INVISIBILIDADES 2 (english)

 In a public statement, the president of Bolivia called for civil confrontation through a clearly racist discourse. In that statement, he guaranteed military and even judicial support to one group of Bolivians while denying and delegitimizing another by referring to them as “Bolivians of the future” and “Bolivians of the past.” With the latter expression, he was referring to the marchers, portraying them as a small, insignificant group lacking human value, one that, according to him, would not even be remembered by history.

Shortly after it began circulating, the president deleted the statement from social media, like someone hiding their hand after throwing a stone—a true act of cowardice. Nevertheless, his message reached exactly where it was intended to: the fascist and oligarchic core, driven by hatred toward the “Indian,” a sector that enjoys privileges, considers itself white and therefore superior. It would be interesting to see that supposed whiteness put to the test in North America or Europe.

This is how, last weekend, the violent group calling itself “La Unión Juvenil Cruceñista,” armed with machetes and other weapons and reportedly under the influence of drugs, attacked rural community members in the San Julián region. As a result, one community member was killed by a machete blow to the forehead. Yet the press does not mention it; a press complicit in that death and in others that likewise fail to appear in official media coverage, as though those lives held no value.

What the media does disseminate is a distorted image of the marches. They are portrayed as violent while the urban population is presented as the victim. Fear is cultivated through a narrative that reduces the demonstrators to a handful of vandals allegedly paid by former president Evo Morales, who at the same time is being prosecuted for various crimes without conclusive evidence having been presented.

The influence of the media apparatus extends far beyond national borders, echoing the narratives produced by Bolivian disinformation centers. It is no coincidence that the Bolivian uprising receives little attention in many European countries and that, when it is mentioned, it is often reduced to a small manipulated group supporting Evo Morales. In addition to silencing the repression and the victims, international media outlets rarely explain who is marching, who is organizing the blockades, what their demands are, or what they are fighting for.

What is left unsaid is that rural and Indigenous communities from different regions of the country have joined the mobilizations to defend their right to land; that teachers and workers are demanding promised wage increases; and that miners, after centuries of laboring under harsh conditions, continue to struggle while foreign business interests accumulate wealth through the sacrifice of those who extract the country's underground resources.

All of them are defending national resources and demanding the resignation of a president who once approached these communities wearing a red poncho, as though it were merely a piece of clothing, when in fact it is an Aymara symbol of resistance and dignity. That same man used it to win communal support and votes. Today, he is the one who labels the red poncho—and the people he betrayed through laws and policies that threaten their dignified access to the land they work honestly—“vandals” and “savages.”

He calls them “Bolivians of the past,” symbolically denying their right to exist with dignity, while branding their demands as “terrorism” and “narco-terrorism.”

The government of Rodrigo Paz, however, feels empowered. It enjoys the support of its patron Trump, the State of Israel, and their allies. It also relies on intelligence and security strategies made in the USA. For that reason, it is not surprising that patterns similar to those observed in occupied Palestine are being repeated: fostering hatred within a sector of society, spreading fear and exhaustion, assigning one group the role of victim, manipulating the media, and creating internal enemies.

Acts of resistance are portrayed as acts of terrorism. What is actually happening is filtered and its meaning distorted in international media coverage. These are strategies aimed at criminalizing and minimizing social struggle, ultimately leading to the enactment of laws and states of emergency that grant the army and police the authority to detain and shoot at mobilized citizens, all with the consent of people who have first been indoctrinated with hatred.

It is hatred directed at Indigenous people, tolerated only when they occupy positions of service and subordination, but condemned the moment they dare to take part in shaping the future of the country—a privilege that, according to this colonial logic, is reserved exclusively for the oligarchic elite.

And the soldier? And the police officer? They too are subordinate. Sons and daughters of Indigenous peoples who end up firing upon their own ancestors and obeying orders against their own communities. Trained not to feel pain or empathy, they are encouraged to dehumanize their own people.

Making what is happening invisible to the outside world is, in effect, giving free rein to a massacre. History has witnessed this many times before, against the same kinds of peoples and under the direction of those who today support or carry out genocidal campaigns of ethnic cleansing against nations and communities such as those of Lebanon, Palestine, Cuba, and many others that dare to resist with dignity and sovereignty.

The peoples who remain awake to these realities should join this struggle: by denouncing abuses, making these injustices visible, taking to the streets, and raising a single voice in defense of their right to exist in freedom.

And those who loudly demanded the declaration of a state of emergency should remember, when they sit down to enjoy their plate of chicken and potatoes, that according to this perspective, that meal is stained with the blood of their brothers and sisters.

And for the West, which often has only a vague understanding of what is happening in that distant country called Bolivia, it is worth remembering that Bolivia possesses one of the largest lithium reserves in the world. It is the same mineral used to manufacture the batteries that power countless technological devices. Today, it is a resource coveted by those who finance wars and seek to control it.

Every time you open a screen, think of the blood that, according to this view, lies behind many of the resources that sustain the modern world. The blood of people from that distant country called Bolivia, who are defending their resources and their sovereignty.

And to the jilatas and kullakas of the peoples resisting throughout the world: there can be no peace without justice. In Bolivian culture, ayni is a principle of reciprocity and collective work. Thanks to that system, my country is able to organize itself collectively and in coordination across the national territory. We are millions, and we will always return. Hasta la victoria, siempre.