Communist Party of Bolivia on current situation

The urban and rural working class of our country has been carrying out protest actions for more than a month. The reasons for workers to mobilize are not lacking: the government of Rodrigo Paz has proven, since its rise to power, to be a government subservient to the interests of foreign monopolies and the tiny minority of capital and landowners in our country. 

The government of Rodrigo Paz has revealed its true face within just a few months: a coalition that came to power in the vacuum left by the implosion of the MAS governments, and that governs in the service of the agro-industrial bourgeoisie of Santa Cruz and the geopolitical interests of North American imperialism. From its very first days, it showed itself to be at the service of the wealthy of this country by eliminating the Tax on Large Fortunes; it also allowed the return of the DEA; enacted Supreme Decree 5503 which abolished fuel subsidies and froze publicsector wages, among other measures. In April 2026, it enacted Law 1720, which sought to dismantle the constitutional protection of small peasant landholdings in order to hand them over to large estates and financial capital. 

Since then, the country has witnessed up to 100 roadblocks, an indigenous march that set out from the department of Pando and reached La Paz after 28 days on foot, a hunger-strike picket by women, and continuous public assemblies convened by the COB (Bolivian Workers’ Central, main trade union in Bolivia), peasant and indigenous organizations, and the Federation of Neighborhood Councils (FEJUVE) of El Alto. The most recent assembly, which brought together peasant social organizations, neighborhood councils, the Bolivian Workers' Central, salaried miners, rural teachers, transport workers, market vendors, factory workers, and parental activism, resolved not to enter into dialogue with the Executive and to be accountable only to their grassroots membership, demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz 

The government's response has not been dialogue, but repression and the imprisonment of leaders of workers' and popular organizations. On the very day of the assembly, neighborhood leader from El Alto Justino Apaza was arbitrarily detained. On June 4th, the Senate approved a State of Exception bill that suspends constitutional guarantees. The president went so far as to publish a video calling on civilians (in reality, he was summoning right-wing and far-right paramilitary organizations) to join military and police contingents in order to attack protesters. Rodrigo Paz had prior meetings with armed criminal paramilitary groups such as the Youth Resistance from Cochabamba (Resistencia Juvenil Cochala, RJC) and the Youth Union from Santa Cruz (Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, UJC) — whose role in the 2019 coup was disastrous, violently attacking unarmed civilians. One of the leaders of the RJC who was serving a prison sentence was recently released. On June 6th, in San Julián, Santa Cruz, a joint police and military operation accompanied by UJC paramilitaries left approximately 33 people injured, including one civilian protester who underwent surgery for a gunshot wound and a police officer in intensive care with a head injury.

In this regard, the Bolivian Workers' Central has denounced clandestine operations carried out by hooded personnel in unmarked civilian vehicles without institutional identification, making arrests without judicial warrant. On June 7th, 5 COB leaders were illegally detained and subjected to torture by the police. What the government is perpetrating is a witch-hunt against union leadership and a media campaign to brand popular leaders as "terrorists" and "common criminals." This is the true face of the democracy that Yankee imperialism defends. 

A government that cannot sustain itself without suspending the very guarantees it invokes to legitimize itself has publicly confessed its own failure. 

From the reorganization committee of the Communist Party of Bolivia (PCB), we repudiate the violent repression unleashed by the government of Rodrigo Paz, and we express our solidarity with the leadership of the COB, CSUTCB (peasants), FEJUVE El Alto, and all the social organizations and mobilized people who are bravely resisting the government's repressive apparatus. 

Today, June 8th, Rodrigo Paz has just enacted Law 1740, which "regulates" the State of Exception in Bolivia. This law seeks to shield state repressive forces so that they may commit acts harmful to the human rights of Bolivians. In his address, Paz has labeled social mobilizations as acts of terrorism, seeking to justify the use of criminal law and emergency legislation against all social protest in order to legitimize police and military repression. Faced with this situation, we alert the working class that the government intends to drench the Bolivian people in blood, to silence every right to protest, and thereby to implement its economic and social agenda against workers — an agenda consisting of the handover of natural resources to foreign countries and the privatization of strategic state-owned enterprises for the benefit of foreign monopolies and the national bourgeoisie, generating further price increases in basic goods and essential services.

OUT WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF RODRIGO PAZ! 

FREEDOM FOR THE IMPRISONED LEADERS! 

DOWN WITH LAW 1740! 

LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THE PEASANTRY!

La Paz, June 8th, 2026

Communist Party of Bolivia (Reorganization Committee)

Communist Youth of Bolivia

(Photo: COB)