‘We will take to the streets. We will defend democracy!’ declares Guillermina Kuno, an Aymara leader of the Bartolina Sisas, Bolivia’s national union of Indigenous peasant women. Flanked by comrades, she is addressing an emergency press conference following the short-lived coup d’etat on 26 June, when troops launched a tank into the presidential palace in La Paz under the orders of an aggrieved general.
Bolivia is no stranger to coup attempts, and its history is chequered with coups of varying success. But its social movements, now oriented around the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, are as tenacious in their defence of democracy. In June, workers sprung to action and flooded the streets around Plaza Murillo to resist military intervention. The miner-led trade union confederation, the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), alongside other social organisations, declared a state of emergency and a general strike.
