Claudia Acuña, Author at Toward Freedom

Social Movements and Progressive Governments: The Current Veins of Latin America

Claudia Acuña April 24, 2006 Claudia Acuña

Bolivia has Evo Morales. Mexico has the Zapatista movement. Argentina is Kirchner's. Where do social movements stop when facing progressiveness that restores power? Are these governments the triumph, or the downfall of these movements? Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, a Mexican with vast experience in Bolivia, visited Buenos Aires to talk about these themes with local movements and with LaVaca.org, offering a deep look to look at the continent in its own mirror.

Keys to Understanding Bolivia: An Interview with Oscar Olivera

Claudia Acuña August 16, 2005 Claudia Acuña

Win the elections and arrive at a Constitutional Assembly that changes the roots of the power structure in Bolivia: such is the proposal of Oscar Olivera, a leader of the country's recent social struggles. He supports, with much criticism, Evo Morales' bid for presidency. "It's important to avoid a transition with deaths," he said, although suggested that the crisis will be defined by force. The conflict with Evo in an assembly I attended, demonstrated how, in this climate, the present and future is decided. It is ten o'clock in the morning and in Cochabamba, Bolivia it is the hour to decide the future. On the second floor of the Federacion de Fabriles (the National Fabric Workers Union) there are some two hundred men and a handful of women listening attentively to the words of Evo Morales. Meanwhile, voices from the streets reach the meeting, repeating this phrase: "the people united"