THE Comite Ciudadano (Citizens Committee), a right-wing coalition led by Bolivia’s ex-vice-president, Carlos Mesa, and Luis Fernando Camacho, a multimillionaire entrepreneur, leading the extreme right-wing pressure group Comite Civico (Civic Committee) of Santa Cruz, jointly launched a brutal wave of violence in many areas of the country aimed explicitly at ousting democratically elected president Evo Morales.

The violence is carried out by paid, armed thugs whose main target has been public buildings, organisations associated with the government (trade unions, co-operatives, poor communities and neighbourhoods suspected of being pro-Morales bastions, community radio stations and such like), individuals linked to the government (ministers, mayors etc), and especially persons of indigenous origin who have endured the brunt of their racism. They have targeted indigenous women the most.

This is a re-enactment of the racist wave of violence launched in 2008, aimed both at ousting democratically elected Morales and the partition of the state into two, seeking to set up a non-indigenous country in the territory’s eastern region, exactly where the rich gas and oil deposits lie.