‘Octubre rojo’ or ‘guerra del gas’; Five years on

During the August visit to Bolivia of a delegation from UNITE the Union, we had the opportunity to meet social and political actors from El Alto who were key to developments in October 2003. Red October, as it is often referred to, was witness to some of the worst excesses of state power during the history of Bolivia. It was also, crucially, the point at which the current process of political change the country is now living became unstoppable. Five years on, although much has changed in Bolivia, relatives of those who died at the hands of the military are still fighting for justice.

Juan Delfin Mamani looks after the church from El Ingenio in El Alto. As those of you who have watched the film ‘The War on Democracy’ by John Pilger will recognize, he is one of those witnesses whose testimony brings to the fore the full horror of the events of October 2003 in El Alto (he is wearing a hat in the photo).

It all began with a generalised opposition from all social quarters to a presidential plan to export, rather, give away, natural gas to the US and Mexico via Chilean ports, this, in a country in which there was no full internal supply of gas and a large percentage of the rural population have to burn wood in order to cook. However, this initial protest soon escalated into demands for a wholesale reversal of a neoliberal, export model of (under)development and in favour of a policy of natural resource sovereignty destined to increase the well-being of the Bolivian people.

After weeks of strikes, blockades and uninterrupted protests, President Sanchez de Lozada, popularly known as Goni, and his interior minister Sanchez Berzain sent the army to the city of El Alto, including tanks and helicopters carrying snipers. By 16th October, the result of the imaginable carnage was 65 victims and countless injured. Such was the reaction of the international community as well as of every political and social sector in Bolivia that on 17th October the president fled the country bound for Miami, leaving his resignation letter behind. He still lives there and has so far managed to evade justice.




His church being close to the violent events of those days, Juan Delfin was witness to the highest single massacre and led the process of recovery of the bodies, washing them, displaying them for the families and for the community that in the following days paraded through the church to pay homage to those killed.

We walk in silence, listening as he recalls the horror of bodies lying on display in an outbuilding next to the church. At the entrance, a huge mural on one of the walls depicts Juan Delfin’s emotions at what he experienced: there one can see represented all the protagonists of the events. On one side, the miners, the peasants, the indigenous peoples in protest. On the other, a bankrupt political class shielded by the army and it weaponry. And yet, in the midst of this darkness, we can catch a glimpse of hope and rebirth for the future.

Five years on, we have inaugurated October with the memory of those massacred in Pando barely a month ago. Certainly much has changed since 2003 but not enough to say this is a country at peace with itself.