Open Letter from Women & Mining Network on Bolivian Gas sell-off
Published by MAC on 2003-10-10
Open Letter to the National and International Community
International Network Women and Mining
La Paz, October 10, 2003
We, women of the International Network Women and Mining, Bolivian women, together with women from Asia and the Pacific who met here to prepare the III International Conference Women and Mining, are grieved to see what is happening in this country only days before the Bolivian Woman’s Day. We cannot be indifferent to so much grief and mourning. This is why we want to state our opinion in this open letter.
At the beginning of the month of September of this year, workers and the people of Bolivia decided to protest with mobilizations, opposing selling of the natural gas to foreign countries. Therefore, different sectors, such as miners, peasants, workers of the industrial sector and other population sectors articulated their sectoral demands around the GAS issue. The Government responded to this demand from most of the Bolivian people with hard political and military repression. Two mineworkers from the Huanuni mining district died, and many others were injured and arrested, some of whom were women miners.
People are opposed to the intention of the Government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to sell the Bolivian Natural Gas to foreign countries. Asserting their constitutional right, the different sectors demand preservation of the last natural resource left in the country. Bolivians vehemently want industrialization of the gas in the country, with the objective of adding value to gas and creating sources of employment, which would help to reduce the poverty that is affecting the poor Bolivian households.
In view of these bloody and other events that have occurred in the recent past - in the village of Cruce Machacamarguita in the Department of Oruro, the community of Warizata in the department of La Paz and in the city of El Alto - WE WOMEN OF THE NETWORK WOMEN AND MINING denounce these facts to the national and international community, as these facts are weakening democracy in Bolivia and constitute a violation of human rights. We want peace to return to Bolivia and people´s demands to be heard.