"We are sufficiently strong to split the country,” threatens a PODEMOS Santa Cruz deputy

The Bolivian government communicated today to the national and international community that a civil coup has been put into action in the departmental capital city of Santa Cruz, led by the President of the Civic Committee, Branco Marinkovic, and supported by Prefect Ruben Costas. The national government will not respond to “provocations by fascist groups” and will defend democracy and national unity without declaring a state of emergency in the convulsed regions. 

The government denounced several times in the last few weeks that there were preparations for violent protests with internal and external support. Today the predicted events materialized and began a “civic prefectural coup against the unity of the country and democracy,” said the government minister Alfredo Rada.

Students and activists of the [neo-fascist] group the Santa Cruz Youth Union (UCJ) and shock groups of thugs paid by the business-led civic movement from Santa Cruz attacked on Tuesday offices of Internal Revenue, the National Institute of  Land Reform (INRA) and the National Company of Telecommunications (ENTEL).

The vandals stole computers, televisions, telephone equipment and other public goods, and burnt furniture and documentation. They beat conscripts and police guarding the State properties with sticks. After destroying public entities that had been taken over by the State recently, the fascist groups burnt the offices of the human rights organization, Centre for Juridical and Social Studies (CEJIS). In addition they burnt installations of Radio Patria Nueva, attacked offices of the State television company Channel Seven in Santa Cruz and robbed equipment. They forced Radio Alternativa to suspend broadcasts and intimidated other media that are not aligned to the movement for elite-led autonomy, in scenes reminiscent of the previous week in Cobija, where four radio broadcasters had to stop their work in order to protect the safety of their journalists.

They have installed a type of “regional and civic terrorism in four regional departments in order to take hostage the people’s voice and the free ability to express one’s opinions,” lamented the Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana. The curious fact is that the National Association of Press (ANP), a strong defender of private media, has not said a single word in defense of “freedom of expression” in the light of these events.

The Defence Minister Walker San Miguel praised the restraint of the soldiers and police who faced off vandals “without firing a bullet” even at risk to their own personal security, conscious that the ultra-right are looking for deaths and wounded for political manipulation.

The Minister Rada blamed the events in Santa Cruz on the civic leader Marinkovic and the Prefect Costa, who failed to comply with their basic obligation to guarantee security and peaceful coexistence for its inhabitants and who from the “shadows incite these types of violent acts. These two people incited, promoted and carried out this fascist and racist violence.”

San Miguel revealed that opposition groups planned in the coming hours to take the refinery of Palmasola and interrupt fuel supplies, but the “fascists will not pass.” “What they are attacking essentially is democracy. They want to overthrow the institutional order that has been built with such difficulty, but we will not allow it, as we have popular support,” promised Quintana.

The government will not declare a regional state of emergency, as this extreme constitutional measure will only radicalize further the ultra-right shock groups. Furthermore, the democratic liberties of more than a million inhabitants of Santa Cruz must not be affected by the works of  500 or a thousand thugs, said the Minister San Miguel.

The national government says that confronting criminals and vandals who respond to a terrorist regime shows that they are without political arguments and incapable of debating democratically. The government will use legal and constitutional instruments to stop the fascist civic coup.

The big land and cattle owner and head of the right-wing PODEMOS party benches, Antonio Franco “applauded” the taking of offices in Santa Cruz. The looting was also encouraged by deputy Pablo Klinsky (PODEMOS) who is close to Marinkovic.

“We will not be beaten, if we are talking about confrontations let’s talk about confrontations, if we are going to talk about war, let there be war, but they will not impose anything on us. We are sufficiently strong to split off from the country, and if I have to take a stick, a sling, a gun, I will do it. I will go and defend my territory because no-one will push me around,” warned the PODEMOS deputy from Santa Cruz Oscar Urenda.