Interview with revolutionary Indian leaders in Bolivia Question: Why was the MITKA founded? Answer: Since the Spanish arrived in this area, we Indians have been oppressed and exploited. Up to today, we have always lived in slavery. The republic did not liberate us either from exploitation or racism. The 1952 agrarian reform did not eliminate racial discrimination, mistreatment, or oppression.
General Barrientos' Army-Peasant Pact changed nothing. It may have created some illusions, but in time it became clear that there was no change in the conditions of our lives or our social situation.
Now Siles Suazo and the UDP are trying to get support from the peasants, to win their confidence to establish another sort of pact. But it is clear that the UDP is offering nothing that will end the exploitation to which we are subjected. The UDP is not the solution.
We want to make a revolution with the working people and the industrial workers. We have to change the whole society in order to get our demands. We are for the poor and we want to fight to liberate all the poor. We want to liberate the poor people throughout the world, we want liberation for the workers and the peasants.
Q: What are the basic principles of your movement?
A: We are for equality for all, white, black, or "Indian." We don't want the Indians to be looked down on, mistreated, and discriminated against. Secondly, we want a socialist society based on community cooperation. were the first in this country to live in a communist society. In the highlands, there are still vestiges of the community structure of this system of primitive communism. We want a socialist society that would take account of this experience, respect our cultural inheritance, our special characteristics.
Thirdly, we want a real agrarian revolution that would end the exploitation from which we are suffering both as buyers of the goods we need and as sellers of agricultural products.
Fourthly, this agrarian revolution should go hand in hand with an overall economic revolution, the transformation of all the structures of this society. And only an alliance of the workers and peasants can accomplish that.
Q: Political differences have arisen in the MITKA. What is the basis of the diffe18
Bolivian miners (DR). rences that have appeared in the most recent period?
A: At its origin, the ideology of the Movimiento Indio Tupac Katari was Indian nationalism. It combined demands related to our situation as peasants with others related to our status as Indians. We ran three times in elections. In every case, it was to put forward our demands both as peasants and as Indians.
Then differences arose among us for ideological and political reasons. A section of the MITKA does not look beyond Indian nationalism. We see the need for giving a new content to Indian nationalwe stress the demand for ism, and equality among the races. But we give the highest priority to building links with organizations rooted in the working class and its traditions of struggle, such as the POR-Combate - with the workers movement.
As we explained, we put forward our own demands in the framework of a struggle for socialism. We are seeking alliances. We stand alongside the miners, the workers in the factories, the impoverished petty bourgeoisie. We have to unite on a program of struggle to change society.
The desire for such unity does not mean that we are any the less determined to maintain our identity as Indians. We want to clean out all the filth that exists in this country. This is a marvelous country, we cannot let it be besmirched by drug traffickers, brass hats, and capital ists.
Q: How is the MITKA organized?
A: We have a national council and departments, which are divided into provinces. So, we also have provincial coun vinces. So, we also have provincial concils, regional councils, and area councils. Our base is mainly in the departments of La Paz, Sucre, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and Potosi.
Q: A few days ago, the whole press was talking about an attack by peasants on the military in the village of Chulumani, a village in south Yungas in the department of La Paz. Could you explain what happened?
A. In that region, the military officers who control the cocaine trade have become drug traffickers. They don't protect us, they exploit us, they kick us around. Recently, the military in the area of Chulumani killed a peasant, raped his wife, and his ten-year-old daughter. The peasants struck back. They organized and attacked the Chulumani military with machetes. They executed the seven military officers responsible for these crimes.
They did that because we peasants have had enough of being kicked around, oppressed, raped, and killed. The "sausage making" at Chulumani - the officers were cut to pieces with machetes - will be repeated if the peasants are subjected to any more outrages.
Experience shows that self-defense is the way to safeguard our dignity. Our whole past experience shows that armed self-defense is the only way to achieve liberation. The "Indians" will not let themselves be exterminated any more. They have shown that in Chulumani; they are ready to meet blows with blows.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
was real practical collaboration between the working class and the peasants. The peasants also often maintained communi- cations between the various mines on strike, passing messages on from peasant community to peasant community until they reached their destination.