Anti-feminist revenge sweeps Cochabamba

Illustration © La Hef - illustrator and urban artist.

Opinion • Claudia López Pardo • December13, 2024 • Leer en castellano

It’s a hot and humid summer day in Cochabamba, this year the rains arrived as they should. I’m in a small cafe, a secluded spot away from the hustle and bustle of the city, where I’m to meet with Tina and Adela. This article is based on our conversation, in which we explored the causes of their persecution. I’ve changed their names here, out of fear of reprisals.

Adela arrived with a massive folder made up of at least 500 pages of documents. I’d seen the same folder being passed around at our most recent feminist assembly, as we prepared for November 25, the date on which, in 1960, the Mirabal sisters were murdered in the Dominican Republic. Since then, 25N has been recognized as the day for the eradication of violence against women. 

“This is just part of it,” said Adela as she pulled out documents containing the charges the City of Cochabamba has brought against her and Tina for damage to cultural heritage. Tina arrived a few minutes later, without a folder, and in the mood to talk.

Tina and Adela are both participants in the autonomous feminist movement in Cochabamba, and the flame of rebellion burns within them. They are involved in political education, they take part in heated debates and work to politicize the struggle against all forms of violence. But in recent months they’ve seemed worried, folder in tow.

The history of Cochabamba is rich with struggles, the most famous among them being the water war. It is also home to a number of social and political organizations, over the last decade, women here have channeled their struggles into the feminist rebellions lighting up the region. But even in this place of powerful social organizing, patriarchal war is a permanent threat.

This year we experienced the impacts of infighting within the ruling party, which fell to pieces, affecting the entire population. We all felt the rupture of the patriarchal pact that allowed the Movimiento al Socialismo to rule Bolivia for fourteen years. 

Today, the context is marked by a tenacious economic crisis, and it is also a pre-electoral period. Cochabamba Mayor Manfred Reyes Villa, an ex-military officer known for controversial and homophobic statements, wants to be president. Reyes Villa has positioned himself as a national candidate with the Alliance for Bolivia Together coalition. Part of his campaign strategy is to explicitly discipline women who challenge traditional institutions.

The women's movement in Cochabamba is a vast, abundant river that flows against the current of the city in moments of struggle, including on March 8, International Women's Day. On that date, the feminist movement occupies streets and public spaces. Women's voices break with mandates of silence in a conservative society. Their courage in speaking out has been followed by a counter-offensive that seeks revenge and calls on the population to abide by the mandates of the traditional institutions being interrogated by feminist struggle.

“Cochabamba is one of the cities [in Bolivia] with the highest rates of violence, femicide and sexual harassment, there is a lot of hatred in femicides, there’s cruelty and torture”, says Adela. “But here, women are no longer silent.”

An anti-colonial action against war

The feminist struggle contains an anti-colonial critique that is expressed at different times. This year, these expressions have been characterized by actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people. 

On May 27, which is Mother's Day in Bolivia, Tina, Adela and two others took part in a peaceful action consisting of the installation of two posters, three green handkerchiefs and a Palestinian flag on the Heroines of La Coronilla statue, which was erected in honor of women who fought against the Spanish army in Bolivia’s war of independence. The action was a symbolic rejection of how the war in Gaza impacts women and their ability to control their bodies.

Tina told us that a few days before the action, a refugee camp in Rafah, which was filled with women and children, was bombed. The attack caused the young women to connect the anti-colonial struggle of the Heroines of the Coronilla with that of Palestinian women. “Palestinian women are fighting and giving their lives, just like the Heroines of the Coronilla, who defended themselves against colonial armies and paid with their lives,” said Tina. 

But from the perspective of the mayor's office, women who display the green scarf are promoting abortion, which is criminalized in Bolivia except under certain circumstances. “Being a mother is not being a martyr, being a mother is life and resistance. The green scarf is a symbol of the right to abortion and our desire to take back our bodies,” said Adela. “It is part of a different narrative, in which motherhood is a choice and not an imposition.”

After they hung the kerchiefs and the flag that morning, Tina and Adela (and two others who documented the action) were approached by guards, who called police over to the monument. The police inspection report states that “no evidence of crime or damage to the monument was found.” The four women were released due to a lack of evidence against them after being held in the Special Force against Crime (FELCC) headquarters for four hours.

Criminalizing the movement

Sometimes we can tell that revenge or repression against women's freedom is coming, other times it's not so easy to predict. In this case, it arrived in September, just as spring began to reach the valleys around Cochabamba.

“We received a notification at our homes, together with a large police presence. That's when we learned that the mayor's office laid charges against us,” said Adela. “The prosecutor's office accepted a complaint based on Article 223 of the Bolivian penal code, which threatens one to six years of prison for destruction or damage to state property and national heritage.”

“The mayor's office is seeking to charge us with three crimes: damage to national patrimony, criminal association and apology of crime, and for our stance on abortion, related to the display of green handkerchiefs,” said Tina. On that last point Adela stressed that “We’re not encouraging anyone to have an abortion just by displaying a green scarf.” 

There is insufficient evidence for these accusations, but in its eagerness to criminalize the women, the mayor's office has presented an arbitrary expert report filled with inconsistent evidence that seeks to incriminate Tina and Adela. In their rush to criminalize the women, the city is using its institutional power to hinder their ability to mount a defense. 

“We are in the preliminary period, before the prosecution opens the criminal case. Later, the prosecution will join as an ex-officio complainant in the formal indictment,” said Adela.

“We have no trust in the patriarchal system. Even if we get the most accurate report from the best expert in the world confirming we did not cause any damage to the statue, it wouldn’t be enough to get this case dismissed,” said Tina.

It was all of us

The generalized crisis in Bolivia is masking a conservative advance that is well under way. This is a strategic moment for authorities to mount an anti-feminist criminal action. The justice system, which is very selective, is adding new files to the case folders, which now consist of three volumes. We know that the disciplinary counter-offensive has been agreed to by both the municipality and the Catholic church. Religious representatives have been raging since 2023, when feminists called out complicity and silencing in cases of ecclesiastical pedophilia.

The criminalization of women and feminists is an attempt at imposing discipline, and the message being sent is meant for all of us. Our comrades who are persecuted represent a much larger “we,” that has been fighting silence in the context of patriarchal war. 

And although the criminal injustice system confuses and entangles us, we are strengthened in our knowledge that we share responsibility in a collective manner. We will defend ourselves as best we can, and work to maintain the strength that produces our freedom.