Uprising in the Andes: An Analysis of the Protests in Bolivia

Interview about the recent wave of popular protests in Bolivia with S., a member of the Asamblea autoconvocada contra el despojo (Autonomously Organized Assembly Against Dispossession), in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

From Mestizo Alejo

It will soon be two months since the start of the most recent wave of mass protests in Bolivia, led by the workers’ and indigenous movement against the liberal reforms of Rodrigo Paz’s government, which include a capitalist offensive against the communal ownership of indigenous lands. On June 20, after entering into negotiations with a sector of the labor movement, Paz declared a state of emergency, which allows for the deployment of the Armed Forces to suppress the protests. So far, these developments, combined with calls from social and indigenous organizations to lift the roadblocks, have led to a decrease in their intensity. Lêgerîn had the opportunity to conduct an interview, originally in Spanish on June 16, 2026, with a comrade in Bolivia, who tells us a bit about the situation.

S., a member of the Autonomously Organized Assembly Against Dispossession in the city of Cochabamba, explains the political context of the protests, their main actors, their actions and strategies, as well as some of the contradictions that have surged among some of these actors and the challenges facing the future of the mobilization. He concludes by outlining some similarities between the autonomist movement in Bolivia as well as the rest of Latin America with the ideology of the Kurdistan liberation movement. Finally, he delivers a message from the Quechua and Aymara indigenous communities of the Andes Mountains to the internationalist youth of the world.

Community roadblock during the May and June 2026 protests in Bolivia

What is the political context of this recent wave of protests in Bolivia? I understand that although the current president, elected in November 2025, espouses a neoliberal ideology, he does not belong to the Bolivian far right -as has been the case in other Latin American countries- but rather to the centrist Christian Democratic Party.

You’ve got it all, comrade. Let me give you a brief overview of the situation.

Bolivia is a country that, as we might say, has always relied on the extraction of natural resources. This leads to cycles of structural crises, because—to put it this way—if you only export natural gas and import iPhones, there’s a problem, isn’t there?

You don’t have to be a Marxist—someone with, how should I put it, cadre training—or a Nobel Prize winner in economics to understand that. The thing is, the latest economic wave, so to speak—the economic cycle—is the natural gas cycle that began in the mid-1990s and reached its peak in 2015, I believe.

Since then, two problems have arisen. It’s not so much the price volatility, though that is a problem, but rather the abrupt depletion of gas reserves. So, Bolivia is a country that’s in a steady decline; it’s a phenomenon of structural crisis in which there’s a foreign exchange shortage.

And since the economy, so to speak, depends on foreign imports, there is inflation resulting from currency devaluation. That’s a gradual process. What’s actually happening is that the Movimiento Al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, acronym: MAS)¹—while it has been able to diversify and secure its trade position with various actors, namely through the influx of Chinese capital—has gained some room to negotiate against the Western monopoly that existed before.

But the problem is that it hasn’t overcome the export-oriented nature of the Bolivian economy. So, that’s an old debate—I think it used to be called something like the second phase of the construction of socialism. But that was called import-substitution industrialization—it’s not even that radically Marxist, you know? It was a goal also shared by national-bourgeois governments. However, this phase has not been overcome by the MAS…

And there hasn’t been any engagement by the government with the artisanal or informal urban sectors of the country either. That political encounter hasn’t taken place.

Nor has there been any engagement between the historical project—so to speak—of the peasant-small farmer social organizations, who organize in integrated cooperatives, and the MAS’s 20 years of implementation of socialism. So, these are the difficulties that, when the major crisis hit, led the population to think, there is a problem with the people in power!

And so, the vote has shifted away from the MAS. Previously, precisely during the boom—we could say—in the gas industry, the MAS vote, under Evo Morales, had reached as high as 67 percent.

Now, Evo—who was unable to run— received 20 percent of the vote, in the form of abstentions from the vote, and the MAS [without Evo Morales], which had split into two factions, reached 10 percent. So, if we add it all up, that’s 30 percent. This means that the MAS’s traditional voter base has been cut in half. Where has the MAS vote gone? It’s gone to the PDC (Christian Democratic Party).

Precisely because it’s an alliance between Rodrigo Paz—this is the fourth time his family has governed the country—and Captain Lara, who is a former police officer, that was fired from the police force for reporting corruption; he later became a clothing vendor and then a social media influencer, you see? So, it’s a completely different profile. At first, he was ultra-liberal, because his thing was being against the MAS. Once the campaign got underway, it became clear that he had popular appeal. He’s a provincial police officer, but he has blue eyes; at the same time, he’s a man of the people—he’s a “paco” (colloquially: cop, editor's note)—but he’s also worked as a clothing salesman. He has popular appeal, we can’t deny it. So, now he’s become a leftist, a left-wing sovereignist, in just a few months of campaigning… That’s Bolivian politics for you.

So, the two of them embodied, a peaceful, sovereignist, Christian-democratic transition, opposed to corrupt socialism but also to satanic, militarized narco-capitalism, because they’re also Christians, Catholics, you see? But they’re reactionaries as well.

So, comrade, what has happened is that they said, “We’re going to do things right,” and they’ve done things wrong—they’re more or less privatizing everything, they’re cutting public services, and worse than that, they’re deregulating imports and exports, and they’re lifting taxes on tiny domestic production, small producers, and informal workers. They’re lowering taxes on exporters, and what’s more—the worst thing they’ve tried to do—is dismantle the Bolivian peasant and labor union movement.

What they’ve been saying is that to gain access to credit, you have to renounce the traditional indigenous customs and practices regarding the land—in other words, it goes beyond the dismantling of communal land, because there was already an agrarian reform for smallholders in the 1950s, right? It goes further because it even seeks to change land use and customs: The laws governing how one manages the land—even if it’s privately owned—are subject to regulation.

So, they say, if you want access to credit, the bank won’t accept land subject to traditional customs and practices as collateral. “We want land free of traditional indigenous customs and practices so we have a pure guarantee for the loan,” they say. So, that’s it. It’s all gone to hell.

I was very impressed by the mobilization of the Bolivian people; I believe the sense of betrayal by the [Paz] government explains this awakening.

It’s also, obviously, explained by the Bolivian people’s organizational capacity. The workers union is the extended family, they say; there’s a truly organic relationship between individuals, the extended family, the union community, the province, and all that. So, it’s all of that that has been awakened in these protests.

Who are the main actors in this wave of mobilization?

Well, so first we need to—in order to understand that—provide a sociological overview of Bolivia. Bolivia is a country where the vast majority—about 80% or 70%—is considered to be in “informal” employment.

What does this so-called “informal” sector actually entail? It’s a totally abstract category, isn’t it?

Within it, we’ll find the rural population, which is roughly 30%. This 30% of the population is organized, for the most part, within the Unified Syndical Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB). I’d say this is Bolivia’s main demographic group in this regard.

There are other groups that are part of the peasantry—people living in El Chapare province who are engaged in coca leaf production. They’re organized under the Intercultural Federation. We refer to them as the “six federations”—the six federations of the intercultural coca growers. That is one segment of the peasantry. Another segment of the peasantry is organized within CONAMAQ (National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), which are Bolivia’s most remote regions in the Andes. They have preserved communal land and do not operate under a union-style organizational structure, but rather under the Andean community-based system of ayllu, marka, and suyu—terms that in Quechua roughly mean “community”, “federation”, and “confederation”.

After the mining sector—which I’d say accounts for 5 to 7% of the population—is divided into three sectors. Within this sector there’s one part that’s largely invisible: workers at multinational companies. There aren’t many of them, because multinationals don’t hire many people; they have plenty of capital, machinery, and so on.

Then there are the cooperative miners, who make up perhaps two-thirds of this sector’s total. That’s quite complicated, because many of them are former miners who were laid off after the drop in tin prices during the previous economic cycle, that we were discussing earlier. This happened in the 1980s. They’ve gradually formed cooperatives. But it’s a highly complex issue. Why? Because there’s conflict between cooperative members and small farmers and indigenous communities.

In other words, there is a conflict of class interests. The classes are composed differently.

So, the problem with these so-called cooperatives—what people say to them—is that “you aren’t even cooperatives; you exploit people” through a corporate business structure. And on top of that, they sell what they mine to multinational corporations; when it comes down to it they’re just branches of those multinationals. They don’t pay taxes. And in the end, they say “we must nationalize the cooperatives,” just as they said during the [Bolivian nationalist] Revolution of 1952— no, no, no, we don’t want private corporations disguised as cooperatives. The peasants and small farmers will say, whether its nationalized or not, whether its run as a cooperative or a private company, mining is damaging their land and water.

And others will say no that it’s their land, because there may be some cooperative members who come from the mining areas and say, “I’m the son of a miner, who was the son of a miner, who was also the son of a miner, and now I have my own cooperative.” And others will say, “I’m from this place, and I don’t give a damn if the Bolivian state nationalizes it—it’s better for us to own the mines ourselves.” So, it’s a never-ending debate.

And the last third of this sector would be made up of state miners—communists, unionized, the usual. Who we could also consider a labor aristocracy.

And who else constitutes the Bolivian work force? Everyone else—that is, everyone who isn’t a farmer or a miner—is more or less informal: urban dwellers, small business owners, self-employed workers, family-run auto repair shops, taxi drivers, you name it. That’s the bulk of the population.

And then you have the formal sector workers, who are in the private sector—that is, more or less the proletarian working class—who are unionized under the COB (Bolivian Workers’ Confederation), and those in the public sector, who are also unionized under the COB: teachers, state-owned enterprises, and so on.

That’s the social fabric. Each group is organized; each has its own organization.

The informal workers, even though it may seem like they aren’t organized, are actually well organized because they have trade associations, corporations, and sometimes cooperatives as well; and above all, they have what we call neighborhood councils—the Grassroots Territorial Organization (“Organización Territorial de Bases” – OTB).

So, who are the key players currently involved in the struggle? The COB, in all its aspects—private and public—the CSUTCB, the CONAMAQ, many OTBs across the country, and the CIDOB (Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia) are the organizations from the Amazon region. They are the ones who initiated the struggle, because since they do have a certain amount of communal territory, this issue of credit hit them hard.

All of them together, make up the Original Workers’, Peasants’, and Indigenous Peoples’ Unity Pact—that’s what it’s called; I didn’t choose the name. It’s the unity pact among all these organizations and sectors.

Some are participating, others aren’t. For example, the two federations of cooperative miners aren’t part of the unity pact, nor is the Transport Workers’ Federation, and—bad news—many departmental COPs are leaving the unity pact; that’s the problem right now. The manufacturing sector—the factory workers—who at first claimed to be very radical, aren’t anymore.

Very interesting. My next question was actually—well, it’s hard to put forward something like this concisely—but what contradictions can you identify in the mobilization process? What criticisms could be leveled against it?

We face several challenges within the movement; let’s start with the sociological issues. First, during the last cycle of uprisings in the 2000s, the peasant population was about 10% larger than it is today, and its capacity for organization and determination was still dominant. So there’s been a demographic erosion of the peasantry’s capacity to manage the country and the balance of power.

Second, when it comes to migration from the countryside to the city, it’s not as if everything has fallen apart in their political consciousness; it’s not as if when someone migrates from the countryside to the city he becomes a traitor or anything like that—that’s not how it works. Obviously, there’s a culture of organization. There’s a culture in the OTBs in the countryside, and now in working-class neighborhoods. But the thing is, it’s those OTBs in the working-class neighborhoods that are taking the hardest hit, because they no longer have the countryside to feed themselves; they’re in the city’s outlying areas, they don’t have jobs, and they’re in very precarious situations. So, given this reality, there isn’t the same potential for collective strength as there used to be.

Because, as rural people used to say when they mobilized: “We’ll block food from reaching the city, and we’ll see how long they can hold out,” you see? Because we have the food we produce ourselves to eat. This balance of power has changed demographically.

That, I’d say, is the main source of difficulty for the movement—without getting into political commentary. Now, if we do get into political commentary, there’s a difficulty because there were 20 years of the MAS’s “21st-century socialism” project which, I’ll put it this way: when you have problems in a relationship, and you promise your partner that you’re going to change—but nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing happens—and in 20 years they haven’t changed, there comes a point when the partner moves on.

And so the political project of 21st-century socialism has seen its appeal erode as it tries to hold onto its voters. Its voters have drifted toward something nonsensical, a mix of identity and values of Christian, Catholic, colonial, and TikTok…

So, that’s the sadness of it, to some extent. There’s a moment of a Perestroika without socialism. So now there’s a sense that the movement’s ability to recreate an agenda, to recreate a vision for the future, must be shaped within society itself and by the movement itself, as a social body that engages in debate with one another. I’d say we need to reinvent democratic politics.

I mean, I’m not saying there’s no element of democratic politics in Bolivia—and perhaps in many parts of the world—but we’re at a point where the project of 21st-century socialism has become estranged from the community, from Andean communal life, and that this requires allowing time for debate within society to build a new horizon through the practice of democratic politics.

Those are the difficulties of political work.

Art by Olfer Leonardo (IG: @o_l_f_e_r)

On the ideological, religious, and symbolic levels, the same pattern continues. There is still the influence of evangelicals²; there is Catholic-Andean syncretism as a central axis, and on the other hand, Liberation Theology—and I think this is a complex issue as well, because we can see that there were alliances between evangelicals and 21st-century socialism, especially among rural grassroots evangelicals. It’s not as simple as one might think—that is, one could say that evangelicalism is the enemy because it’s pro-CIA³; one could say that evangelicalism made a pact with 21st-century socialism; and one could also say that evangelicalism can be a communal force in and of itself. As has happened within CONAMAQ, there are sectors of this Council that are evangelical. One could say that their form of evangelism is not at odds with the defense of Andean communal structures and Andean religious practices. The CIA’s vanguard is losing ground; one could say that part of evangelism is becoming “Pachamamized.”⁴ So we are facing a very complex symbolic fabric that moves at its own pace.

In other words, Bolivia continues to embody the promise of the Pachacuti⁵; it remains the ground for syncretism between the Pachacuti and the vision of an earthly paradise in Teología de la Liberación (Liberation Theology).

What are the specific actions that have been taken in this uprising, and what are the results you’ve been able to identify so far?

Bolivian strategic intelligence is too vast to fully grasp. Let’s just say, to summarize, that the first strategy is called the “Flea Plan.” It involves setting up roadblocks on roads and highways and fleeing when the police arrive, then setting up another roadblock, and repeating the process—like a flea, right? It’s about jumping from one point to another, from one roadblock to the next. That’s the first strategy.

The second pillar is called the “Blockade of a Thousand Corners,” in an urban context. It’s a bit like the “Flea Plan,” but in an urban setting where it stabilizes a bit. In other words, there are a thousand “fleas” in the city doing that in the heat of the moment.

Then the stone barrier goes up. That’s when things really heat up. Between the cities, they lay down stone, stone, stone—for kilometers. And all day long, you’ll be laying stone from this kilometer marker to that kilometer marker. And the next day, the same thing. That leads to what we call the Siege of the City. Once the city is sealed off from access by roads, nothing can get in or out. That’s the strategy.

How is this strategy carried out?

Under the “ayni.” The ayni is the traditional Andean labor rotation system. First, a community from a certain place will send 5% of its members. Each family decides among themselves. The grandmother, the grandfather, the daughter, for example, are chosen and will participate. Then 5% from another community. And then from the taxi cooperative, for example. And so it goes, one group after another, taking turns carrying out the protest as a community responsibility or duty.

What has this strategy led to?

Sure, it’s led to the government backing down on several issues, backing down on a few laws. But not anymore—we’re past that now. People are calling for the government to resign. Because of so many deaths, so much betrayal, so much contempt. And besides, since there’s an economic crisis, I think it’s better that there also be a political crisis. It’s better that there be a political crisis. Because otherwise, they’re going to resort to shock therapy.

But what it has led to right now is a state of emergency. It has led to the creation of private armies financed by sectors of the big bourgeoisie. It has led to foreign military interventions to provide logistical support for the repression or the fight against the people.

And on the other hand, it has led to calls for mothers not to send their sons to military service. To calls for the subordination of the military, which is already happening. And to the creation of self-defense groups. That’s where we stand. And we don’t know what the future holds, comrade. I have absolutely no idea.

But obviously we’re missing Felipe Quispe⁶. If he were here, at least we’d have some direction. I’m just mourning the loss of somebody who’s gone. It’s not very interesting, but obviously we’re missing him now. One thing is certain: in this effort to rebuild a democratic political system, Felipe Quispe played a fundamental role in the 2000s, but also in 2019. In 2019, when the MAS had fled, when the coup d’état took place, who was the commander-in-chief of the General Blockade? Felipe, of course. Mallku! ⁷

When Evo [Morales] was in Argentina, when the other one [Vice President Álvaro García Linera] was in—I don’t know where... So, it’s a shame that he’s passed away, and perhaps the only criticism I have of Felipe Quispe is that he didn’t leave us an organization.

One last question: Do you have a message from Bolivia for the internationalist youth?

I really think it’s very important to say this, because I truly feel a complete alignment with you all. Building socialism begins with building a communal way of life. That core principle—this paradigm, this revolutionary paradigm—isn’t isolated to the thought of Abdullah Öcalan or any other single person. It’s a fundamental pillar of revolutionary thought, not only in Bolivia, but also in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia—we could even say in the Mapuche region as well.

In Bolivia, before the arrival of the socialists, there were already struggles, and there was a distinct way of thinking—a communal way of thinking. Later, there was an encounter, perhaps first with the anarchists, who had also aligned themselves somewhat with communal thought. Later, in the 1970s, came the era of anti-imperialist Marxism, with which it also intersected. So, here in the Andean territories, we have inherited from all that. Revolutionary thought draws on communal thought, a libertarian sensibility, and an analytical framework derived from socialism.

So, I would say that the thought of Felipe Quispe and the thought of Abdullah Öcalan are sister ideologies. Just as one can find other sister ideologies on every continent, in every history, and throughout all eras.

Thank you very much, compañero (comrade).

You’re welcome. See you soon.

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1 A left-wing party that governed Bolivia from 2006 to 2019 and again from 2020 to 2025. During its first term, it was led by Evo Morales Ayma, the first indigenous president in Bolivia's history. The party led a successful constitutional assembly that in 2009 swore in new constitution that redefined Bolivia as a Plurinational State, recognizing multiple Indigenous nations as constituent parts of the state rather than treating them as minorities to be assimilated.

2 Referring to the more recent Protestant Christian congregations that have arrived in Latin America to dispute the regions historically Catholic hegemony and have had an explosion in popularity in the past 50 years. Most notable in Bolivia is the expansion of Pentecostal congregations.

3 There is a prevalent analysis among leftist organizations in Latin America that the branches of Protestantism that have proliferated on this continent—and especially grassroots evangelicalism—are ideological tools implanted by, or at the very least, exploited by, U.S. imperialism.

4 Pachamama: In Andean mythology and religion, she is the mother goddess, considered an omnipresent deity with creative power who sustains life. The literal meaning of the name in Quechua is “Mother Earth.” She is associated with space, time, the universe, life, fertility, and nature.

5 Pachacuti: A cosmic catastrophe envisioned in Andean mythology that brings about the end of the known political-spiritual order and ushers in a new order in the universe.

6 Felipe Quispe Huanca (1942–2021), an Aymara peasant leader, guerrilla fighter, historian, and a leading figure in the major indigenous mobilizations of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in Bolivia. His ideology combined “Indianism” and “Katarism,” advocating for the self-determination of indigenous peoples, the decolonization of the state, and a radical critique of neoliberalism and the colonial legacy.

7 Mallku—which means “condor” in the Aymara language—is the nickname used to recognize Quispe’s political leadership among the Katarist faction of the Aymara people, similar to the nickname “Apo” given to Abdullah Öcalan in the Kurdish liberation movement.