7:00 pm
SFU Harbour Centre
Room 1900
515 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC

Click here to get a map (a new window will open)

With guest speaker Gustavo Diez de Medina

Bolivian Social Economist, Executive Director of the Program for Study and Support for Production – Solidarity Credit Fund (PEAP-Foncresol), and practitioner of community economic development and social economy processes.

Presented by the Canada Bolivia Solidarity Committee and the Bolivian Action Solidarity Network

After more than 500 years of marginalization, discrimination and injustice, the majority indigenous population of Bolivia are exercising their right to self determination. Their legitimate, peaceful and democratic aspirations are the force behind the government of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in South American history.

This process of change poses a serious challenge to the established and traditional elites, landowners, and corporate interests that wish to carry on with the colonial project in place since the Spanish first conquered and enslaved the people of what is now Bolivia. The response of these groups has been to push a secessionist project in the eastern part of the country that not only is profoundly racist, but also is outside any legal or constitutional framework. Relying on their monopoly control of the mass media, their endless supply of funds, their proclivity for racist violence, and their close relationship with U.S. interests, these groups and their agenda aim to shut down and reverse the reforms of the Morales administration and return Bolivia to the corrupt and failed neoliberal status quo.

International solidarity and justice movements are responding in defense of the Bolivian liberation movement and against the international propaganda campaign being waged by the corporate media on behalf of the Bush administration and a minority South American elite. For this reason the Canada Bolivia Solidarity Committee and the Bolivian Action Solidarity Network are presenting Mr. Diez de Medina in Vancouver to speak about the truth behind current events in Bolivia, the secessionist efforts of the traditional ruling cliques, and the response of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples and others in working class and professional sectors who support the process of change.

For more information:

http://www.grupoapoyo.org/basn
boliviasolidarity@gmail.com