BLOOD IN THE ALTIPLANO (27-06-01).

Severo Mamani was 48 years old and had 9 children, an

Aymara peasant that lived in one of the most miserable

places on the planet, the Bolivian altiplano. His

poverty was such that his few crops scarecely served

for self-sustenance. But weary of racism, of being

exploited by a system that treated him like an animal,

he went out on June 21 to blockade the highway,

together with other peasants, demanding dignity,

bread, education for his children, health for his

family, definitively demanding the end of capitalism,

which in this country has been aggravated since 1985,

when decree 21060 initiated neoliberalism. It is

precisely this decree that his protest aimed to

abolish. But it all ended for him when, on June 27,

he fell dead from a gunshot. The bullet entered his

arm, went through his chest and exited through the

other side It left him lying in the middle of the

straw, dusty, with his eyes open. He left nine

orphaned children, the oldest of them 30 and the