On September 18, a wave of strikes and protests by the people of Bolivia culminated with the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, head of the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) and known to the Bolivian people as the "American president". He was replaced by his vice-president, Carlos Mesa, who pledged to end the killing of protesters by the police and armed forces and to reverse the neo-liberal policies of his predecessor.

The uprising of the Bolivian people was sparked by a government announcement of a deal to export huge amounts of natural gas to the United States. The deal was seen by the people as yet another sellout of the resources of Bolivia to the foreign imperialists by the Bolivian ruling class. The opposition to this sellout involved broad sections of Bolivian society, but the most determined resistance appears to have been spearheaded by Bolivia's indigenous population, which constitutes a majority of the population and which has been fighting foreign domination and exploitation for hundreds of years.

The indigenous peoples of Latin America are increasingly coming to the conclusion that the struggle for rights and for freedom from poverty and oppression is inseparably bound up with the struggle against imperialism and the remnants of the colonial regimes. They have emerged in the forefront of a growing struggle for national sovereignty and democracy which pits them against all of the forces of the old society, including the U.S. imperialists and the local ruling elites that profit from the imperialist exploitation of their own people. Such movements for national liberation are not new to Latin America, but are enjoying a new resurgence in many countries in the region after decades of suppression by pro-American governments and their armed forces which are trained and equipped by the United States.

It is too early to predict whether this upsurge in the popular movements in Latin America will lead to a new wave of revolutions in the region or whether the U.S. imperialists and their allies amongst the local ruling elites will succeed in suppressing or diverting these struggles. However, these movements have certainly emerged as a force which the U.S. must reckon with and which are greatly complicating the efforts of the American imperialists to extricate themselves from the deepening crisis in which they find themselves.