Declaration in solidarity with the women, the people and the legitimate Bolivian government
The CLACSO Working Group on Feminisms, Resistance, and Emancipation expresses its deepest rejection of the civil-police-military coup against President Evo Morales, his government, and other legitimate national and local authorities. It is a violent and destructive coup that has plunged the country into chaos and uncertainty. This breakdown of democracy is marked by death and an unprecedented, multifaceted persecution of political, social, and Indigenous organizations, as well as an entire population identified with the process of Democratic and Cultural Revolution, which has transformed Bolivia and shared with the world alternatives for civilizational change.
The neoliberal, racist, fascist, fundamentalist, and patriarchal matrix that underpins the coup is brutally targeting women. We have witnessed with indignation and sorrow the humiliating attacks on women in traditional skirts, with horror acts such as the desecration of a female mayor, and with helplessness the immediate loss of political spaces legitimately held by women, such as the Presidency of the Senate or the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. One of the historic leaps the Plurinational State of Bolivia has experienced in just over a decade is precisely the accelerated closing of the gender gap, recognized by all international bodies on the matter. In particular, there has been an unprecedented presence of women who were previously the most excluded—specifically, women in traditional skirts, from Indigenous communities—in the highest levels of public power. Proposals such as the de-patriarchalization of the State reflect the meaning and scope of this change.
The positive change in living conditions, based on redistribution, sovereignty, and the guarantee of rights, is already at risk, and with it, an imminent impact on the work and lives of women. The experience of neoliberal imposition in the region and the world leaves a legacy of impoverishment and a decline in the quality of life for the majority of the population, always more acutely for women who sustain life amidst adversity. The ambitions of plundering Bolivia's resources and common goods, and of controlling the conditions created or improved like never before in its basic infrastructure, loom large.
What is happening in the Plurinational State of Bolivia is part of the assault on democracy in the region, which is one of the expressions of the capital-life conflict that characterizes the current phase of neoliberalism. The onslaught against alternative integration bodies, such as UNASUR, has weakened the capacity for independent and solidarity-based political response to ongoing conflicts, as well as the pursuit of sovereignty over our strategic resources.
We call upon the relevant international bodies to contribute, in accordance with their mandates, to dialogue and peace, to protect the life and integrity of all those currently persecuted, and to the restoration of democracy within the framework of the current Constitution.
We express our solidarity with the women, the people, and the legitimate Bolivian government. We are confident that their strength, commitment, and unity will lead to a swift and peaceful recovery of their process of change.
In several of our countries, the people are rising up against neoliberalism, against the assault on democracy, defying repression, with demands that are also our own: respect for human rights in all their aspects, the rejection of all forms of discrimination, racism, and patriarchy, the fair distribution of social goods, and the building of egalitarian and peaceful societies. We stand with and support these struggles for transformation in our Greater Homeland/Motherland.
No to the coup! Together with the women and the people, for democracy and peace for Bolivia!
November 2019
CLACSO Working Group
Feminisms, resistance and emancipation
