 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, a popular resistance broadcast of hot news out of the region in partnership with code pink common frontiers, Council on hemispheric affairs, friends of Latin America, interreligious on Central America, Massachusetts peace action and task force on the Americas. We broadcast Thursdays at 430pm Pacific, 730pm Eastern, right here on YouTube live, including, you know, excuse me, including channels for the Convo couch popular resistance and code pink. Post broadcast recordings can be found at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Telegram, and at radindymedia.com, and now under podcasts at popular resistance.org. Today's episode, Bolivia's right wing orchestrates a civil strike. Our guests are Camilla Escalante and Ali Vargas of Casa True News, and also the podcast Latin America in review. So welcome Ali and Camilla. The audience should know you're joining us live from from La Paz, Bolivia. And I want to share with the audience that this is, this is one of those really great episodes in which, from which our program gets its news we have a really hot story that has been unfolding in Bolivia the last three, four weeks, and is receiving very little mainstream coverage in the global north. So our guests are joining us live from Bolivia to share what's happening in Santa Cruz Bolivia with all of you. Many of you met Camilla when she joined us from Brazil to report on the presidential elections. And for those of you who have been following our program for a couple years now. And when we started strictly as a Facebook live broadcast you'll recognize Ali Vargas, who joined us to think December of 2019 to talk about the October 2019 coup in Bolivia. And he, I think all of you adjust to like within a month had arrived Bolivia from the UK so so that was a really, really important episode and so we're really happy to invite both of you back. Always a pleasure to work with you both. And before we start, let me give the audience just a brief background as to what our conversations going to be about today. So for all of you in the last 21 days, former coup leader and current governor of the Department of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho has been allowed to carry out a coup d'etat in the city of Santa Cruz. In the words of Pedro Damien Dorado, Vice President of the Association of Municipalities of the Department by the same name. Constant media misinformation is the glue that holds together Camacho space, which can be counted on nearly 230,000 mostly middle class people who turned out for his latest political meeting quote unquote. In October, Camacho launched the shutdown of the city for the foreseeable future. It is Bolivia's largest and most prosperous municipality and the economic motor of the country. Camacho is a very rich man, and to preserve the wealth of the few. He is once again acting as a threat to Bolivian democracy. The story from the grassroots has shifted radically since the de facto coup regime that came to power three years ago, and lasted less than a year. When the far right of Camacho declared a total strike and work stoppage in the city of Santa Cruz three weeks ago, the masses refused to comply. So that's the clash that we're seeing happening that's been unfolding for at least three weeks, but a lot of this rhetoric and the call for the strike started in September, I believe. So, let's talk about what's happening in Santa Cruz the city of Santa Cruz which is in the Department of Santa Cruz in Bolivia just for clarification for the audience. So maybe a bit of background and then, and then let's talk about what's unfolding there was some pretty hot news Camilla that you broke last night from the city of Santa Cruz. For, I mean, for almost a month now actually, there's been what they call a civic strike in reality. It will be called anywhere else be called a bosses lockout, by which was called the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, which is essentially a committee of the largest landowners and the largest sort of businessmen in that city. They're going to do a lockout to protest against the government of President Luis Arce, supposedly on the for using the issue of the national census. Now, I think this might appear quite peculiar to people outside the country because I've never heard of another country in which there is conflict over a national census, or where it's politicized in any way. And then most people will, if the census is taking place in their country will know about it for the first time when they get the questionnaire and the survey that they have to fill out, but it really has become entirely politicized. But I would say is that has been a pretext, but for the governor of Santa Cruz from the Camacho and the Civic Committee, saying that because Santa Cruz has grown in the last few years that they deserve more resources from the central government. And so they want the census to be held as soon as possible, whereas the government says the census will be held in 2024. And their proposal is only has essentially a six month difference. So we can see that this this issue has been what should be a technical issue has been politicized in quite cynical way, because of course, even if a census was to take place tomorrow, the effects on public policy, etc. And in direct as well for people. So we can see that this is just a pretext used for their real aim is to create an environment of chaos in Bolivia, bring violence that can destabilize the government and the country as a whole and sabotage as well. And the economic growth that Bolivia is enjoying because Santa Cruz is a country where is the largest city of Bolivia is has a lot of industry. It's on the border with Brazil so it's a lot of international trade. And through this process lockout they've really put a spanner in the works of the strong economic growth that Bolivia was experiencing so that's been the situation for the past month. What does it look like they're on the ground it looks like. Well, the civic committee itself is a committee of these landlords and businessmen. They have right wing groups or extremist fascist groups that took part in the coup 2019 mobilizing the streets, blocking roads, mostly in the sort of the central areas of the city which are the sort of more middle class areas of the city. Essentially, anyone who tries to get through trying to get to work or trying to get higher. If you're in a car or a motorbike, you know, slash your tires, put most likely assault you. People charging, if you want to get through they charge you $1 to $2 to get through. So we can see that those people are not necessarily even allied to these right wing groups they're just sort of criminal groups that are coming out and they see this as a pay day and or themselves being paid to be there. So it's an environment of chaos. There's also been the fact that there hasn't been a very strong response from the police. That's what people there in Santa Cruz feel that these criminal groups have been given kind of a soft touch to just sort of run right around the city. Things really built ahead last week, this past weekend, when these right wing groups built down the officers of the federation, the Campesino federation of Santa Cruz, they vandalized and looted the trade union building in Santa Cruz. They tried, they did the same as a number of public government buildings there like the statistics office, the tax office, the land registry office, and they tried it with a number of others, the police were able to intervene. And so yeah, there's, I should need to add though that all of this chaos, all of this conflict as intense as it is, is restricted to one city in the country. This is, you know, we're here in La Paz, there's been absolutely none of that. We haven't seen any of that kind of violence or mobilization here. The same is true for all of the rest of the country, including the rural areas of Santa Cruz, who are a lot who, you know, the vast majority of them elect mayors and local officials for the movements or socialism ruling party. So this is something that restricts it to the city of Santa Cruz, which means it's basically at this point a regional regionalist conflict. Well, gosh, okay, I have tons of things written here. So there's a couple things with this region specifically the city of Santa Cruz being the economic engine of the country is that's significant that these protests or this strike or by the right wing is happening there. And I have to say as you describe what those protests looked like on the ground and especially since it's been organized by the far right. So the city looks and Camila you have a lot of personal experience in this. It sounds to me so similar to the guarimbas in Venezuela, February 2017 specifically and the trunkies in in Nicaragua during the coup attempt in April of 2018, same demographic of people organizing it in the same tactics. They're also being paid, or as Ali said that their opportunists their criminal elements were going out to the street in order to extract money, tolls. You know, just as games do all across Latin America for people just trying to go to work, or trying to fulfill their day to day duties picking up their children dropping them off, and things like that. What we saw overnight was, of course, an uptick in confrontations and a siege on this neighborhood, known as are called plan to this meal in Santa Cruz, where the central spot close to one of the large markets, and where there's a lot of commerce and a lot of business early in the morning and all day. People are literally being penalized or being punished punished for refusing to take part in the lockout for refusing to abide by this elite imposed lockout. They want to open their businesses every day they want to sell their meat, their produce or whatever it is in the markets they just open a stand in the market these aren't people who own large stores they don't only any type of grocery stores, or you know it's not like a Costco or anything. It's literally people who either have a stand a slot within the market, or people who have a little kiosk, and the perimeter of the market, or lots of times women and men who push around a cart on wheels. And that's how they make their money day to day. They need the economy to remain open in order to make money every day and they're making small amounts of money. So, you know, these are people who sell things like empanadas for cents. You know they're not even making a dollar off of an empanada that they're selling. And so it's very important that they be able to carry out their work day to day. This exists through all of the city of Santa Cruz and of course all of Bolivia but specifically in this area of plan to this meal is where we've been showing the images of the confrontations that have been taken place. Parasite groups, the Santa Cruz Youth Union, as well as other armed organizations that are linked to Fernando Camacho the governor and linked to the Santa Cruz Civic Committee have been laying siege on those people who refuse to take part in this economic paralyzation attempt and who want only to be able to make ends meet. We're now headed towards the fourth week of this, it'll be four weeks on Friday at midnight of this ongoing economic paralyzation. So, these people are showing up to these neighborhoods and attacking residents and just working class people using explosives, Molotov cocktails, all sorts of makeshift homemade weapons, also obviously stones, firecrackers, and other sorts of explosive devices and hurling at them at the level as the people try to, for example in the morning at four or five, six in the morning, open up the market, open up their stand for the day, and a lot of people also make money poor people, poor men on a whole. You'll see as the primary young men, the primary people who are working as moto taxis, or who have to transport thing on moto taxis. Those people are being targeted by the barb by the wire, wire and cables that are being strung across avenues to try to cause harm to those motorcyclists and cyclists as well, because when you have these roadblocks across the city, the only real way to get around besides on foot is by motorcycle or by bicycle. Yesterday we saw an injury to a young baby, a baby of probably less than six months of age, and they have a really bad wound here across their neck, but we've also seen one death from the wire. I think in the last two weeks and other severe injuries. No one has yet been decapitated but that's essentially what their aim is. I mean it's very difficult to see this very thinly, this very thin wire that's strung across the streets, and people can only stay home for so long. They're also blocking access to hospitals and in one case to a very important facility that takes in women who are the victims and survivors of rape and other sexual and gender based violence. And so this is something, you know, we've seen all sorts of videos, all of it is documented, of these armed gangs going up to businesses going up to older women, merchants, vendors, and threatening them simply for wanting to open their business, threatening bar owners, and essentially like I said closing off access to emergency services, making it difficult or impossible for ambulances to circulate for people to be able to do their jobs that are absolutely necessary in the city of Santa Cruz. And there have been countless injuries in addition to four deaths at this point. And as as we've said we've seen, you know, very limited response from the security forces to intervene and lock up those people and the people who were locked up for the crimes that were committed on Friday that Ali mentioned the arson and the vandalization, they have all been let out on bail at this point. So let me, let me ask you one, Governor Camacho he is the only governor in the in the nation of Bolivia that is pushing to change the census date, or is dissatisfied with the census date because the because the president has announced it for 2024 correct. Yeah, he's the only government governor protesting it. Yeah, in Bolivia, there are nine governors from nine departments. And there was a meeting like few months ago with the government and these nine. Nine governors were invited eight turned up Fernando Camacho didn't turn up. And by consensus it was decided that the census will be in 2024 and six of the nine governors offering opposition. So including, you know, it's the opposition as well. The only one that's rejecting this. And that's why I said that this become a regionalist problem. And this is not a national conflict. This is not like in 2019, where the opposition in the whole country, in all the cities of the country were divided and protest to the lead to the coup in 2019. This is not what's happening now this is in one city, and the right is very divided over this because when you have this kind of regionalist conflict, there is a decrease. There has been a striking racist sentiment against people from the Indian part of Bolivia because Santa Cruz is sort of a low land or green area of the country in Brazil. And then, you know, we get this discuss all the couriers, the indios, you know, the Indians, they're coming here. When you say that you're insulting everyone from now and then part of Bolivia, including your position, including people who would support their cause, people on the right. And so there becomes a division among the right. And I think going in, you know, whenever the next elections are, what we're going to see is this regional split among the opposition, you're not going to have the United States candidate just like there wasn't one in 2019. You have this regionalist based politics among the Bolivian right and they can't unite because of this sort of secretive racist sentiment that you see and now you get some people including Camacho himself, you know, flirting with hinting at the possibility of raising the flag of separatism of, you know, Santa Cruz independence. And this, this is something that's absolutely no go for the rest of the Bolivian right because it means breaking up the country. They absolutely oppose that. So while we see an empowered Fernando Camacho in his base of Santa Cruz, the rest of the Bolivian right is facing big divisions over this. So what is, what is he hoping to achieve for him and his base in Santa Cruz? What are they hoping to achieve? They are forcing a lot of suffering on working people, you know, working people, you know, working poor and working people. And he's also with these, well, what we would call Guatemala's Truncas in other countries. That's also a huge impediment written and scary thing, for lack of a better term, to everybody in the city. So what is the, I mean he's, he seems he's alienating the specific working people. He's harming his own base or at least the potential to violently harm his own base. What's the, what's the objective? No, I don't think it is harming his own base because the more he riles them up, the more he sort of whips them up into a frenzy, the more solid they are as a political bloc in Santa Cruz. This goes back to what I said that he is trying to build a region in this project. He's not trying to build a national. He tried in 2019, that failed, that now he's trying to form a bloc in, you know, a solid political unit in Santa Cruz. And if favours him having this constant level of conflict, him being the leader, him being the hero for their side, that favours him. I think if, you know, if life goes on as normal, people aren't pushed to that extreme. But when there's a constant conflict, people do go to the extreme that he, the extremist point of view that he represents. So he needs this level of constant conflict to, you know, to remain politically relevant. I think if everything was calm, and people were calm, then his, you know, extremist message would be less appealing. So it definitely benefits him to have this permanent level of conflict. They're also stowing discontent throughout the entire country, starting with the Santa Cruz, but they are very effectively causing damage to the economy in Santa Cruz. But that causes damage to the national economy and Santa Cruz is connected by a very important highway to the city of Cochabamba, another major city. This does affect the economy on a whole. It's also the way we get to Brazil. And so, you know, this is a very coordinated effort that has an effect on one city, which is the largest and most important city in that department, but a very important department. And, you know, the national government is really relying on this constant campaign they have of showing these amazing numbers of economic recovery of economic growth of the way in which Bolivia can take its own path, its own socialist path to growing an economy, to being independent, to being sovereign, to producing its own food, producing everything it needs, and also trading amicably with all of its neighboring friendly countries. And, you know, this model is what is under siege right now. This is not a country that has been victim to the unilateral course of measures, the sanctions that we've seen against Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Hawaii, Syria and many other countries. And so, you know, the enemies of Bolivia and of Bolivian socialism and of the integrationist project of Latin America, they're betting on the internal enemies in Bolivia. They're betting on this far right, and the right wing opposition sectors to from within the country attack the country attack, you know, the, the, the people's will to continue to to support their government, which they did just two years ago. And what they're doing what Fernando Camacho and the Civic Committee is doing is they're betting on the role of the media, because in large part, the right wing media here is a private media, which is in support of those pro coup sectors. What they're able to accomplish as they were able to accomplish in 2019, and other moments is that we're talking about an opposition in this country that represents the minority of the population, but because they have so much control over the narrative, because of their use of manipulation of the narrative through through these media outlets that have such a large reach not only in Bolivia but internationally, they're able to make it seem as if, you know, that there's a whole crisis going on in the country that people are angry that people are demanding a census, when really the people who are demanding the census in 2023 belong to a very specific part of the country, and a very specific right wing movement as well. They're able to make it seem as if this is an undemocratic government in the pause that is only ruling on behalf of a certain particular group within the country when really the La Paz government here, the movement towards socialism led by Eva Morales, and with the right now represents the majority, but we're going to begin seeing, you know, the everything that's going on here taken out of context, thanks to the ground actors here that, you know, are those major newspapers and right wing media, and they pass that information on or gets taken in the international media and make it seem they can make it seem even as if there's some sort of, you know, that democracy is in question that people are being repressed for anything like that and that's really their intention to destabilize, not only by actually, you know, imposing those roadblocks and this lockout and not allowing people to work and harming the economy, but also by manipulating the narrative as time goes on, and as they continue to go in search of news there on the very first week of this lockout, we saw the leader of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee on CNN was Fernando Del Ringo, who is a fascist TV presenter. I mean, this is the kind of press that they're looking for, and this is the attention they're ultimately going to get as long as they keep this up unfortunately. So, with the consent with the consensus and I know, you know, in the States, when those are taken you know they're reflective of demographic of population growth and demographic shift. So what is happening in the city of Santa Cruz or perhaps even the entire department of Santa Cruz that Hamacho is pushing for this now, or is it simply a political tool. Yeah, it is a political, it is an excuse and pretext. And also, it's worth mentioning Santa Cruz is not the only area of Bolivia that has grown. That is the discourse is used by Camacho that, you know, the whole of Bolivia is moving to Santa Cruz because things are so great there. One of the cities growing a quicker pace in the last census is the city of El Alto, here in La Paz, next door to us, which is a majority indigenous city, and that has seen a huge economic boom in the last 10 years, and huge migration from the countryside to the city of El Alto has a very dynamic economy based on international trade with Peru, in Chile, based on construction, based on all these sorts of things and they're not part of these mobilizations they're not holding protests, they're not, you know, creating chaos and creating agreement with the census, in fact, their mayor is part of the opposition for a number of different sort of local reasons, but there was well in agreement with the government about the date of the census. And, you know, like I said, if it doesn't take place six months before or six months after, that doesn't affect the common person, it doesn't put money in the pocket of the common person. You know, it affects public policies in an indirect way, but, you know, the fact that people are standing out in the sun blocking roads, assaulting people, do you think it's taking place over the census, over this issue of the census, over the things, the cartographic map. People don't even know what these words mean, but it's being used as a pretext to bring violence, a wider level of violence in the country from these groups and for Camacho himself to shore up his to build and shore up his political capital and solidify his party ahead of the next election. So I think that is the context in which this has taken place. Yes, Santa Cruz has grown a lot in over the past few years, and those and the people who constitute that growth are mostly people from Andean areas, and who many of them vote for the movement towards socialism. So this idea that the population growth is something that benefits the right in Santa Cruz is also myth. You know, even at the last elections, last local elections, movement towards socialism got about 30% of the vote against Fernando Camacho. That's, you know, they didn't win that election, obviously, but that shows that not all of Santa Cruz is in agreement with this. And we saw huge rallies in the city of Santa Cruz and Camino went there in, you know, against Fernando Camacho in favor of the government on this issue. So the, the more Camacho pushes is the more violence he's going to bring to Santa Cruz because that city is not a 100%. It's not a white city is not entirely right wing pro pro fashion city is absolutely not the case at all. It's a very diverse, very, you know, ethnically culturally diversity and politically diverse as well. Yeah, I also want to say like there's a whole list of issues that they have pursued and always probably a better has a better, you know, record of this in his memories has been watching things, you know, as a Bolivian for a longer amount of time but not only now it's the census. Before it was, you know, during COVID, but after the we saw say in the mass return to power, they said it was the doctors going on strike that the medical college was the same that they don't have sufficient. They don't have, you know, everything they need to be able to do their job. These are obviously right wing doctors, we know this because they tried to destabilize the country using that in 2019. That was a pretext as well to the coup. We have the environmental issue and the burning of the Chiquitania. In this case it could be another environmental issue. It could be earlier this year and last year they tried the right wing and specifically the Santa Cruz elite have tried to use the issue of development projects and infrastructure in Benny and other departments of the country and the fact that has on the indigenous populations there to try to destabilize the country and to try to tell people on the exterior that this indigenous government is anti indigenous. They've actually, this year, and you know Carlos Mesa has tried to wage another issue where he said that he had an issue with the him and his party didn't like the type of symbol that the government were using on the government letterhead. These sorts of things is very absurd but we've seen every single different thing you can possibly think of sometimes on a bi-weekly basis to try to use these issues to destabilize the country to get people angry. And none of them have worked. They've all fallen flat. This is the only one that has taken off. But it's very clear that it's politically motivated specifically because they put so much money into these campaigns. And the right wing media, allied with these right wing coup leaders will harp on these issues every single day putting tons of just wall to wall coverage about whatever it is that Carlos Mesa or Fernando Camacho or whoever says is the issue of that day. And then literally in two weeks the issue disappears out of the headlines and from the media because it fell flat and nobody cared about it. Now the census is the thing they're sticking with because it's the only thing that they've been able to get off the ground. You know it's interesting that to me on the outside about the consensus. There's two big things that have happened in Bolivia that would that have infringed on many government projects the coup in 2019 and the pandemic. And so it seems most people would be very rational and say well okay, you know the consensus is only really being delayed by six months given everything that we've lived through in the past three years. That seems very reasonable, at least for me on the outside. And so to be making it this really violent political campaign is I mean it's almost seemed I mean it's extraordinarily harmful physically to people and economically to people but almost not very smart. It is also part of their multi prong campaign yet to remember, and you would know about this Terry but beginning today and tomorrow in Mexico, the far right of the continent is meeting there, including people from Santa Cruz. This is part of a coordinated action at the same time during the campaign in Brazil the presidential campaign the daughter of ex dictator Jeanine Agnes Carolina Agnes was flown on this trip funded by whatever money you don't know where she got the money to do an entire Brazil tour, but she went and saw Michelle Bolsonaro, she went and saw and met with Jair Bolsonaro and Eduardo Bolsonaro among many other figures of the Brazilian far right. She's a regular. She's a regular guest, like I've said before on CNN, and other such programs. She's very in very close contact and coordination with the Venezuelan far right those actors who plan and have carried out many destabilization plots against the Venezuelan people and over the last 20 years really, and the people who continue to be obviously aligned with this figure Juan Guaidó that is continues to be backed by the State Department. And so you know she's campaigning and doing very public events Carolina Agnes in Brazil at the time of this massive presidential election getting tons of airtime and photo ops, delivering statements, meeting with Luisa Magno and Washington, meeting with these fake human rights international organizations at the same time as the centrifuge figures are doing the same. So it's all coordinated action to try to bring attention to Bolivia under this completely manufactured issue, which you know is obviously on the one hand, you know, Fernando Camacho, and the sense of the Civic Committee said that's about the census. But if you see what Carolina Agnes who supports this like census lockout thing. You know if you see what these other actors are saying abroad, they're not even talking about the census. They're saying that they're being suppressed, but there's no freedom of the press that opposition doesn't have a voice in this country that has a political persecution of the opposition to the government that her mother's obviously a political prisoner, and that people aren't able to speak out against the Luis Arsic government they're inserting all sorts of issues. So it's very clear. When you look at it, you take a step back and look at everything that's taking place is not about the census. It's truly about attacking the government and the democratically elected government and projects. That was chosen by the Bolivian people just two years ago. So you know it's fascinating that these people can be to me that they're protesting their civil rights their human rights against the current government. When in fact, a lot of people would say Camacho should have been prosecuted and he should be sitting in jail when he is an elected governor of the Department of Santa Cruz how can that be a violation of his human rights or his, his civil freedoms. He's such a significant leader of the right, and he's in in elected office. Governor of a state it just I mean it you know it doesn't make sense. The rhetoric doesn't make sense although it's very scary and yet and you mentioned Mexico yes I should just tell the audience we have a huge rally anti fascist rally here in Mexico City tomorrow morning. At 9am I think it's at the western Santa Fe at 9am and yes I will be there. So can we talk about one thing more before I let both of you go. Camilla you have been to Santa Cruz, you have seen how the communities are organizing the pro government anti Camacho people are not necessarily the pro mas, the pro are safe people have organized at a community level. This is a theme that continually comes up in our episodes for the audience, social movements, labor movements and how crucial they are to help develop policy throughout the country develop candidates, help candidates get elected and then once in office help help maintain the power of the office I mean it's like we continually say on this program, just because you hold power doesn't mean you have power. So how important are the social movements and labor movements and Santa Cruz right now. Well they're very important but I think you know one of the things, one of the reasons why the social movements and unions and indigenous organizations have been so successful in Bolivia and fighting against us backed dictatorships and repression for the last year before the movement towards socialism was able to take power at the executive level is this constant, you know, class analysis they really see themselves as being part of the same, you know the same class doing the same jobs, they have an understanding thanks to, you know, various leaders in this tradition in the country of understanding that they are the indigenous native original people who have had to fight against the colonizers from the very beginning, who had these people just to stop in different times throughout their history and have literally just taken control of land, you know, just unilaterally, while other people have been displaced, impoverished, and have had to live through very difficult circumstances, and you know, really provide inequality. And this is a country with really, you know, severe problems in terms of development. And so this is so these people throughout Santa Cruz, I can continue to understand that, you know, it's just based out of purely basic necessity. I feel that if they can't work for a few days that everyone in their household is going to go hungry, or that if they can find a way to work that they need childcare and their children will need to be in school how are they going to be able to go to school when the whole city is locked down. So, you know, they are organizing on that basis, not all of the sectors were opposing this lockout in Santa Cruz are our members of militants of some sort of organization, not necessarily members of the movement towards socialism. And they have seen the ways in which concretely, their, their living standards improved, both, you know, for them, specifically but also throughout the country, since the first mandate of Evo Morales, and this is what they fought for in 2019. A lot of times we talk about, you know, all of the different repression. And of course, the massacres that took place in 2019, but different points of the Department of Santa Cruz, not only this neighborhood of length this meal, but other areas of the government were on the very forefront of the fight for democracy and against the coup dictatorship, not only in those weeks after the vote where Evo won his fourth term, but also in the 12 months after that, during the entire year they resisted, they resisted all of the tyrannical policies of the coup government. So, you know, I think people, people remember the good times under Evo Morales, they want to see, you know, the economy improves. And it's important to say that even though this is the, this is known as the department that's controlled and the city is controlled by fascists that a large part of the population continues to support Luis Arce and the movement towards socialism, even outside of the membership of those, you know, main unions and indigenous organizations. So what can, in our last few minutes, what can those of us outside of Bolivia do? You know, we have to watch costume news in your website and your Twitter feeds from fantastic your, you know, you're up to the date postings are really, really informative and super important. And I will post both for the audience I'll post both in the program description so that you can easily follow the website, the Twitter feed and and Ali and Camilla individually as well they both have great Twitter feeds also. So what can we, what, what can we as US citizens and as Latin American activists in general do right now? I think the most important is to raise awareness is to, you know, to do what you're doing now Terry, because I think is something that the mainstream media is obviously not going to report on. So what you'll be to say, the authoritarian believe in government has arrested someone for burning down a public building isn't that terrible. So I think the most important is to get the information across and for it to be clear that there are people who care about this issue, and we will raise their voice about this issue because I think if it's the media, if this government can see that, then, you know, they know that they're up against something, a real, a real movement, both in Bolivia and outside Asia as well. I think that's, that's the main thing Bolivia people want. Yeah, no sort of real intervention or who can take place when everyone's eyes are on a situation. You've seen this time and time again, a good example being the election of Gustavo Petro would have been very difficult for something to happen there because there's so much international media attention but a lot of electoral observer missions foreigners there as well a lot of people, you know, guarding that situation. And so it would have been very difficult for anything fishy to happen as in the situation with the election of Xiomara and Honduras Western audiences have to be very, very keen and very observant when they're when they're looking at the media. Additionally, you know this disinformation is not going to be disseminated, you know, strictly through the New York Times Washington Post the Guardian in the BBC anymore, because the White House and the State Department and all the agencies of the West State have learned that young people and people on a whole do not get their information from the major traditional legacy outlets, they get their information from alternative outlets. And it is alternative outlets and smaller or medium size outlets with medium size or smaller budgets that are being funneled money, as they were in 2019, and these fake nonprofits or NGOs to try to, you know, tell a certain narrative about what's going on in countries like Bolivia and it's those very outlets who pose as leftist outlets or alternative outlets or independent that have, you know, have been at the forefront of trying to make it seem as if this is an undemocratic government. And it would have you think as well that across the country, people are clamoring for 2023 census, when in fact the truth is it's a very small portion of the right wing or the opposition or geographically in this country that is making those demands. And it's a very small portion of the country that is affected right now directly by this lockout just as it is a small minority that voted for Luis Mena Camacho in 2020, and that overall less than 45% of the population in the recent presidential elections voted for the combined total of all of the opposition candidates against a party that won a strong mandate of 55.1% in the first round, won the presidency outright. And this is, you know, a mid repression, all of the main leaders of the movement towards socialism hold up in the Mexican embassy in Mexico in Buenos Aires, scattered scattered outside of the country and people living in fear, journalists living in fear. So this is the situation we're dealing with people need to approach the media with skepticism as with all of the media that reports on Latin America from the exterior. And how do you come back and keep us keep us apprised as to as to what's going on because it really is. It's an important story, and we aren't talking enough about it, particularly in the global north, and you know the more I listened to both of you. The, the similarities between the demographic of people that are leading this, this strike and their tactics are exactly what we have seen in Venezuela, and what we have seen in Nicaragua, specifically in my personal experience those two countries but elsewhere as well so it's really. It's just, it's just amazing to. And scary, you know, to, it's also the same, but they're trying to use in Mexico without nice. I mean, this is precisely the reason why they're all coming together, even with these figures from the United States and meeting there. Yeah, you know that's going to be an important rally tomorrow we'll probably have to talk about that to you, if you come back and we can talk about the similarities between all of these events so. Okay, guys what I am so happy you had time today I know you both are so busy with all your activism and you're reporting and, and all the work that you do in Bolivia specifically but throughout the Americas as well. I'm really so thankful for your time, and I want to remind the audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean we are a popular resistance broadcast in partnership with seven other organizations you can catch us every Thursday 730pm Eastern on YouTube live, including the YouTube channels of the convo couch, popular resistance and code pink. And so thanks again everyone and we will, we'll see you next week. Thanks for having us. Thank you.