Bolivia - June 19, 2026

 With sectorial meetings and behind the backs of the working-class rank and file...

The miner Unión bureaucracies of Huanuni and Colquiri have signed an agreement with the murderous government of Rodrigo Paz, servant of the US

No negotiation over spilled blood! Freedom for all prisoners jailed for fighting!

From the rank-and-file assemblies: We must disavow that agreement
and throw out the traitorous leaders!

As the revolutionary struggle of the masses reaches 50 days, demanding as its sole demand the resignation of the government, and after the leaders of the COB opened negotiations with the government, the leaders of the Huanuni Mining Company (EMH) sat down on 06/17 to negotiate with Rodrigo Paz and his ministers. They signed a document where the government—which is the promoter of the privatization plan of the IMF and the US—committed to "boost mining production" and also to "foster employment."

This action by the union bureaucracy of the FOR Front is not surprising, because in all these weeks of struggle, the leaders of Huanuni only called for one general assembly (at the beginning of the conflict, where the COB strike was not even discussed). Thus, they constantly threatened that if they went out to La Paz, the “cooperative” miners would take over the mine, or they tied the mining rank and file to the Company's manager, who is the direct man of the government that was blackmailing them by withholding 2 months of salary—because while the COB leadership never effectively carried out the strike, the miners were not paid with the excuse of this  non-existent strike.

In fact, this mining clique has been for years bringing the rank and file miners to their knees before each sitting government, and now, they have negotiated behind their backs so that the mining movement would not go out and unify with the combats of workers and peasants; most importante, and faced with the threat of the government of declaring a state of emergency, they hid the miner's dynamite.

In this way, during a press conference (and responding to a cooperative miner who exposed that the Huanuni miners were working normally), a sector of leaders issued a statement saying they "were at the orders of the COB to march to La Paz," which was merely tokenistic since prior to that communiqué, they did not consult with the sectional assemblies, let alone the general assembly.

But it was not just the betrayal of the Huanuni leaders; a day later, the leaders of the Colquiri Mining Company (EMC) also met with the pro-US government, in which the leader asked the government not to harm the Colquiri mining company  as  they continued "generating foreign currency,"  and that they were "in favor of foreign investment in unexplored areas." ENOUGH LIES! The government announced a loan with the IMF to be repaid by the working class, the peasants, and the poor people, while together with the Santa Cruz (cruceña) oligarchy, it comes to hand over lands to transnationals, and companies come to invest to take all our natural resources. They want to let private transnationals and cooperative bosses plunder all our minerals.

Urgently, the miners of Huanuni and Colquiri must stand up again, stand alongside the workers and peasants in struggle against the pro-US government and its plan of colonization and looting our resources. Enough! We must reject the spurious negotiations of the leaders of the Huanuni and Colquiri Union, and from the sectional rank-and-file assemblies, call for a general assembly to demand the removal of those leaders.

Enough of leaders sold out to the government! We must elect a BODY OF ROTATING, RECALLABLE DELEGATES, WITH A MANDATE by the general assembly!

We miners have to recover our organizations of struggle, recover our glorious Federation of Miners from the hands of the traitors on their knees before the pro-US government of Paz. It is time to launch a call from the mining rank and file of Huanuni and Colquiri to stand up and:
 Refound the FSTMB and the COB of 1952 without collaborationist leaders, under the revolutionary legacy of the Pulacayo Theses!

The real "jukus" (ore thieves) are the private transnational mines and the cooperative bosses who in 2023 stole more than 5 billion dollars, paying miserable royalties of 220 million (4% of total exports). Nationalization without compensation of all mining explotations under workers' control!

Out with the police and the army from the mining districts! They are murderers of unemployed workers, perpetrators of the massacres of Senkata and Sacaba in 2019. Trial and punishment for the murderers of the people! Disband the repressive police! Freedom now to all prisoners jailed for fighting!

We must reject the spurious pact of the COB leadership, the leadership of Huanuni and Colquiri, with the government of Paz, servant of the US!
For a National Coordination of the blockades, rank-and-file delegates of the unions, and the peasant movement!
Let the fighting rank-and-file workers decide, and not the traitorous leaders!

Liga Socialista de Trabajadores Internacionalista de Bolivia (Socialist League of Internationalist Workers) (LSTI) of Bolivia, adherent to the FLTI
Workers' Democracy