“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land,” Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth: “the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”Marching for over twenty days from the tropics into freezing high-altitude terrain, many wearing nothing more substantial on their feet than plastic sandals, land workers and indigenous representatives arrived in the capital of La Paz this week to defend their territories. They were met by the miners’ union, the Federación Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia (FSTMB), and highland representatives from the peasant union, the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (CSUTCB), in a loud welcome rally of solidarity on Monday.“With valor, with courage, we have arrived here sisters, arriba las mujeres!” declared Miriam Palomeque, the head of the federation of women peasants in Beni, at the rally.The marchers are from northern Amazonian territories of Beni and Pando and are protesting the new Law 1720, which will transform land rights in Bolivia and could herald the end of the plurinational model of land distribution that safeguards indigenous and peasant land holdings.Indigenous Bolivians marching with a CPMB banner. (Courtesy Olivia Arigho Stiles)The march has been grueling. Many marchers suffered from dehydration and exhaustion; at least fifty indigenous marchers from the delegation of the Central of Ethnic Mojeño Peoples of Beni (CPMB) required medical treatment last week.At a public meeting in La Paz this week, representative of the marchers and peasant union leader Oscar Cardozo declared, “Our life is collective, not individual. The land must be respected; it’s not for sale.”Meanwhile, social unrest is rising in Bolivia. Road blockades have convulsed the country as social movements protest Law 1720, with the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) and the CSUTCB this week declaring an indefinite…
