Words in the Second Wind (Oscar Olivera Address for the First Festival of the Digna Rabia)

The following is the address of fellow worker Oscar Olivera F., officer of the Federation of Industrial Workers of Cochabamba (Bolivia) and one of the main spokespersons during the Cochabamba water wars in 2000. This address was delivered at an event organised by the Zapatistas in Chiapas, and they pose necessary questions and problems on the nature of the so called "progressive" government in Bolivia and the challenges ahead in order to build an autonomous people's movement that becomes the seed for the radical social change for which Bolivian people fought during the first great cycle of social struggles in the 21st Century.

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Brother and Sisters
Compañeras and compañeros:

For me it is an enormous privilege and honor to be able to be here, together with you all in this territory—brown, simple and noble, like its people.

This privilege and honor would not have been possible without that enormous, dignified, enraged and collective effort by thousands of men, women, young people, children and elderly of my people, of our peoples, who don’t just make real history, but who also are the ones who write our history. It would no be possible to be here—nor could the EZLN be seen and felt today as a great example of dignity and hope—without that effort by our indigenous brothers and sisters, by our brothers and sisters from the cities, by our Mexican brothers and sisters.

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