The crisis and the neoliberal onslaught in Bolivia

La Paz, Bolivia, May 19, 2026

STATEMENT
The crisis and the neoliberal onslaught in Bolivia

Workers, indigenous peoples, peasants and social organizations in Bolivia have undertaken a great national mobilization for the defense of life, territory, justice and national sovereignty.

The neoliberal policies recently implemented by Rodrigo Paz, his ministers, and his party have indebted new generations and have also openly promoted the handover of natural resources to transnational corporations.

This clearly authoritarian government has been protecting drug traffickers while persecuting those who defend labor rights, social rights, water, land, the Tariquía ecological reserve, etc.

In recent days, six months after the start of Rodrigo Paz's government, government policy has led to violent military-police repression that has claimed the lives of some people who expressed their social discontent.

We condemn state violence, because the crisis is not resolved by repressing social demands, much less is the context pacified by trying to pass a law that criminalizes protest.

For all the reasons stated above, the CLACSO WORKING GROUP: LABOR IN CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISMIn solidarity with the Bolivian people, it states:

• Equality: rejection of Bolivia's debt that only benefits elites
  power to the detriment of the workers.
• Justice: We oppose the privatization of state-owned companies and trade policies that favor small, powerful agro-industrial groups.
• Respect for the country, its people and its cultures: no to the handing over of immense amounts of land to companies or foreigners, no to the systematic contempt towards the community members who defend the Tariquía reserve, no to the imposition of laws without consultation or consent.
• Sovereignty: We reject impositions dictated from Washington. Down with foreign-funded control of social media; down with the zero tariff that favors soy smuggling and harms our own producers.
• Respect for nature: defense of forests, water, lithium and all natural resources from transnational expropriation and officials skilled in plunder.

WITHOUT JUSTICE THERE IS NO PEACE. WITHOUT EQUALITY THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY. WITHOUT RESPECT FOR THE
NATURE AND THE PEOPLE, THERE IS NO FUTURE.

May 19th 2026
CLACSO Working Group: Work in Contemporary Capitalism

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.