishes a broader role for the state in the management of the economy and natural resources.

Summit of the Americas: Cuba, Obama and Chavez

On April 17-19 the Summit of the Americas will take place in Trinidad and Tobago. Most of the hemisphere’s presidents will be in attendance. It will also mark the first meeting between Presidents Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez.

Before the larger Summit begins, a Summit for the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA) will take place in Venezuela from April 14-15. Those planning to attend this gathering include President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, and others. Chavez announced that this ALBA meeting will take place with the objective of formulating common positions to bring to Trinidad and Tobago, including plans regarding the formation of a regional currency, called the Sucre. These leaders are also likely to lead the push for an end to the blockade against Cuba.

Chavez said that if the US wants to come to the Summit “with the same excluding discourse of the empire – on the blockade – then the result will be that nothing has changed. Everything will stay the same… Cuba is a point of honor for the peoples of Latin America. We cannot accept that the United States should continue trampling over the nations of our America.”

In a recent column, Fidel Castro noted that Obama planned to lift travel and remittance restrictions to Cuba, but that that wouldn’t be enough — the blockade still needs to be lifted. “[N]ot a word was said about the harshest of measures: the blockade,” Castro wrote. “This is the way a truly genocidal measure is piously called, one whose damage cannot be calculated only on the basis of its economic effects, for it constantly takes human lives and brings painful suffering to our people. Numerous diagnostic equipment and crucial medicines — made in Europe, Japan or any other country — are not available to our patients if they carry U.S. components or software.”

The blockade against Cuba will likely be a hot topic of debate at this weekend’s Summit, and will be partly fueled by tension between Obama and Chavez. Explaining the failure of the Bush administration in the region, Obama once said, it is “No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum. His predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy offers the same false promise as the tried and failed ideologies of the past.”

Yet a closer look at the region will show that the rise of leaders like Chavez is a result of more than just neglect on the part of the empire – it has to do with the disastrous impact of neoliberalism in the region, and a desire among Latin Americans to seek out alternatives. Considering the current economic crisis in the US, Obama could learn a thing or two from the policies of leaders like Chavez, who is incredibly popular in Venezuela, works in solidarity with many of the region’s leaders, and has developed successful economic policies in his country. At the upcoming Summit, Obama should put into action something he said when meeting with the G20: “We exercise our leadership best when we are listening.”

Latin America Changes

Those expecting an end to the same old Cold War tactics toward Latin America from Washington may be surprised when Obama continues to treat the region as a backyard. Yet whether or not the perspective from Washington changes, Latin America is certainly a different place than it was 30 years ago.

I asked Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University, and the author, most recently, of Empire’s Workshop, if another US-backed coup such as the one that happened against socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 would be possible in today’s Latin America. He said, “I don’t think it would be possible. There isn’t a constituency for a coup. In the 1970s, US policy was getting a lot more traction because people were afraid of the rise of the left, and they were interested in an economic alliance with the US. Now, the [Latin American] middle class could still go with the US, common crime could be a wedge issue that could drive Latin America away from the left. But US policy is so destructive that it has really eviscerated the middle class. Now, there is no domestic constituency that the US could latch onto. The US did have a broader base of support in the 1970s, but neoliberalism undermined it.”

Grandin explained that in the 1960s and 1970s, security agencies in Latin America built up their relationship with Washington to “subordinate their interests to the US’s cold war crusade.” There was a willingness among the Latin American middle class to do this, Grandin explained, and the US was also interested in building the infrastructure and networks to ensure that the region’s new dictators’ fanaticism could be led by anti-communism. “Now in South America, there has been a wide rejection to subordinate their military to the US,” Grandin explained. “In a 2005 defense meeting in Quito, Ecuador [former US Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld attempted to elevate the war on terror in the region [as a military priority], and it was roundly rejected. . . . As of now, I don’t think there has been a willingness for Latin America to serve as an outpost of this unified war [on terror].”

Grandin wrote in a 2006 article that the Pentagon has tried to “ratchet up a sense of ideological urgency” in the war on terror in Latin America. but these pleas have fallen on deaf ears. “The cause of terrorism,” said Brazil’s Vice President José Alencar, “is not just fundamentalism, but misery and hunger.”

However, the Latin America Obama will visit this weekend is already significantly different than the one Rumsfeld tried to convince in 2005. Obama’s counterparts in the south are generally more independent and leftist than they were even four years ago. But all that can change, and at least some of it depends on how Obama works with — or ignores — the region.

Outside of Obama’s influence, one question remains: will changes made by leftist leaders in Latin America be irrevocable, even if the right regains power in the region in the next five years? Not according to political analyst Laura Carlsen of the Americas Program in Mexico City, “In order for that to happen it would take more than just a change in the government, and I find it unlikely for anything like that to happen in the short term. It took years for the left in power to build up these social movements and the development of alternatives. It was the result of that process that brought these governments into power, and to reverse it you would have to silence or repress these movements.”

I asked Grandin the same question. “It depends,” he said, “the changes seemed pretty irrevocable in the 1970s and with Reaganism and militarism . . . The failure of neoliberalism is certain, but it’s hard to say what the response will be in the long term.”

This weekend’s summit, where Obama and Chavez will shake hands for the first time, might offer some glimpses into the region’s future.

The new documentary Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas proves that democracy can and should be more than casting a ballot every four years. This empowering film gives hopeful and concrete examples from around the Americas of people taking back the reigns of power and governing their own communities. Beyond Elections is a road map for social change, drawing from communal councils in Venezuela and social movements in Bolivia to participatory budgeting in Brazil and worker cooperatives in Argentina. The film gracefully succeeds in demonstrating that these grassroots examples of people’s power can be applied anywhere. Particularly as activists in the US face the challenges of an Obama administration and an economic crisis, this timely documentary shows that the revolution can start today right in your own living room or neighborhood.

In this interview, Michael Fox, Co-Producer of Beyond Elections, talks about how the film was created, what its aims were and what the films impact has had among viewers in the US.

Benjamin Dangl: How did you decide on the focus and message of Beyond Elections?

Michael Fox: I’ve been living and working in Latin America for many years, studying and reporting on, above all else, the experiences in participatory democracy- cooperatives, communal councils, participatory budgeting, social movements, community radio, etc… Sílvia (my wife, who grew up in Southern Brazil, and who is also Co-director of the film) and I were living in Venezuela in 2006 when the communal councils law was passed, and local communities all across the country began to come together and take on this new form of organizing. You could see how it was empowering people on an individual and local level.

In March of 2007, Sílvia and I found ourselves in Porto Alegre, Brazil — where we now live — at the same time that the 2007 Participatory Budgeting cycle was about to begin. We realized that although there have been many local videos on the experiences of participatory budgeting, cooperatives, social movements and even some on the recently-formed communal councils, there was no documentary film that tried to give both the big and local picture of these new participatory concepts of democracy across the hemisphere.

This concept is almost completely absent in the United States, and yet, it is absolutely necessarily for people to understand what is going on across Latin America, and also extremely important for activists and people in the United States to understand the failures of our own system and the lack of participation and input from everyday citizens.

We originally planned the film to focus only on participatory democracy, but quickly realized that the only people who would want to see it would be activists that are already doing this type of work. We needed to open it up to the very concept of democracy itself.

This was important to us, because time and again in the United States, pundits, elected officials, everyday folks and even journalists use the word “democracy” as an excuse to de-legitimize extremely democratic groups and governments. They say, “Venezuela is threatening democracy in the region”, and yet depending on your definition, Venezuela is perhaps the most democratic country in the region — much more so than the United States. But these realities are very subtle, and if you have never been to Venezuela, or Brazil or Bolivia or Ecuador (or if you go and only stay at the resorts and the upper-class part of town), then you’re never going to know what to believe because the mainstream media is quick to repeat the manipulations.

There are some mainstream media that actually call Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator, despite the fact that during his ten years in office there have been more than a dozen free and fair elections in Venezuela legitimately-recognized by international observers from around the world, and that he has always respected the Venezuelan Constitution and the laws. He may be a very charismatic, domineering, and powerful figure, but he’s not a dictator.

Then the real question is, “What is democracy?” And that’s where we wanted to focus our attention – giving people the space to tell their stories across the Hemisphere.

As the Portuguese Sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos says, (and you can find the link to more of his work on our website, www.beyondelections.com), the United States has created a monopoly on the definition of democracy — U.S. style hegemonic representative politics.

But Sousa Santos points out that in reality, democracy is a work in progress. As he says, “democracy without end.”

His colleague, Leonardo Avritzer, professor from Brazilian Federal University of Minas Gerais, points out in our film, “What we’ve tried to stress, is the idea that democracy is an open concept and the frontiers of democracy are always imprecise. For instance, in the 19th century you could say that it’s democratic to expand suffrage. And that’s true. It was democratic at the end of the 19th century to expand suffrage to women. Or at the beginning of the 20th century it could appear democratic to expand democracy to the countries of the global South. So the question today in the Southern countries is how to think about the democratization of things like the budget, health policies, education policies, urban policies, the democratization of life where you live.”

Of course, it’s not always easy. Especially when you are trying to make a film for not one audience, but audiences in various languages all across the Hemisphere. But that’s what we set out to do, and I think we succeeded.

BD: Could you talk a bit about the process of making your documentary?

MF: This is very important, because we wanted the making of the film to reflect as much as possible the “democracy” that we are trying to portray. We used very little narration- only about two and a half minutes worth — because we wanted people to tell the stories in their own words. We tried not to change the scenery where we were filming. We only used music from local musicians, and tried to only use it when it was part of the scene. It is also a testament to what two people can do without any external resources or really expensive equipment.

The entire budget came out of our own pockets and Silvia and I filmed nearly the entire film with our Panasonic 3CCD handycam, and edited it all on our aging G4 Powerbook.

Of course, we had more than a half a dozen individuals and groups that supported with b-roll, and either shot for us, or allowed us to use footage they had already filmed in areas that we couldn’t make it to like Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Bay Area.

The SF-based musician and sound editor, Ben Bernstein, donated his time to post-produce our audio, which came out great. The Venezuela-based film group, Panafilms was a huge support, as were hundreds of folks all across the region.

BD: What was the response among viewers during your tour in the US?

MF: We did our tour last fall from mid September straight through till two days before the 2008 Presidential elections. We drove from the East Coast to the West Coast and back, covering our costs with donations from the nearly two-dozen showings all across the U.S.. It was an amazing experience. Of course, we were organizing the tour ourselves, so our audiences varied from a couple hundred people at some Universities all the way down to a living room showing with a few people in Oklahoma City. But really, the response was the best we could have hoped for, and both Silvia and I were impressed with the diversity of opinions. Some viewers were struck by the amount of local democracy and participation in Venezuela specifically, especially with the negative press that it gets in the United States. Many viewers were impressed with the democratic experiences, and the fact that people all across the region are all participating in similar ways. Others were shocked because so little of this is happening in the U.S. Others felt the movie really put things in to a perspective that they had rarely seen or heard of before. This was the case of one gentleman in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans where we showed Beyond Elections with a projector on the side of a building. He said, “Wow, I’ve always known all of this, but I had never understood that everything was connected. I feel like I have a new perspective on things.”

Without a doubt, the biggest and only major critique was that it was, and remains, a long documentary- just under two hours, which we’ll keep in mind for our next documentary. The DVD version of the movie is divided in to chapters, which can each stand alone, so it can easily be used in university and high school classrooms according to theme. The right hand side of the website, www.beyondelections.com has dozens of links to additional information, all also sorted according to the chapter and the theme.

We tried to build the film in order to give people an understanding of the realities, and also leave them with a sense of hope. Because these experiences anywhere; be it in Latin America or the United States, in the local government, the community, the office, the school or the home can only happen if we take the steps to open the democratic spaces of participation. This is the exciting thing about the film and I believe that people could feel it. The film gave people an idea about some of the things that are being done, and some of the things that they can also do. As Sílvia often said in our after-film discussions, “the best thing you can do to support these democratic experiences abroad is to make change in your own communities, attempt to open democracy in your own community.” As a Brazilian, she knows the affect that this can have.

In our discussions after nearly all of our showings, we tried to stress this point; how we can open up these democratic experiences in our own lives. After numerous requests, we actually developed a “Beyond Elections Democracy Discussion Guide,” which attempts to help people to do just that, Bring Democracy Home. It is also available to download halfway down the right-hand side of our website, under “Beyond Elections Materials.”

And that is our job now — to spread the word about the film, and open up the space for democracy where wherever you are. As we wrote shortly after the 2008 US Presidential elections, “We can no longer leave important local, regional or national decisions in the hands of our elected representatives alone. They should be held accountable, not to their campaign contributors, but to the citizens who they are supposed to represent.” (See this link)

Please let us know if you are interested in supporting Beyond Elections, finding out more, or setting up a showing in your own community. We would love to be able to support your local efforts.

Three Republican Senators voted against the bill, including Senate Majority Assistant Whip Gregory Bell. “I’m not comfortable with home brewing,” Bell said to the Deseret News. “It seems fraught with mischief to me. Maybe I don’t understand it.”

Why doesn’t Bell understand this delicious and empowering craft? Perhaps because corporations have taken over an industry that used to be rooted in the kitchens of the world.

It was in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, where first emerged the trade of beer and barley, according to Fermenting Revolution: How To Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher O’Brien. The need to cultivate crops for this important product may have been the initial reason for the settlement of the world’s first large-scale community. In Babylonia, where beer was safer to drink than the canal water, barley and beer were used as a form of currency. The foundations of modern society appear to be built on, well, beer.

At the time of the American Revolution, rebels encouraged boycotts against English beer, chanting the phrase, “Homebrewed Is Best.” George Washington brewed his own beer in a house designated for the craft in his backyard. At Monticello, Thomas Jefferson gave his friends beer-brewing lessons. In 1872, there were 3,421 breweries in the US. According to the New Yorker, during the Civil War, a member of the United States Sanitary Commission said beer was a “valuable substitute for vegetables.” Now there are more than 1,400 breweries, and over one million homebrewers in the US.

Yet during Prohibition, home brewers naturally took a hit. After Prohibition was lifted, wine was allowed to be produced legally at home, but beer was not. In 1978, NY Congressman Barbar Conable sponsored a bill that would legalize homebrewing. When introducing the bill to Congress, Conable said that Americans should not have to “rely on the beer barons” for their brew. It wasn’t until 1979, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Cranston Act, that home brewing was legalized in many states. At the time of the law’s passage, only forty-four breweries were in operation in the US.

However, the Cranston Act still allowed individual states to prohibit the production. Before the Utah Senate legalized homebrewing a few days ago, those who brewed at home had to get a license and post a $10,000 bond. Utah Senator Steve Urquhart said of the new law’s passage, “We’re dealing with adults and this simply isn’t a big deal. That’s the argument that persuades me.” Utah Governor Jon Huntsman now needs to sign the bill into law for it to be applied. Pending this passage, homebrewers will be able to brew legally starting on May 12.

This homebrewers’ victory in Utah is in part thanks to two years of grassroots activism and lobbying on the part of the American Homebrewers Association and Gary Glass, the Association’s director. Glass spoke to the Beer Examiner about the process. “Much thanks to all of the Utah craft brewers who have helped us in the effort to legalize homebrewing over the past couple of years . . . The huge response we’ve had from Utah homebrewers and beer enthusiasts contacting their legislators had a major impact. I was present and testified at the legislative committee hearings and was encouraged to hear from many legislators that they were surprised at the number of contacts from voters urging them to support the measure.”

Homebrewing is a wonderful pastime that can also help build community. In Burlington, Vermont my friends and I recently pooled our money together to buy brewing equipment, and started a collective that shares the equipment, recipes and the beer with other locals around town. In this way, homebrewing has built community and allows us to cut out the corporate middleman.

Similarly, the homebrewers’ victory in Utah is one step close to enabling the beer drinkers of the world to take back their brew from the corporations of the world.

Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, calls Mexico home, as do millions of impoverished citizens. From Spanish colonization to today’s state and corporate repression, Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, by John Gibler, is written from the street barricades, against the Slims of the world, and alongside “the underdogs and rebels” of an unconquered country. The book offers a gripping account of the ongoing attempts to colonize Mexico, and the hopeful grassroots movements that have resisted this conquest.

Gibler, a Global Exchange Media Fellow, has been reporting from Mexico since 2006. While writing for dozens of media outlets, he has covered events such as the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign, the teachers’ revolt in Oaxaca and other stories of police repression and popular resistance. These reports form the basis for much of the book. (His articles are collected at the Global Exchange website.)

In the prologue, Gibler writes of Mexico Unconquered: “each chapter bleeds into all the others: they all share the same blood.” It’s true: the chapters flow together smoothly, bonded by Gibler’s steady class analysis and excellent story-telling skills. He breathes poetry and anecdotes into the history, and empathy and prose into the reporting, so these stories can be understood and felt, not just read.

Mexico Unconquered starts off with an engaging people’s history of Mexico. Gibler guides the reader through the country’s various presidencies and popular uprisings. From Oaxaca, Gibler offers a first hand account of the incredible teachers’ revolt, with unbelievable reports on police brutality and people’s solidarity. From Chiapas, Gibler provides a concise overview of the Zapatistas’ history, contextualized with background information on indigenous autonomy and reports on the Other Campaign. The book also tells stories from Mexico’s ghost towns, with numerous interviews with families that bear the burden of immigration to the US.

But the book is more than just an account of neoliberal nightmares and grassroots revolts. It cuts to the heart of the problems ravaging Mexico today, dissecting the roots of the country’s corruption, state repression, drug wars and poverty. In this respect, the book’s approach reflects what the late folk singer Utah Phillips once said: “The Earth is not dying it is being killed. And those who are killing it have names and addresses.” Well, Gibler offers the names and addresses of the people – and companies and ideologies — that are still trying to conquer Mexico.

“I hope that the thoughts and stories presented herein will be of use to others reflecting on similar social conditions in other lands,” Gibler writes. Indeed, harrowing accounts of Mexican police using torture to spread fear and expand power — but not necessarily get information — recall the torture methods employed in the US-led “War on Terror.” The book’s stories of how the drug war in Mexico is used as a pretext for police to murder and repress with impunity is shockingly similar to the drug war in the Andes. Numerous examples are also given in the book of how the law in Mexico — as in so many other countries — works only for those with political power and weapons.

Beyond its analysis, history and reporting, this book is also call to revolt. Readers around the world could learn much from the popular uprisings in Mexico. Just as the tactics of repressive states and exploitative corporations are similar around the world, the strategies of resistance could be also be connected and shared across international borders. Toward the end of the book, Gibler recalls the words of a friend, “[I]f we are all complicit in the damage, then we all share responsibility in the solutions; that is, we are united, or can be united, in taking a stand, in revolt.”

Polls conducted by Televisión Boliviana announced that the document passed with 61.97% support from some 3.8 million voters. According the poll, 36.52% of voters voted against the constitution, and 1.51% cast blank and null votes. The departments where the constitution passed included La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Tarija, and Pando. It was rejected in Santa Cruz, Beni, and Chuquisaca.

The constitution, which was written in a constituent assembly that first convened in August of 2006, grants unprecedented rights to Bolivia’s indigenous majority, establishes broader access to basic services, education and healthcare and expands the role of the state in the management of natural resources and the economy.

When the news spread throughout La Paz that the constitution had been passed in the referendum, fireworks, cheers and horns sounded off sporadically. By 8:30, thousands had already gathered in the Plaza Murillo. The crowd cheered “Evo! Evo! Evo!” until Morales, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and other leading figures in the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) government, crowded out onto the balcony of the presidential palace.

“I would like to take this opportunity to recognize all of the brothers and sisters of Bolivia, all of the compañeros and compañeras, all of the citizens that through their vote, through their democratic participation, decide to refound Bolivia,” Morales said. “From 2005 to 2009 we have gone from triumph to triumph, while the neoliberals, the traitors have been constantly broken down thanks to the consciousness of the Bolivian people.”

He shook his fist in the air, the applause died down. “And I want you to know something, the colonial state ends here. Internal colonialism and external colonialism ends here. Sisters and brothers, neoliberalism ends here too.”

At various points in the speech Morales, and others on the balcony, held up copies of the new constitution. Morales continued, “And now, thanks to the consciousness of the Bolivian people, the natural resources are recuperated for life, and no government, no new president can…give our natural resources away to transnational companies.”

A Weakened Right

Though news reports and analysts have suggested that the passage of the new constitution will exacerbate divisions in the country, some of the political tension may be directed into the electoral realm as general elections are now scheduled to take place in December of this year. In addition, the constitution’s passage is another sign of the weakness of the Bolivian right, and their lack of a clear political agenda and mandate to confront the MAS’s popularity. The recent passage of the constitution is likely to divide and further debilitate the right.

Even Manfred Reyes Villa, an opponent of Morales and ex-governor of Cochabamba, told Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post that, “Today, there is not a serious opposition in the country.” When the right-wing led violence in the department of Pando in September of 2008 left some 20 people dead and many others wounded, the right lost much of its legitimacy and support. “With Pando, the regional opposition just collapsed,” George Gray Molina, an ex-United Nations official in Bolivia, and a current research fellow at Oxford University, told Partlow. “I think they lost authority and legitimacy even among their own grass roots.”

Celebrations

Fireworks shot off at the end of Morales’ speech in the Plaza Murillo, sending pigeons flying scared. Live folk music played on stage as the crowd danced and the TV crews packed up and left. The wind blew around giant balloon figures of hands the color of the Bolivian flag holding the new constitution.

As the night wore on, more people began dancing to the bands in the street than to those on the stage. At midnight, when the police asked the thousands gathered to leave the plaza, the crowd took off marching down the street, taking the fiesta to central La Paz, cheering nearly every Latin American revolutionary cheer, pounding drums and sharing beer. After marching down a number of blocks on the empty streets, the crowd hunkered down for a street party at the base of a statue of the Latin American liberator, Simón Bolívar. The celebration, which included Bolivians, Argentines, Brazilians, French, British, North Americans and more, went on into the early hours of the morning.

Oscar Rocababo, a Bolivian sociologist working on his Master’s degree in La Paz, was elated about the victory in the referendum. “The passage of this constitution is like the cherry on top of the ice cream, the culmination of many years of struggle.”

The new constitution, written in a diverse assembly which first convened in 2006, is expected to pass in the January 25th national referendum. Other governments led by left-leaning leaders in the region have also passed new constitutions in recent years, including Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 1999, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador in 2008. In varying degrees, Bolivia’s new constitution is expected to play an important role in the implementation of progressive policies developed by the Morales administration and his party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).

At the Tuesday rally in La Paz, the sun was strong as drums and roman candles pounded at the air. The screech of packing tape shot out as one bearded participant secured his indigenous wiphala flag to a plastic pole. A group of women blocked off the expanse of one street with a banner that said, “The right wing will not pass — Yes to Evo.”

A giant blown-up balloon statue of Evo Morales — present in nearly every La Paz rally in the days leading up the referendum — stood over the crowd. On his chest was the ballot voters were to face this Sunday: the “Si” box was checked, and, on two boxes regarding what hectare amounts to limit new land purchases at, the 5,000 hectare box was checked, the 10,000 hectare box left blank.

During his speech, Morales sounded a bit tired, no doubt from the nearly endless campaigning he’s been involved in for the new constitution. After the applause died down, he thanked various groups for arriving and urged people to vote for the new constitution. “Brothers and sisters we believe in you, we believe in the people of Bolivia, so that democratically we can transform Bolivia for all Bolivians,” Morales said. He listed off some of the highlights of his three years in office so far, which he said included the nationalization of Bolivia’s gas and the fight against corruption. “But we need to constitutionalize these changes,” he continued.

Morales pointed out that in the new constitution, basic services — such as water, sewage, gas and electricity — would be a human right, as would education and healthcare. Morales also reflected on the recent history of US intervention in the country and pointed out that the new constitution prohibits the creation of US bases in Bolivia. He clarified that, in spite of the right wing’s claims, the new constitution does not (unfortunately) legalize abortion and gay marriage. Above all, he explained, indigenous rights and indigenous representation in government would be empowered.

At this point in Morales’ speech, one security guard was already starting to yawn. A light rain began to fall, women pulled plastic bags over their bowler hats, and the “Viva La Nueva Constitución” cheers became weaker as people returned to work from their lunch breaks.

History and Division

Bolivian social movements have for decades been demanding that a constituent assembly be organized to rewrite the constitution. According to the book Impasse in Bolivia, by Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, from 1826 to 2004, Bolivia has had 16 constitutions and six reforms. The first constitution, drafted by Simón Bolívar himself in 1826, promised to create the “world’s most liberal constitution.” However, even the most liberal of constitutions is ineffective if its dictates are not enforced, which has been the case throughout Bolivian history. Kohl and Farthing also point out that, “Until 1945, all constitutions made a distinction between being a Bolivian — a person born in the country or married to a Bolivian — and being a citizen: a status restricted to literate, propertied men that specifically excluded domestic servants, regardless of income.”

Calls for a new constitution as a tool to create a more egalitarian society re-emerged most recently in the 1990s when indigenous groups in the east of Bolivia demanded a constituent assembly to open new space for their political participation in decision-making at the government level. According to the Andean Information Network, indigenous organizations advocating a constituyente “sought greater participation in the political decisions regarding the use and distribution of land and natural resources, the allocation of state resources, and national development policies.” In fact, these demands correspond to many of the un-applied rights and guarantees made by previous constitutions.

It’s this sense of overdue justice that is leading many people to support the new constitution. As university student Leidy Castro told Prensa Latina, “We will be in favor of a Constitution that for the first time includes all Bolivians, no matter how much money people have. In addition, it protects sectors that have been marginalized for a long time.”

None the less, right wing opponents to the constitution have been active in recent weeks as well, organizing marches and campaigns across the country parallel to the activities of those supporting the constitution. Recently, when these groups collide, there have been some violent confrontations, or at least some strong words exchanged.

Around noon on Wednesday, January 21st, a march against the constitution went down the central Prado street in La Paz. Participants were waving the pink flags of the right wing Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) party with the message “Vamos por el No” written on them. They arrived in the Plaza de Estudiantes where the ever-present Evo Morales balloon was situated along with a giant “Sí” balloon. A crowd of supporters of the new constitution had already gathered there; one of them had a microphone through which he broadcast his attacks on the right wing with comments such as “You traitors don’t have a real plan! We have a real plan with our new constitution!”

The tension escalated, and the two groups began tossing their ample literature and pamphlets at each other, yelling opposing chants. On one side were the blue flags of the MAS, and the multi-colored wiphala flag, and on the other were the pink flags of the MNR. After some spirited verbal battles, and a few scuffles and pushing matches, the MNR contingent marched back up the street, while the MAS supporters remained in the plaza, giving speeches and firing off roman candles into the evening. At a nearby university, revolutionary folk music blasted throughout the day from a speaker next to Palestinian flags and literature about Israel’s attacks on Gaza. (Morales recently expelled Israel’s ambassador to Bolivia in protest of the bombings in Gaza.) The university’s students have been hosting almost nightly marches and torch-filled, bonfire rallies in support of the new constitution.

Media and Change

There have been numerous street battles throughout the process of re-writing and approving the new constitution. But another battle has been waged in the country’s media. Major newspapers in Bolivia seem almost unanimously critical of the constitution and the MAS, spreading regular misinformation about both. For example, a recent headline in El Diario newspaper said, “Bolivia Will Return To Barbarism With Community Justice.” (Community justice, practiced by many indigenous groups across the country, is officially recognized in the new constitution.) In numerous papers, opinion articles and pieces that draw exclusively from right wing politicians and civic leaders are regularly passed off as straight news, with headlines full of outright lies about the new constitution’s contents.

Edwin, a La Paz taxi driver who used to work hauling furniture and goods on his back at local markets, agreed that most media in Bolivia are against Morales and the new constitution. “But who cares what they say? The journalists are few, but we, the Bolivian people, are many.”

In response to the media’s attacks against the government, Morales has announced the launch of new state newspaper, called Cambio (Change), which was released today, January 22. “We are organizing ourselves, we are preparing ourselves with media to broadcast the truth to the Bolivian people,” Morales said in a recent speech. “This new newspaper will be launched, that won’t humiliate anyone, but will inform and educate us.”

Regardless of the extent to which the changes in the new constitution are applied, the document is significant in that it has been a central part of the political battleground for the bulk of Morales’ time in office. The constitution is also a kind of mirror held up to Bolivian politics, representing the hopes, contradictions and shortcomings of various sides of the political divide.

There are many valid criticisms of the constitution from the left — that the document won’t allow for the break up of existing large land holdings, that it won’t legalize abortion, that it doesn’t go far enough in combating neoliberalism, that there exists a lot of vague language about how these changes will be implemented, and more. But of the many people who will cast their ballot for the constitution this Sunday, a significant number won’t be voting specifically for the new document, or even the MAS government, but against the right wing, and the racism, poverty and conflicts the right has exacerbated in recent years.

In any case, the passage of the constitution will open up a new phase for the Morales government, as well as a new period of electoral campaigning: if the constitution passes, general elections will be held on December 6th of this year. As Alfredo Rada, the Minister of the Government, said in an interview with Telesur, “The government is optimistic and believes that this Sunday we will win a majority triumph with the “Yes” vote, and with this open a new chapter in Bolivian history.”

But the workers didn’t stop there. They are now seeking ways to restart the factory and potentially operate it as a worker-run cooperative. The workers are also filing charges against their former employer for failing to give the workers sufficient notice of plans to shut the factory down; the workers were only given three days’ notice, and the management refused to negotiate with the workers’ union about the closure.

In this interview Mark Meinster, the International Representative for the United Electrical Workers (UE) — the union the Republic workers belong to — talks about his role as the coordinator for the plant occupation, connections between the struggle of the Republic workers and workers struggles and tactics in South America, the fight to reopen the plant, and what the Republic workers’ strategies say about social change in an economic downturn.

Benjamin Dangl: First, please briefly describe your role in the union, in the occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory, and the ongoing struggle of the Republic workers.

Mark Meinster: I’m an International Representative for the United Electrical Workers (UE). My primary responsibility is to oversee the union’s organizing work and staff in Chicago, IL and Milwaukee, WI. I was the lead organizer on the effort to organize the Republic workers into UE in 2004 and led negotiations for a first contract in 2005. Since then I and UE Field Organizer Leah Fried have worked with the local on leadership and steward training, grievance handling and contract negotiations. I coordinated the plant occupation at Republic Windows and Doors and participated in negotiations with the employer and the financial institutions involved and continue to work on efforts to reopen the plant.

BD: Could you please talk about some of the connections you see between the Republic workers’ struggle and actions, and the strategies and experiences of similar workers groups in Argentina and Venezuela and the landless farmers in Brazil? How did you learn about these struggles and come to apply them in Chicago as a union organizer?

MM: Obviously there is a long history of workers taking actions of this type, both within the US and in other countries. Because there have been very few plant occupations in the US since the 1930′s, we needed to look to workers’ struggles in other countries for recent guidance. For example the Canadian Auto Workers, who have engaged in similar actions over the past twenty years to protest plant closings and win severance benefits, provided us with invaluable technical advice.

But in many respects workers’ struggles in Latin America were the biggest inspiration for the Republic occupation. I had read about the land occupations carried out by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra in an interview with Joao Pedro Stedile in 2002. I was struck by the MST’s focus on popular education and leadership development, and especially the way they placed the occupation tactic within the context of the right to unused land enshrined in the Brazilian constitution. The occupation, although technically an illegal tactic, was used to enforce a legal right. This gives workers confidence and places the struggle on a moral plane, allowing for more significant community and political support. We drew on this concept in planning the Republic occupation.

Current UE Local 1110 president Armando Robles attended the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in 2006. There he heard from workers from Inveval, a “recovered” factory in Venezuela. They had inspired a movement of workers occupying and running factories, with the help of the government, that had been abandoned by bosses who had fled the country. Armando returned from that experience politicized and inspired. I visited Venezuela in 2007 and spent time visiting worker-run co-ops. I was struck by the workers’ investment in the revolutionary process and their ability to run production without management.

We drew on the Argentine factory occupations to the extent that they show that during an economic crisis, workers movements are afforded a wider array of tactical options. Militant action can win public support during a downturn in ways that would have been impossible before. In fact, the film “The Take” was screened in the factory during the occupation in a makeshift movie theater set up in the locker room.

BD: Is there a plan to transform the Republic factory into a worker-run cooperative? If so, how did the decision to do this come about? At this point, how is the process going of setting this up?

MM: At this point we are working to find a buyer for the factory, focusing on firms specializing in energy efficient windows. Though we are also exploring the idea of a cooperative enterprise, the fact that no real movement of worker-run enterprises exists in the US makes this option much more difficult at this point. The workers have set up an entity, called the “Windows of Opportunity Fund,” to help provide technical assistance and study this and other possibilities for re-starting production.

BD: Could you comment on the role the Republic workers’ struggle in inspiring workers across the US to take up similar tactics to confront unemployment and problems related to the current US economic downturn?

MM: I think the Republic struggle shows we can win support for bold tactics, especially when we think carefully about how we project the struggle to the public. Time will tell whether the Republic struggle will be viewed as a bell-weather event or a flash in the pan. On the one hand, the occupation led to a huge outpouring of support – from solidarity rallies all across the country to donations of money, food and essential supplies. That this support was on a scale unthinkable only a year ago is proof that this action spoke to the desire of working class people to seek ways to resist to the current economic onslaught. On the other hand, for this event to be a spark others will have to pick up the baton. That means organized labor will have to take some measure of risk, embracing militant tactics when necessary and abandoning its reliance on political maneuvering as the primary means for the advancement of a working class agenda.

“Now we have made history,” President Evo Morales told supporters in La Paz. “This process of change cannot be turned back…neoliberalism will never return to Bolivia.”

If the constitution is approved in the January referendum, a new general election will take place in December of 2009.

Leading up to Congress’s approval, Morales participated in sections of a march from Caracollo in Oruro to La Paz, a distance of over 100 miles and involving an estimated 100,000 union members, activists, students, farmers and miners.

The march took place to pressure opposition members in Congress into backing the constitution and referendum. When marchers arrived in La Paz they packed the center of the city to historic levels. Some media outlets said the march, which stretched 15 kilometers, was the longest one ever in the capital.

“Those who have been kicked out to the chicken coop, those who have been hidden in the basement, are jailed no more,” Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said of the approval of the constitution, according to the Associated Press.

The road to this new constitution has been a long, complicated and often violent one. One key event in this process was the July 2, 2006 election of assembly members to the constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. Later, in December of 2007, the new constitution was passed in an assembly meeting in Oruro which was boycotted by opposition members.

Given Morales’ support across the country, this new constitution is expected to pass in the January 2009 referendum. “The public support expressed for [Morales] Monday, coming on top of the 67 percent vote of confidence he was given in the Aug. 10 recall referendum, make it clear that he is the most popular president in the last 26 years of democracy in Bolivia,” Franz Chavez reported in IPS News.

The draft constitution includes, among other things, changes to allow the redistribution of land and gas wealth to benefit the majority of the country, and give increased rights to indigenous people. Questions still exist regarding what was fully changed in this version of the constitution which led to opposition politicians supporting it. For example, it’s still unclear to what extent eastern provinces will be granted autonomy.

However, in what was perhaps Morales’ biggest concession to the opposition, a change was made to the constitution which prevents him from running for two additional terms, as an earlier draft of the constitution allowed. Under the new changes — if the constitution is approved in the referendum — Morales will run for his last consecutive term in general elections in December of 2009.

This move indicates that the opposition got at least some of what they wanted in negotiations, and that the Movement Toward Socialism, Morales’ political party, may have plans to diversify its central leadership.

Morales commented on these changes in a speech in La Paz, “Here we have new leaders who are rising up, new men and women leaders who are coming up like mushrooms to continue this process of change.”

This upcoming recall vote on the president, vice president and eight of nine departmental governors is to take place at a time of historic change for the country. Half way through a five year term in office, Morales is applying social programs aimed at fighting poverty and inequality, and developing positive relationships with Latin America’s leftist leaders. At the same time, a series of regional disputes in Bolivia over departmental autonomy, the new constitution and wealth from the partially-nationalized gas industry continue to put the country’s stability at risk.

Since May 4, autonomy referendums have been approved by voters in the departments of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, Pando and Chuquisaca. These votes were organized by the country’s right wing politicians and business elite to perpetuate neoliberal policies, resist the redistribution of land and natural gas wealth, and weaken the Morales government. Though the right points to these victories at the ballot box as proof of their mandate, the referendums are not legally recognized by the Bolivian Electoral Court, the Organization of American States, the European Union, President Morales or other major leaders throughout the region.

In addition, all of the referendums were marked by high levels of voter intimidation and abstention — Morales urged his supporters to abstain from voting. In Pando, for example, the combined number of “no” votes and abstentions was 16,303, while the “yes” votes totaled only 12,671. In other departments, Morales supporters were kidnapped, tortured and beaten by right wing thugs in an attempt to suppress the anti-autonomy vote.

In spite of the questionable legitimacy of these referendums, the votes illustrate the growing polarization in the country. In another setback to the Morales administration, opposition prefect Savina Cuéllar, was elected in Chuquisaca on June 29. She was running against MAS candidate Walter Valda in a vote that took place in tandem with a successful autonomy referendum. However, the opposition’s apparent momentum is likely to be put in check by the August 10 recall vote.

In an attempt to break up a political impasse in December 2007, and in response to demands from the opposition, Morales proposed the recall bill which was passed on May 8, 2008 by the opposition-controlled Senate. The recall bill states that if the president, vice president and governors do not receive both a higher percentage of votes, and actual number of votes, in the recall referendum than what they received in the 2005 election, they will lose their position. Therefore, it’s possible to win the necessary percentage of votes, but lose the necessary number of votes, thus losing the recall vote. If Morales and vice president Alvaro Garcia Linera lose, they have to hold new elections within 90-120 days. If the governors lose, they are to be replaced by an interim governor of Morales’ choosing until the next election. The recall vote on the governors will take place in eight out of the nine provinces; Chuquisaca won’t participate as Cuéllar was just recently elected governor there.

The results of the recall vote could vary widely. Polls indicate that Morales and Linera will win; they will likely be bolstered by new voters in rural areas voting for the first time after a massive voter registration drive led by the government. Morales is also likely to benefit from the fact that many voters and social organizations, in spite of any criticisms they have of his administration, will likely back him in a vote in which the alternative is essentially the right wing. As an analysis article on the Bolivian news publication BolPress explained, “[V]arious popular organizations have initiated a campaign to ratify Morales and kick out the oppositional governors, not because they consider that the actual leader [Morales] is managing the government well, it’s because the oligarchy’s return to power would imply an end to the possibility of transformation within the socio-economic structures of the country.”

Though the recall vote may invigorate Morales’ mandate, and perhaps weaken the right, it’s unlikely to resolve many of the disputes tearing the political landscape apart. The question of whether the executive and legislative powers will be based in Sucre or La Paz remains a regional controversy. The new draft of the constitution, passed in December 2007 by an assembly boycotted by opposition parties, still awaits approval in a national referendum which the opposition-controlled Senate is blocking.

Some opposition governors and their supporters will likely not respect the results of the recall vote, or even participate in it at all. Vice president Linera recently told reporters that “They will probably boycott some regions, those where they know will lose. I believe they are laying the grounds for some sort of boycott on August 10 to create conflicts.” It is also not entirely clear if the recall vote will proceed at all. Magistrate Silvia Salame, the only judge on Bolivia’s Constitutional Tribunal Court, has called on the National Electoral Court to postpone the recall vote until challenges to the vote’s legality are considered. Government officials in the Morales administration said they would ignore her decision because the Tribunal requires three votes, not one, to make a decision. Salame is on the only judge serving on the court at this time. In response, Bolivian Electoral Court President José Luis Exeni stated the recall vote would proceed as planned.

While debates over the recall vote go on, controversy continues to surround how to best use Bolivia’s gas and oil wealth. Right wing governors and civic leaders in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni and Pando are demanding more funding from the profits of the oil and gas industry, which was partially nationalized by the Morales administration on May 1, 2006. Opposition leaders denounce that the Morales government redirected $166 million dollars from oil and gas tax revenue into a new pension plan that currently gives $315 dollars per year to Bolivians over 60 years old. Right wing governors have threatened to go on a hunger strike on August 4 in protest of the policy. Yet what the opposition doesn’t acknowledge in their pleas is that their departments now receive many times more funding from the gas industry this year than they did in 2005 thanks to the Morales administration’s nationalization policies and renegotiations with private and foreign gas companies.

Meanwhile, Washington’s influence in the coca-producing Chapare region of Bolivia is waning, and Morales’ is strengthening his own relations with other Latin American leaders as he presses forward with progressive economic and development policies.

On June 24, Coca growers in Bolivia’s Chapare region decided to expel the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In the Chapare USAID has, among other activities, historically tried to weaken the impact and political power of coca unions. The Morales administration has also accused USAID of working to undermine the current government and strengthen the right wing opposition. (For more information on Washington’s work in Bolivia, see the article “Undermining Bolivia.”) On July 14, Morales, a former coca farmer himself, said, “USAID is managing a lot of money that’s being used to confuse the population, they want to divide and create problems…”

At the same time, regional support for the Morales administration’s policies is on the rise. Venezuela and Cuba have sent doctors and teachers to rural areas in Bolivia. Cuba is building dozens of hospitals in the country, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said his nation would continue to support the expansion of Bolivia’s gas industry: 73% of Bolivian gas now goes to Brazil. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently announced his government will give $883 million dollars in aid to improve and expand the output of Bolivia’s oil and gas industry. Thanks in part to increased revenue from the gas industry, Morales said that $1.8 million dollars would be contributed to the development of 21 potable water projects in Santa Cruz.

Lula and Chavez recently pledged to collectively contribute $530 million dollars to help with the development of highways linking La Paz, Beni and Pando. The collaboration supports Morales in his efforts against pro-autonomy governors. Chavez said of the highway plan, “We’re against those who want to tear Bolivia apart.”

Back in Sicaya, where Morales said he would return to coca farming if he lost the recall vote, the president stated that now, “the vote serves not only to name authorities, but also to revoke their mandate. We are talking about expanding democracy.” Yet recent history shows that democracy in Bolivia can manifest itself in unpredictable ways.

It is satisfying and rebellious in this increasingly corporate world to make your own beer. In Vermont, homebrewing and microbrewing is a state-wide past time; a 2005 census shows that there is one microbrewery for every 32,792 people in the state, which is the highest number of microbreweries per capita in the country. As many people know, beer drinkers can be activists in how they choose and make their own beer. Interested in changing the world through drinking? Fermenting Revolution can serve as a kind of bible for the beer activist that’s bubbling inside each and every one of us.

In Fermenting Revolution, O’Brien presents a people’s history of beer, allowing the reader to feel connected to beer activists centuries ago. The author explains the scientific process of brewing in an easy to understand style, avoiding what he calls “Beer geek-speak.” The book goes into the important role women have historically played in beer making, and how people can take on corporate globalization by making and drinking their own beer. It’s time to get to the home fires brewing!

A People’s History of Beer

O’Brien starts his book out by taking us through the long and intoxicating history of beer. It is in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, where first emerged the trade of beer and barley. The need to cultivate crops for this important product may have been the initial reason for the settlement of the world’s first human civilization. In Babylonia, where beer was safer to drink than the canal water, barley and beer were used as a form of currency. O’Brien argues that the foundations of modern society are built on, well, beer.

Beer has also played a central role in the world’s major religions. The author suggests that a down-to-earth Jesus who “made a point of associating with ordinary folk” would probably have preferred the common beverage of beer, rather than expensive and elitist wine. “I rather like the image of Jesus as a long-haired, beer-drinking rebel, welcome to crash any party so long as he was willing to conjure up a bottomless supply of beer. Rock on, Rock of Ages!” O’Brien writes that the typical image of Buddha with a round belly suggests the spiritual figure may have been a regular consumer of beer. After all, the Buddha “encouraged abstention from intoxicating drink and drugs” but didn’t totally discourage consumption. And none other than Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) is listed by the Catholic Church as a Patron Saint of Brewing. With stories like this linking beer to religion, O’Brien argues that “sbeerituality” needs to be put back into our drinking culture in the US.

One manifestation of beer’s role in modern spirituality is the local bar. The author writes that the bar can act “as a bridge between the sacred and secular domains.” O’Brien says that in bars in Asia, it’s often common to see a nearby altar with alcohol as an offering. Similarly, worshipping ancestors is often common at bars in the US: “It’s the picture of ‘Old Joe’ hanging behind the bar. ‘Joe’ built the place in nineteen-hundred-and-something- or-other, and now after his death, he offers his blessings or his disapproval to what goes on in his sacred beer-drinking place.”

A recurring theme in Fermenting Revolution is the role women have played in brewing and beer culture throughout history. Some of the earliest signs of beer show that women were primarily the brewers, and later the tavern owners, that supplied beer. This meant women historically played an important role in society through their control of the beer industry. For example, O’Brien tells us that Viking women in Norse society at the end of the first millennium were the only ones allowed to brew beer. According to law, brewing equipment could only be used by women.

As time went on, however, women around the world were pushed out of brewing by men who felt threatened by the power wielded by women brewers. O’Brien calls himself a “femaleist”: he believes that beer brewing has empowered women in the past, and has the potential to do so now. “More women brewing and drinking beer would help correct some of our socially constructed gender imbalances.” He laments the fact that today the beer industry is dominated by machismo: “Women of the world, greedy men have stolen your beer and its time to take it back.” However, one hopeful example O’Brien points to is Ethiopia, where the homebrewing industry is still strong and is largely controlled by women.

Another sign of hope is Vermont. According to an article in the VT-based Seven Days newspaper, women are no strangers to micro-brewing in the Green Mountain State. Vermont’s Trout River, Rock Art and the Alchemist Breweries all have women as co-owners or presidents. At Otter Creek Breweries, there is a woman CFO, brewer, packing manager and labeler.

Another widely discussed topic in Fermenting Revolution is the influence beer has always had on politics. Some interesting passages in the book describe early American history when rebels encouraged boycotts against English beer, using the phrase, “Homebrewed is best.” Shortly after the founding of the nation, it was common for politicians to reward their constituencies with beer at the polling stations. Often there was only one polling place per county, so after traveling such a distance to vote, the citizen wanted to be rewarded with a drink. Here O’Brien argues that “Given the dismal voter turnout levels in contemporary American elections, perhaps this strategy might be readopted? One ballot, one beer.”

Think Globally, Brew Locally

For centuries, beer was brewed primarily at home in unregulated settings with home-made recipes. When corporations began making beer for profit, a lot of the culture and spirit of the craft was lost. Yet O’Brien believes that corporate “globeerization” can be fought through “beeroregionalism.” While corporate control of production centralizes beer power in the hands of a few, Beeroregionalism, as defined by O’Brien, is a return to local production and community. The author argues that the craft of making beer should be cherished as an ingredient in community-building, not as an assembly-line method of making money. The author walked the talk at the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. Though there’s a picture of book of O’Brien dressed up as a turtle with some other friends at a march, he admits he spent a lot of his time in the famous brewpubs of Seattle rather than in the streets.

Though O’Brien explains that three companies control over 80 percent of the beer industry in the US, there are an estimated 250,000 homebrewers in the country, and the numbers are growing. Not only is homebrewing a fun activity to do with friends and family, but brewers can choose organic products to use as ingredients and not rely on corporations for their beer. O’Brien also reminds us that brewing at home cuts down on fossil fuel consumption in that homebrew doesn’t rely on gas for delivery. In Vermont, we have a variety of organic products to use in our brewing, as well as a whole host of micro-breweries to choose from. (For those who want to learn how to homebrew, pick up a copy of Charlie Papazian’s easy to follow book The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, published by Harper Resource).

Every reader of Fermenting Revolution is likely to find something that strikes a personal chord with them. For me, it was a history of the tin beer can. My grandfather was an avid recycler of beer cans in the college town he lived in. He was able to save tens of thousands of dollars from the nickels acquired over decades of digging through garbage bins and salvaging cans after college parties. O’Brien tells us that in 1959, Bill Coors, the owner of the beer company which carried his last name, developed the first seamless aluminum beer can. His colleagues in the industry laughed at him even when he asked people to return the cans for a penny a piece – but it worked! O’Brien writes that using a recycled can utilizes only five percent of the energy required to produce a new can from scratch: “Recycling one can saves enough energy to power a TV for 3 hours.”

Fermenting Revolution is not only informative, with pragmatic suggestions on social change, but it is fun to read. This mind-expanding book will make you thirsty for justice, and a good organic, homebrewed beer. Readers interested in self sufficiency and homegrown products should pick up a copy of Fermenting Revolution and get things brewing.

* * *

Visit Chris O’Brien’s Beer Activist Blog for regular updates, news and links.

* This review was originally published in Vermont Commons.

From the Bush Administration’s perspective, that turns out to mean Morales’s opponents. Declassified documents and interviews on the ground in Bolivia prove that the Bush Administration is using U.S. taxpayers’ money to undermine the Morales government and coopt the country’s dynamic social movements-just as it has tried to do recently in Venezuela and traditionally throughout Latin America.

Much of that money is going through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In July 2002, a declassified message from the U.S. embassy in Bolivia to Washington included the following message: “A planned USAID political party reform project aims at implementing an existing Bolivian law that would . . . over the long run, help build moderate, pro-democracy political parties that can serve as a counterweight to the radical MAS or its successors.” MAS refers to Morales’s party, which, in English, stands for Movement Toward Socialism.

Morales won the presidency in December 2005 with 54 percent of the vote, but five regional governments went to rightwing politicians. After Morales’s victory, USAID, through its Office of Transition Initiatives, decided “to provide support to fledgling regional governments,” USAID documents reveal.

Throughout 2006, four of these five resource-rich lowland departments pushed for greater autonomy from the Morales-led central government, often threatening to secede from the nation. U.S. funds have emboldened them, with the Office of Transition Initiatives funneling “116 grants for $4,451,249 to help departmental governments operate more strategically,” the documents state.

“USAID helps with the process of decentralization,” says Jose Carvallo, a press spokesperson for the main rightwing opposition political party, Democratic and Social Power. “They help with improving democracy in Bolivia through seminars and courses to discuss issues of autonomy.”

“The U.S. Embassy is helping this opposition,” agrees Raul Prada, who works for Morales’s party. Prada is sitting down in a crowded La Paz cafe and eating ice cream. His upper lip is black and blue from a beating he received at the hands of Morales’s opponents while Prada was working on the new constitutional assembly. “The ice cream is to lessen the swelling,” he explains. The Morales government organized this constitutional assembly to redistribute wealth from natural resources and guarantee broader access to education, land, water, gas, electricity, and health care for the country’s poor majority. I had seen Prada in the early days of the Morales administration. He was wearing an indigenous wiphala flag pin and happily chewing coca leaves in his government office. This time, he wasn’t as hopeful. He took another scoop of ice cream and continued: “USAID is in Santa Cruz and other departments to help fund and strengthen the infrastructure of the rightwing governors.”

In August 2007, Morales told a diplomatic gathering in La Paz, “I cannot understand how some ambassadors dedicate themselves to politics, and not diplomacy, in our country. . . . That is not called cooperation. That is called conspiracy.” Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said that the U.S. Embassy was funding the government’s political opponents in an effort to develop “ideological and political resistance.” One example is USAID’s financing of Juan Carlos Urenda, an adviser to the rightwing Civic Committee, and author of the Autonomy Statute, a plan for Santa Cruz’s secession from Bolivia.

“There is absolutely no truth to any allegation that the U.S. is using its aid funds to try and influence the political process or in any way undermine the government,” says State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey. USAID officials point out that this support has gone to all Bolivian governors, not just those in the opposition. Despite Casey’s assertion, this funding has been controversial. On October 10, Bolivia’s supreme court approved a decree that prohibits international funding of activities in Bolivia without state regulation. One article in the law explains that Bolivia will not accept money with political or ideological strings attached.

In Bolivia, where much of the political muscle is in the streets with social organizations and unions, it’s not enough for Washington to work only at levels of high political power. They have to reach the grassroots as well. One USAID official told me by e-mail that the Office of Transition Initiatives “launched its Bolivia program to help reduce tensions in areas prone to social conflict (in particular El Alto) and to assist the country in preparing for upcoming electoral events.”

To find out how this played out on the ground, I meet with El Alto-based journalist Julio Mamani in the Regional Workers’ Center in his city, which neighbors La Paz.

“There was a lot of rebellious ideology and organizational power in El Alto in 2003,” Mamani explains, referring to the populist uprising that overthrew President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. “So USAID strengthened its presence in El Alto, and focused their funding and programs on developing youth leadership. Their style of leadership was not based on the radical demands of the city or the horizontal leadership styles of the unions. They wanted to push these new leaders away from the city’s unions and into hierarchical government positions.”

The USAID programs demobilized the youth. “USAID always took advantage of the poverty of the people,” Mamani says. “They even put up USAID flags in areas alongside the Bolivian flag and the wiphala.”

It was not hard to find other stories of what the U.S. government had been doing to influence economics and politics in Bolivia. Luis Gonzalez, an economics student at the University of San Simon in Cochabamba, describes a panel he went to in 2006 that was organized by the Millennium Foundation. That year, this foundation received $155,738 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) through the Center for International Private Enterprise, a nonprofit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gonzalez, in glasses and a dark ponytail, described a panel that focused on criticizing state control of the gas industry (a major demand of social movements). “The panelists said that foreign investment and production in Bolivia will diminish if the gas remains under partial state control,” says Gonzalez. “They advocated privatization, corporate control, and pushed neoliberal policies.”

That same year, the NED funded another $110,134 to groups in Bolivia through the Center for International Private Enterprise to, according to NED documents, “provide information about the effects of proposed economic reforms to decision-makers involved in the Constituent Assembly.” According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by muckraker Jeremy Bigwood, the NED also funded programs that brought thirteen young “emerging leaders” from Bolivia to Washington between 2002 and 2004 to strengthen their rightwing political parties. The MAS, and other leftist parties, were not invited to these meetings.

The U.S. Embassy even appears to be using Fulbright scholars in its effort to undermine the Bolivian government. One Fulbright scholar in Bolivia, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that during recent orientation meetings at the embassy in La Paz, “a member of the U.S. Embassy’s security apparatus requested reports back to the embassy with detailed information if we should encounter any Venezuelans or Cubans in the field.” Both Venezuela and Cuba provide funding, doctors, and expertise to support their socialist ally Morales. The student adds that the embassy’s request “contradicts the Fulbright program’s guidelines, which prohibit us from interfering in politics or doing anything that would offend the host country.”

After finding out about the negative work the U.S. government was doing in Bolivia, I was curious to see one of the positive projects USAID officials touted so often. It took more than two weeks for them to get back to me-plenty of time, I thought, to choose the picture perfect example of their “apolitical” and development work organized “to benefit those who need it most.”

They put me in touch with Wilma Rocha, the boss at a clothing factory in El Alto called Club de Madres Nueva Esperanza (Mothers’ Club of New Hope). A USAID consultant worked in the factory in 2005-2006, offering advice on management issues and facilitating the export of the business’s clothing to U.S. markets. In a city of well-organized, working class radicals, Rocha is one of the few rightwingers. She is a fierce critic of the Morales administration and the El Alto unions and neighborhood councils.

Ten female employees are knitting at a table in the corner of a vast pink factory room full of dozens of empty sewing machines. “For three months we’ve barely had any work at all,” one of the women explains while Rocha waits at a distance. “When we do get paychecks, the pay is horrible.” I ask for her name, but she says she can’t give it to me. “If the boss finds out we are being critical, she’ll beat us.”

*This article was originally published in the February 2008 Issue of The Progressive Magazine.

Two major developments marked the close of the year in Bolivia: the passage of a new constitution and the worsening of political polarization in the country. The new constitution reflects the socialistic policies advocated by indigenous president Evo Morales, while racism, regional and political divisions still threaten to push Bolivia into a larger conflict.

In the final weeks of 2007, a variety of protest tactics were used by political factions to advocate competing visions for the future of the country. From November 24-25, clashes between security forces and opposition protesters in Sucre left three people dead and hundreds wounded, forcing the assembly rewriting the country’s constitution to move to Oruro. Anarchists dressed in black and pounding drums marched against racism in Cochabamba, while older Bolivians in La Paz organized rallies in support of a new pension plan. In the town of Achacachi, Aymara indigenous leaders sacrificed two dogs in a ceremony declaring war on the wealthy elite in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz is a department with a capital city of the same name and is the center of the right’s growing movement against the Morales government. The Bolivian right is led by four right wing governors in the eastern departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija, civic committees, business and land owners, and the political party Democratic and Social Power (PODEMOS). The right organized various civic strikes throughout 2007, while supporters of the Movement Toward Socialism, (MAS, the political party of Morales), also flexed their political muscle in protests, blockades and strikes. Though government and media battles often carve new policies and shape debates, street mobilizations remain a vital part of Bolivian politics.

Transformation Through a New Constitution?

On December 8-9, MAS assembly participants and their allies passed the new constitution in Oruro. Opposition party members boycotted the meeting. Representatives of neighborhood councils, mining unions, coca growers’ unions, student and farmer groups mobilized in Sucre to defend the assembly from right wing intervention. Activists blew up dynamite to intimidate political opponents while assembly participants chewed coca to stay awake throughout the weekend-long gathering.

The new constitution paves the way for many of the changes the government has been working toward since Morales was elected in 2005. The document gives the state greater control over natural resources and the economy, and guarantees expanded autonomy for departmental governments and indigenous communities. It also calls for a mixed economy, where the rights of private, public and communal industries are protected. Indigenous community justice systems are better recognized through the new constitution and the document establishes that Supreme Court judges are to be elected instead of appointed by congress. The constitution also lifts the block on second consecutive terms for the president. This change would allow Morales to run again for two more terms in a row, in addition to his current time in office.

Though it was passed in the assembly in Oruro, the new constitution still has to be approved in a national referendum along with a vote on an article on land reform which is still in dispute. This controversial article puts a limit on private ownership of land to 100,000 hectares. Such a policy would greatly impact large land holdings in the department of Santa Cruz and other regions. On top of these challenges will be the difficulty of actually implementing these policy changes which so far only exist on paper.

Rightwing assembly members from PODEMOS, civic leaders and governors announced that they will not recognize the new constitution as it was passed without their support. MAS’s take on this, as represented by Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, is that the light-skinned elite do want to give up any of their privileges. Linera told the Los Angeles Times that these elites “have to understand that the state is no longer a prolongation of their haciendas [estates.]”

As a way out of the tense divisions, Morales announced that a referendum would be held in 2008 on his presidency and all governorships. In this referendum, which is scheduled to happen sometime before September 2008, Morales established a rule that he has to receive over 54% of votes – what he received when elected president in 2005 – supporting his presidency to remain in office. If he doesn’t receive this support, he is to hold elections within 90-120 days. At the same time, there will be a referendum on whether the governors will stay in office. If the governors do not receive more votes than they did when they were elected in 2005, then they can be replaced by an interim governor of Morales’ choosing until the next elections.

This referendum could be a way for Morales to strengthen his own mandate, while weakening the right. Though criticism among Morales’ base of support has increased recently, when given a choice between supporting the right and Morales, this large voter group would likely vote for Morales. There is also a lack of alternatives to Morales among the Bolivian left. A massive voter registration drive, largely in rural areas, launched by the Morales administration is also likely to play into the president’s favor in this referendum. A recent poll conducted by Ipsos Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado showed that 56% of the population currently approves the performance of Morales.

The Right and New Polarization

Shortly after Morales announced plans for the referendum, the right made another bold announcement which made political negotiations even more unlikely. On December 15, right wing leaders in Santa Cruz declared autonomy from the central government. Leaders announced the creation of Santa Cruz ID cards, a television station and its own police force; the Bolivian national police force will no longer be recognized. In addition, the autonomy declaration establishes that 2/3 of taxes from the oil and gas industry in that department will remain in Santa Cruz, rather than going to the central government. Expanded autonomy for four of the opposition led, resource rich, departments would further threaten the stability of the Morales government.

Meanwhile, strikes, road blockades and protests have been organized among all political factions and violence has often erupted throughout what has been a turbulent end to the year. There have been approximately eight political bombings in Bolivia in 2007. Most of these incidents involved dynamite or grenades, and the majority of them were against leftist unions or MAS party officials

Morales and his opponents have shown interest in meeting to negotiate some kind of compromise. Such a meeting was put at risk when on December 31 right wing leaders said they threw the new constitution into the garbage. Morales responded by saying that their autonomy statute should be thrown in the garbage. These declarations are likely to further erode relations between political opponents and increase division in the country.

A government plan to redirect gas industry taxes from departmental governments into a national pension plan has resulted in outcries from the right, and praise from MAS supporters. This pension, called the Dignity Salary, was approved in congress on November 27 without many opposition members present. The pension plan gives Bolivians over age 60 approximately $26 per month. The funds, which are to be an estimated $215 million annually, would be redirected from current gas tax funds which had previously gone to departmental governments. Right wing governors protested the pension, demanding that this redirected tax money stay in their departments.

Another of the right’s criticisms of the Morales administration is that the president’s policies are bad for business and international relations. Recent events and reports prove otherwise. On January 1, the government announced that in 2007 the Bolivian economy grew by 4.2%, which is more than the 1.7% growth in 2001 when Jorge Tuto Quiroga was vice president of the country. Quiroga, of PODEMOS, is a key leader of the current opposition against Morales.

In mid-December, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chilean president Michelle Bachelet met with Morales in Bolivia to show their support for his government and the new constitution. The three heads of state negotiated a plan to develop a $600 million highway from Santos, Brazil, across Bolivia and to sea ports in Arica, Chile . During the same visit, the Brazilian hydrocarbon company Petrobras announced it would invest up to $1 billion to further develop the Bolivian gas industry.

Morales also cut a deal with a South Korean company to collaborate with Bolivian state-owned COMIBOL to exploit a copper mine in Corocoro, outside La Paz. On December 21, Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca, during a visit in Beijing, announced proposals for Chinese investment in Bolivian telecommunications, transportation, hydrocarbons and minerals. Though specific deals with China were not discussed, Choquehuanca told Reuters that “We need investment but we need investment that gets us out of poverty, not investment that strips our natural resources and leaves us poor.”

Last November, in the cold lobby of a museum in La Paz, Bolivian vice president Garcia Linera arrived late to a panel on political change in Latin America. It was raining heavily in the Bolivian capital and the political crisis threatened to tear the country apart. Throughout the presentation, Linera left the panel to field numerous cell phone calls. When he finally commented on the polarization and conflicts in the country, he warned about the risk of widespread division, and said this moment of “bifurcation” is “much closer than it appears.” He spoke of how the “new state is consolidating itself” and how the right may “gradually accommodate” itself to these changes. Yet, he warned, the right could also work to block the government’s changes to revert to a past balance of power, which could create more tension. As Bolivia enters the new year, this tension is more present than ever.

Bolivia ended 2007 with more questions than answers about the future of the nation. Will the government be able to transform the state into something useful for a majority of Bolivians? What role will the social movements of Bolivia play in pushing for radical change? Will the policies in the new constitution be applied in effective ways? Though many of these issues may not be resolved in 2008, the good news is that Bolivia is directly addressing these critical questions.

During the weekend of November 24-25, opposition protestors clashed with police in Sucre, Bolivia. Protesters were demanding that the capital of Bolivia be moved to Sucre. Three people died and over 100 were wounded in the confrontations. Leading up to this bloody weekend, assembly people of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS, the political party of Evo Morales) had been routinely attacked by opposition groups advocating the capital move and protesting the MAS and the new constitution. Due to these frequent attacks, the MAS moved the assembly to a nearby military college for security. Opposition assembly people boycotted the gathering at the military college, protesting the move and the MAS plans for the new constitution. On Saturday, November 24, the MAS and allied parties gathered to pass a new draft of the constitution without the opposition present. The new draft was passed by 138 out of the 255 assembly people.

According to Evo Morales, the draft that was passed guarantees autonomy for departments and indigenous groups, nationalization of natural resources, greater access to water, land, electricity, education and healthcare. Morales explained that the constitution respects private property, but also public and communal property. The assembly has until December 14th to approve the final constitution. This final constitution requires the support of 2/3 of the entire assembly, meaning these articles won’t be passed without the participation of opposition groups. Any articles in the constitution that do not receive 2/3 approval will go to a national referendum for citizens to vote on.

The Landscape of Public Opinion in Bolivia

To gain an unofficial understanding of the general public opinion regarding the Evo Morales administration, I recently spoke with a number of Bolivians from diverse economic, geographical and political backgrounds. These informal discussions took place on buses, in parks, bars, farms and living rooms. They offered insights into the current crises and political landscapes in the country. It was these opinions and popular sentiments that erupted into violence recently, and will likely decide the fate of the government.

In general, I found that poorer, working class and rural people tend to support the MAS primarily because Morales is the first indigenous president of Bolivia, a former coca grower and is from a humble background like their own. These supporters, which largely make up the government’s base across the country, cite the partial nationalization of the gas, redistribution of land, improved access to basic services and the work of constituent assembly (in spite of its problems) as key reasons for their support. Many of the country’s social organizations and unions are within this supportive group. Though they have criticisms, many leaders have entered, or are working with, the government in some capacity. This is the group that will likely continue to defend the government from opposition forces and keep Evo Morales in office.

I have also met a number of people that in spite of the criticisms they have, recognize the historic importance of the first indigenous president, and the fact that the MAS is a political instrument developed by grassroots movements. These people acknowledge the challenges facing the administration, yet are not contented with the changes that have taken place under the MAS government. They say more private land and corporations should be expropriated, that the gas should be fully nationalized, and that the MAS is depending on the old structure of the corrupt state, rather than transforming the state. Criticisms are growing within this group, particularly after the violence and problems at the constituent assembly. Though this group may weaken the overall support for the government, they currently lack a coherent political strategy or major party outside the MAS.

Others cited the government’s lack of expertise, management and technical skills as reasons to be critical. They contend that instead of picking people with technical and political experience, the MAS chose to hire people that are close political allies, and indigenous people with union organizing experience. These critics say such choices have contributed to poor management within the government. It’s important to point out that in the past it has been the technically experienced politicians that have used their skills to loot the country. In this government, there has been a concerted effort to include workers, indigenous people and leaders from excluded sectors that understand the suffering and needs of the population which the government was elected to work for.

I have also met a handful of people that are against the indigenous president for racist reasons. Others oppose the government for ideological reasons, and advocate continued neoliberal policies. Within this oppositional group is the occasional critique that Evo Morales isn’t governing for Bolivians, he is just following orders from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro of Cuba. This is not true. The route that the current government is taking with the management of natural resources, the re-writing of the constitution and other issues has been established by popular demands from the Bolivian people. For decades, numerous mobilizations and protests pushed the constituent assembly and gas nationalization into the political agenda. It’s true that there is a considerable amount of influence and support coming from Cuba and Venezuela. Yet many people in Bolivia see this as a good thing. It’s a collaborative relationship of mutual respect, and much less hierarchical than the relationships former Bolivian presidents have had with the Washington or multinational corporations. For example, when Venezuela lends money to Bolivia, there aren’t any neoliberal strings attached, such as the privatization of water resources.

Finally, there is a large and vocal political opposition to the Evo Morales administration. This opposition is organized primarily through right wing political parties and civic organizations in the eastern parts of the country. These groups have led the charge against the MAS in the assembly, the media and the streets. A recent strike was called by prefects for six of the nine departments in Bolivia. This strike represents the cohesion of the right, and the regional division in the country. Though the MAS won the presidency, it did not win a number of prefect and mayor positions. These local governments and right wing leaders have united against the MAS. It’s this opposition which poses the biggest challenge to the MAS government.

A common critique that crossed these lines of support and opposition to the government was the tension and violence in the country. The recent deaths and injuries in Sucre are part of a cycle of violence that has beset the administration since it took office, erupting earlier in Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and elsewhere in the country. These outbursts aren’t necessarily just the Morales administration’s fault, but part of a power struggle which has erupted between the MAS and the opposition. And, as Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera explained in a recent interview in Americas Program, these tensions, both racial and economic, are not anything new for Bolivia: “The novelty today is that for the first time the society is forced to look at itself in the mirror, and it has to see its limitations, its cracks, its weaknesses. … The real problem would be if we didn’t resolve them, if we just did what past governments have done and swept them under the rug.”

“With or Without Evo”

Another group of intellectuals and journalists offered their analysis of the current government and the role of society outside the government palace.

In the worn down Bolivian Workers’ Center office in El Alto, I met with Julio Mamani, a journalist who has for years reported on his city, its politics and social movements. Mamani lamented the lack of space for critique within the MAS: “If you critique the government, they say you are an instrument of neoliberalism.” Others in the government shared this criticism, complaining about a “with us or against us” mentality within the MAS that stifles open discussion and critiques.

Mamani explained another challenge is the lack of political alternatives on the Bolivian left. Most groups have gathered under the umbrella of the MAS. “What will happen to them after Evo is gone?” Mamani asked.

Felipe Quispe, a long time indigenist/leftist leader, and Felix Patzi, a radical sociologist and former minister of education in the MAS government, had answers to that question.

In a hotel lobby near the central Plaza Murillo in La Paz, a mustachioed Quispe, smoking cigarettes and chewing coca at the same time, tilted his hat above his forehead and shook his fist in the air when talking about indigenous mobilizations in recent years. “We have tried to recuperate our land and our power. Yet this power is in the hands of our looters, including the MAS. We have to reorganize, rearticulate our forces in the country sides and in the cities… Who will make the revolution for us? It’s us, the poor, those on the bottom, the discriminated, the workers, we who built this country, it’s up to us. We need to govern ourselves.”

The academic Patzi spoke of the social and indigenous movements that were very active in recent years and helped pave the way to the election of Evo Morales. “The MAS is a part of the momentum of these social movements… If this movement is to go forward, it’s up to us. We’ll have to continue this process with or without Evo.”

Others on the left are planning for a Bolivia without Evo, or at least a radicalization of the existing government. Writer and analyst Luis Tapia also looked beyond conventional thinking. Tapia has a beard, long flowing hair, and red-rimmed glasses. Speaking in a sure, steady tone, he explained that Bolivia contains many more political and social forces that the state does not include. “In Bolivia, politics is a lot more diverse than just the state,” Tapia explained. He mentioned communitarian governance among indigenous groups, unions, anti-privatization movements and neighborhood councils which question the vast inequalities in the country. “This political diversity and power often doesn’t fit into political parties or governmental positions. Democracy is not synonymous with the state.” Tapia said that the Bolivian state only represents a part of the diversity of the country, and likened presidents to monarchs — both centralized positions of power which facilitate the application of policies which are harmful to the people. Tapia said there is a dire need to “de-monopolize” politics and democracy in Bolivia.

On the other hand, the MAS contends that it is a government made of social movements, and is working to transform the state so that it can better serve the needs of the poorest sectors of the population. As Morales recently explained : “It is the experience and the effort of the social movements that is causing democracy to address the issues that really concern poor and needy people… Democracy is much more than a routine election every four years.” Indeed, many of the ministers and party members within the MAS are from union and indigenous movements. In many ways, and with limited results, the MAS initiatives and policies have reflected the demands of these excluded sectors.

The hope and enthusiasm of the first year of the Morales administration has dissipated. The initial plans and announcements of 2006 have largely unraveled in 2007. Instead of an instrument of transformation, the constituent assembly has been turned into a political swamp which the MAS may not be able to pull itself out of. Though the gas has been partially nationalized, some land has been re-distributed, and access to basic services increased, much still needs to be done. There may be a strong presence of social movement leaders within the government, but until the MAS can transform the state into something which reflects the diversity of Bolivia, it risks being suffocated by the rusted apparatus of the old state. Though the poor majority may still support the Morales administration, these first two years in office have exposed the stark challenges facing the polarized country.

Paraguay’s long-time dictator, General Alfredo Stroessner collaborated with the region’s other dictators through Operation Condor, which used kidnapping, torture and murder to squash dissent and political opponents. Stroessner’s human rights record was so bad that even Ronald Reagan distanced himself from the leader. Carrying on this infamous legacy, Paraguay now illustrates three new characteristics of Latin America’s right-wing militarism: joint exercises with US military in counterinsurgency training and monitoring of social organizations, the use of private mercenaries for security and the criminalization of social protest through “anti-terrorism” tactics and legislation.

In May of 2005, the Paraguayan Senate voted to allow US troops to operate in Paraguay with total immunity. Washington threatened to cut off millions in aid to the country if Paraguay did not grant the US troops entry. In July of 2005 hundreds of US soldiers arrived in the country and Washington’s funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay doubled. The US troops conducted various operations and joint training exercises with Paraguayan forces, including the Medical Readiness Training Exercises (MEDRETEs). Orlando Castillo, a military policy expert at the human rights rights organization Servicio, Paz y Justicia in Asunción, Paraguay, says the MEDRETEs were “observation operatives” aimed at developing a “a type of map that identifies not just the natural resources in the area, but also the social organizations and leaders of different communities.”

Castillo, in his cool Asunción office, with the standard Paraguayan herbal tea, tereré in his hand, said these operations marked a shift in US military strategy. “The kind of training that used to just happen at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia is now decentralized,” he explained. “The US military is now establishing new mechanisms of cooperation and training with armed forces.” Combined efforts, such as MEDRETEs, are part of this agenda. “It is a way to remain present, while maintaining a broad reach throughout the Americas.” Castillo said this new militarism is aimed at considering internal populations as a potential enemies and preventing the coming to power of insurgent, leftist groups.

Bruce Kleiner of the US Embassy in Paraguay stated that MEDRETEs “provide humanitarian service to some of Paraguay’s most disadvantaged citizens.” This video by Captain William Johnson posted on Google Video has footage of various MEDRETE operations, the treatment and questioning of local Paraguayans as well as events and ceremonies aimed at strengthening ties between the military personnel of both countries. Often, heavily armed men are seen walking past lines of local families while they wait for medicine and questions. The video’s lighthearted depiction of these joint military operations is in sharp contrast with reports from local citizens.

A group of representatives from human rights organizations and universities from all over the world, including the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina and a group from the University of Tolouse, France, traveled to Paraguay in July, 2006 as part of the Campaign for the Demilitarization of the Americas (CADA) to observe and report on the repression going on in the country linked to the presence of US troops. Interviewed local citizens said they were not told what medications they were given during the US MEDRETEs. Patients said they were often given the same treatments regardless of their illness. In some cases, the medicine produced hemorrhages and abortions. When the medical treatment took place, patients reported that they were asked if they belonged to any kind of labor or social organization.

While Orlando Castillo is adamant that the historic military links between Paraguay and the US remain strong, the US troops that arrived in 2005 have reportedly left the country. In December 2006, the Paraguayan Senate and executive branch, responding to pressure from neighboring countries, voted to end the troops’ immunity. Paraguay would have been excluded from the lucrative regional trade bloc of Mercosur if it continued to grant immunity to the US troops.

Privatizing Repression

Castillo sees private mercenaries, or paramilitaries, as another key piece of the new militarism puzzle. In Paraguay, the strongest paramilitary group is the Citizens Guard. “These paramilitary groups are made of people from the community. They establish curfews, rules of conduct and monitor the activity of the community. They also intervene in family disputes and can kick people out of the community or off land…this all very similar to the paramilitary activities in Colombia.” Castillo said that while this activity is illegal, the police and judges simply look the other way. Many of the paramilitaries are connected to large agribusinesses and landowners and have been linked to an increased repression of small farming families resisting the expansion of the soy industry. The shadow army of the Citizens Guard is as big as the state security forces: these paramilitary groups have nearly 22,000 members, while the Paraguayan police force is only 9,000 strong and the military has 13,000 members.

Anti-terrorism rhetoric and legislature is being mixed into this deadly cocktail. The Paraguayan Senate is scheduled to pass an anti-terrorism law which will criminalize social protest and establish penalties of up to 40 years in prison for people that participate in such activities. A large march against the passage of the law took place in the country’s capital on July 26th.

Marco Castillo, a Paraguayan journalist with a dark ponytail, shook as head while contemplating this new landscape of repression. Dozens of social organization leaders and dissidents have been disappeared and tortured in recent years. “Impunity reigns,” he said. “This is as bad as it was during the worst years of the Stroessner dictatorship.”

After working at the ceramic brick and tile factory for nearly 35 years, Rojas joined the other two dozen workers at Cerámica de Cuyo and began to organize into a cooperative. These workers were part of national movement at a time when Argentina was in an economic crisis. Across the country, hundreds of factories, businesses and hotels shut their doors and sent their employees packing. Many workers, like those at Cerámica de Cuyo, decided to take matters into their own hands. As the stories of these workers illustrate, the cooperatively-run road hasn’t been easy.

Cerámica de Cuyo is surrounded by vineyards and artists’ homes in the bohemian community of Bermejo, Argentina , right outside Mendoza. Dust blows around the sun burnt factory yard as I sit down with Rojas and his co-worker Francisco Avila. Rojas wears a weathered blue plaid shirt while Avila has a baseball cap resting on a head of gray hair. We’re in the Cerámica de Cuyo meeting room. The ancient chairs have crumbling foam cushions. Phone numbers and Che Guevara slogans are scrawled on the walls. It’s easy to sense the wear and tear that lifetimes of labor have had on the place.

In August of 1999, the Cerámica de Cuyo owner cut wages. Though he promised it was only temporary, the lack of money pushed many employees to search for work elsewhere. Some left the country in desperation. “The boss kept promising money, so we waited,” Rojas says. “We worked on weekends, waiting and waiting, but no paychecks arrived. We had to support our families, pay the bills and everything.” In February, 2000, all the workers were fired. A year later they decided to form a cooperative and run the factory themselves.

While organizing the cooperative, they had to guard the factory to prevent the robbery of expensive equipment and machinery. Neighbors helped the workers out at this critical time, providing food, firewood and blankets. “Workers from other cooperatives came to the factory with classes, informing us how to organize a cooperative,” Avila says. “This kind of solidarity is common.”

Cerámica de Cuyo produces roofing tiles and bricks, and now employs around 32 people. Before the formation of the cooperative, the pay scales were typical, with the owner earning a lot more than the workers. Now everyone is paid the same amount and all workers have one week of vacation. Regular assemblies are organized to discuss administrative and financial topics, or to hire a new employee. Since the formation of the cooperative, they have also been able to buy newer machines.

“Before, the boss wouldn’t let us into the main administrative office. Now it’s ours,” Rojas says. “We go in there anytime to check on orders and be involved with that side of the business.”

We walk outside into the now scorching sun. One truck dumps off a load of dirt while clay is formed into bricks and tiles and sent inside to a massive kiln. Rojas works as an all around mechanic, fixing everything from fork lifts to conveyor belts. When we enter the main factory room, he is called from three directions at once with questions to answer and problems to fix. Steam rises from the hot, wet, recently cut bricks. The whole place smells like a potter’s kiln.

While Rojas works on a control panel for the conveyor belt, Avila takes me upstairs to his work area at the top of the kiln. Here the temperature rises by about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Though it feels like a sauna, Avila is comfortable and turns up the radio to a popular cumbia song. It’s a dangerous job: “Sometimes when the electricity is shut down, and the gas keeps going, there can be an explosion, so I have to pay attention.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Avila says. “Before, we were workers. Now we have to be lawyers, accountants and everything. Before, we didn’t worry about the machines. Now they’re all ours, so we care more about them. Now when a machine breaks down we have to wait for money and parts.”

Both admitted that one of the hardest things about working in a cooperative was that all workers, young and old, received the same wages. Rojas says, “Some people who have no experience at all are making the same per hour as those working as mechanics with 35 years of technical experience.”

Avila agrees. “Some workers want to earn more for working less. At the beginning it was all compañero this and compañero that, very glorious. But when we started working more, a lot of the conflicts broke out about salaries.”

Back in the meeting room, Rojas explains that now, whenever there is a problem, they all discuss things in the open, in assemblies. “There are always conflicts, but what’s good about it now is that we solve it together, right here.” He pounds his fist on the battered meeting table.