At 13,000 feet, the hip hop movement in El Alto, Bolivia is probably the highest in the world. The music blends ancient Andean folk styles and new hip hop beats with lyrics about revolution and social change. As the sun set over the nearby snow capped mountains, I sat down with Abraham Bojorquez, a well known El Alto hip hop artist. We opened up a bag of coca leaves and began to talk about what he calls a new "instrument of struggle."

We were at Wayna Tambo, a radio station, cultural center and unofficial base of the city's hip hop scene. Bojorquez pulled a leaf out of the bag to chew and said, "We want to preserve our culture through our music. With hip hop, we're always looking back to our indigenous ancestors, the Aymaras, Quechuas, Guarani." He works with other hip hop artists in El Alto to show "the reality of what is happening in our country. Through our lyrics we criticize the bad politicians that take advantage of us. With this style of hip hop, we're an instrument of struggle, an instrument of the people."

Bojorquez belongs to a group of rappers in El Alto, a sprawling city above La Paz which is home to around 800,000 people. His group and music is called Wayna Rap (Wayna means young in Aymara). Under the umbrella of Wayna Rap are smaller bands like Insane Race, Uka Mau y Ke, Clandestine Race and others. They often get together in freestyle events, where different singers take turns at the mike, rapping.

Some of their songs are completely in Aymara, an indigenous language. Others include a mixture of Spanish, English, Quechua and Portuguese. This fusion of languages is an integral part of the group's philosophy, and adds to their appeal in El Alto, where a large section of the population speaks Aymara. "The door is open to everyone...This is our proposal for how to change society," Bojorquez said. Though they collaborate with a wide variety of people, "we don't just sing things like 'I'm feeling bad, my girlfriend just left me and now I am going to get drunk.' It's more about trying to solve problems in society." The social and political themes in the music come from the city's reality. The death and conflicts in the 2003 Gas War made a huge impact on El Alto, and many of these songs reflect that.

One song which Abraham made in his own group Uka Mau y Ke deals with the October 2003 mobilizations in El Alto against the gas exportation plan and president Sanchez de Lozada. In the song, "we speak about how bullets are being shot at the people and how we can't put up with this because the people are reclaiming their rights." This song starts out with the president saying he won't resign. His voice is ominous, gruff and peppered with an unmistakable US English accent: "Yo no voy a renunciar. Yo no voy a renunciar." The sounds of street clashes in the song become louder. The roar of machine guns and helicopters come and go until the beat and lyrics begin. "We are mobilized, arming street barricades. We are mobilized without noticing that we are killing between brothers." Another singer comes in, rapping about the "corrupt governments...with closed eyes that don't look at the reality in the society. Many people are ending up in poverty and delinquency, which is why they demand justice..." The song goes on to call Sanchez de Lozada a traitor and assassin. They demand his head, along with that of Carlos Mesa, the vice president. The music fuses with a testimony from a woman whose family member was shot by soldiers. The lyrics kick back in, "We hear over there that there are dead: 80 citizens, 5 police, and mass of people gravely injured. We're in a situation worse than war, killing each other, without a solution."

In many of Bojorquez's songs, Andean flutes and drums mesh with the beat. This aspect, along with the indigenous language, sets the music apart from standard hip hop. The topics covered are also distinct. In one song, they grapple with street violence and homelessness in El Alto. It deals with "children living in the street, orphans of mothers and fathers and the violence that grows every day. The lack of work, all of these things," Bojorquez explained. "We try to show the true reality of what is happening in the country, not hide it."

One of the most moving experiences Bojorquez said he's had within his musical career came when he was invited to perform at the office of the Neighborhood Organizations (Fejuve) of El Alto. He was nervous at first because the place was full of older people. His music is directed more toward a younger audience. After the first song, people clapped weakly. "Then we sang in Aymara and people became very emotional, crying. This was a very happy event for us. It made us think that what we are doing isn't in vain, that it can make an impact on people."

The title of his next CD is "Instrument of Struggle", referring to his musical philosophy. "More than anything our music is a form of protest, but with proposals. We unite, we organize. We look for unity, not division. We want to open the eyes of people with closed eyes...The music is a part of life."

When Bojorquez and I met months later, it was clear that El Alto's hip hop movement was growing. More people were calling Bojorquez for pointers on their music or for help with CD recordings. Others were starting their own groups and showing up at Wayna Tambo for concerts. "Today this music is arriving to many young people who identify with the songs and lyrics," Bojorquez said. "In El Alto there is a lot of poverty and in the lyrics we talk about this. People identify with it."

He had recently helped initiate hip hop classes in a large prison in La Paz which focuses on prisoners that are between 16-18 years old. The idea started when Bojorquez and others did a concert there. The reception was so enthusiastic that they worked to organize a hip hop class in June 2006. Through the classes, Bojorquez said they are trying to "show the jail's reality from the inside." He said the jail was a whole other city within La Paz, a "dead city" without hope. "This is where the hip hop comes in, so that people don't feel like all is lost." At the end of the program, the group will put on a performance and record a disk. Based on the success of the class, Bojorquez expects the program to continue into the future. "They are telling a history that reaches people and can prevent other youth from making the same mistakes," he said. "A lot of them regret what they did and they talk about it in their songs." He offered lyrics by Cesar as an example:

"Yo soy preso en San Pedro/I am a prisoner in San Pedro Estoy esperando la puta paciencia de mi abogado/I am waiting on the fucking patience of my lawyer Lo que el me ha dicho ya me olvidado/What he has told me I already forgot Por tomar el camino mas corto/ By taking the short cut Yo mismo me fregado/I messed myself up"

Back at Wayna Tambo, I ran into some of Bojorquez's fellow rappers, Grover Canaviri Huallpa and Dennis Quispe Issa. Both worked jobs and studied at the same time, leaving little room for writing lyrics and listening to music. We were waiting for a bus to a hip hop concert. It was cold and the bus was late, so we went inside and talked. Like others going to the concert, they were dressed like people I knew in New York City. The camouflage and baseball caps, the baggy pants, it was all very familiar. But it wasn't just the clothing style that these two felt a connection with. "I identify a lot with the hip hop groups in the US that speak of violence and discrimination," Huallpa said. "My mother only studied to 5th grade. She has suffered discrimination. We used to all be out in the streets."

Huallpa started listening to rap in the mid 1990s, and started writing his own lyrics a few years later. "Before Wayna Tambo there were pirated radios, secret places where we gathered because our parents didn't accept it." Both admitted their parents didn't understand their lifestyle as rappers. "They think we are just copying the US," Issa said. "People on the street discriminate us for the way we talk, walk and dress." They both agreed that this kind of hip hop was growing in El Alto in part because of the experience of the Gas War. "October 2003 was a huge change for us musically," Issa explained, referring to the mobilizations. "It had a big impact on El Alto."

Below El Alto, in La Paz, another hip hop movement was thriving. Sdenka Suxo Cadena, a 27 year old hip hop artist and marketing major in college, has been a part of the scene for over ten years. When I met her at the home of Mujeres Creando (Women Creating), an anarchist, feminist group, Cuban salsa was playing on the radio. Her hair was in pigtails and she smiled and laughed a lot while talking about her work. She started rapping in 1996, when she was in high school. "I started doing it because I didn't like society's system - the classism, materialism, the elite. This didn't make people happy." After hanging out with different hip hop groups in La Paz and El Alto, she decided to start a women's hip hop group in 2000. "I didn't like to be controlled by a boy, or be someone else's lady. Other women didn't either. So we started our own group called the Nueva Flavah and had our own meetings and events."

Each Thursday they organized a gathering of men and women from different areas of the city to perform hip-hop, break dance and exchange styles. "We wanted to share hip hop without caring about the differences between us." They did have some rules, however. "We didn't let people in that just talked about gangs, violence, drugs and guns." Her music deals with such topics as Latin American unification, chauvinism, AIDS, race, women's issues and nationalism. She knew politics were important, "but for real change to happen, people have to change themselves."

When I met her, Cadena was about to open a place for hip hop activities and recording music. "Some kids need help editing music, recording. We help them get their message out." One of the events their doing now is a CD exchange where other artists can bring in their own disks and trade or buy one for less than a dollar.

She believed hip hop was becoming more popular in Bolivia because anyone can produce the music, regardless of whether or not they know how to play an instrument. "It's popular in poor neighborhoods where people might not have a guitar. All you need is a pen and paper. You don't need money. You can do it anywhere. People largely identify with it in marginalized neighborhoods, where people don't have access to music lessons or instruments." She also said it is growing along with the current political changes all around Latin America. "It's part of this regional protest movement."

I had an opportunity to see this movement in action at a hip hop concert one cold June night in a neighborhood outside La Paz. We zipped up into the hills like a roller coaster, weaving up steep streets past angry dogs, lit up corner stores, a woman shaking laundry out the window and soccer games under street lamps. The road wound up the hill like a drunken snake at impossible angles. The route was a cavernous labyrinth that never seemed to end. We almost crashed twice and had to ask for directions three times. Eventually the city spread out below in a vast collection of blue, white, yellow and orange lights, oozing and bubbling with life. Beyond the lights were the Andes Mountains in complete darkness. The stars were barely visible, belittled by the constellation of the city.

The concert took place at a large room in a school building. A banner hung outside the door, where young people dressed like New York City rappers were hanging out and smoking. Tilted baseball caps, baggy pants and shirts with US sports logos were the norm. It cost about 12 cents for a ticket. I handed over the money while my friend and I were frisked for alcohol: it was a dry event. Inside, the room was packed with people standing up, bopping to the music, or sitting in chairs. On a balcony above the crowd the performers swung microphones, shook their fists in the air and rapped tirelessly. It looked like a cross between a high school dance and a poetry reading. It had the same angst and self consciousness. The sound quality of the speakers was poor, but the enthusiasm was high. The audience clapped and cheered at every opportunity that merited it. Most songs were a mixture of Spanish and Aymara, with three words making regular appearances: coca, revolution and Mother Earth.

Many of the young people were sipping on clandestine bottles of booze, making out and slicking back their hair. The room was a convergence of cultures. Some rappers spoke of blunts and guns in one breath and their president Evo Morales the next. Bojorquez wore a red baseball cap from a US team, but his coat had indigenous designs on it with the name of his band in Aymara written across the front. I recognized some of the beats from US music, but the flutes, drums and rhythms were all Bolivian. The concert mixed Andean phrases and symbols thousands of years old with themes and rhymes fresh out of MTV music videos. Nations, music, histories and dance moves fused in a new Bolivian hip hop.

The finale was a performance by a young kid who couldn't have been more than ten years old. He proceeded to swing his cap, move his feet and dance exactly like Michael Jackson. The crowd went wild.

Leonida Zurita Vargas, a Bolivian coca farmer organizer and alternate Senator, was planning to be in the US right now as part of a three week speaking tour on Bolivian social movements and human rights. This tour would take her to Vermont, Harvard, Stanford and Washington DC. However, upon checking in at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on February 20th to fly to the US, she was informed her ten year visa had been revoked because of alleged links to terrorist activity.

"I said if I was a terrorist then I should be in jail," Zurita told reporters. She obtained this visa in 1998 and had used it to travel to the US on four previous speaking tours.

A letter from the US Embassy in Bolivia explained her visa was revoked in May, 2004 due to a section of the USA-PATRIOT Act which bars anyone from entering the US that poses a security threat or has participated in or incited terrorist activity.

Her background, however, tells the story of someone who has fought for human rights and peace in her country for years. This mother of two young sons is one of the leading women politicians in Bolivia. She came into the political realm, like President Evo Morales, through her work in coca farmer unions in the Chapare, a coca producing region in Bolivia where the US sponsored war on drugs has resulted in forced eradication of crops sold for traditional use and violence against poor farmers. Though coca leaves are used to produce cocaine, for centuries the leaves have been utilized as a mild stimulant and medicine to combat altitude sickness and fatigue. A large market in Bolivia makes coca farming a legal, viable occupation.

According to the University of Vermont, "In 1997, The Coordinating Committee of the Six Women Peasant Federations of the Tropics was formed under Leonida's leadership and she continues to be democratically re-elected every two years...Leonida has traveled extensively abroad...and on four US tours sponsored by Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, The Kensington Welfare Rights Union Poor People's March, People's Global Action, and most recently Harvard University's Kennedy School. Last year, Leonida was a candidate for the RF Kennedy Human Rights Award."

Zurita is a long time colleague and friend of President Evo Morales, who was elected in a landslide victory on December 18th, 2005. Morales spoke of her visa rejection at a recent press conference in the presidential palace. "I want to tell the U.S. government not to confuse us with some parties implicated in drug-trafficking," he said. "We are not terrorists or drug traffickers but rather humans who want to democratically change our history in Bolivia."

So why was her visa canceled?

According to Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, "In 2003 [Zurita] was accused of "terrorism" by the government of ousted-President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, served a brief time in jail in Cochabamba, and was released for lack of evidence."

The Center for International Policy (CIP), and think tank in Washington DC which invited Zurita to speak on this tour, reported that she has been accused of crimes in Bolivia but found innocent in each case.

"In Bolivia...the word "terrorism" is too often used to brand one's political opponents...If the terrorism label does not stick - and we strongly believe it does not - the reason for the visa decision must be politics," explains an article on the CIP's website.

In Burlington, Vermont, Zurita was invited to be the keynote speaker at the "Winds of Change in the Americas" conference which will take place on Sunday, March 5th. Robin Lloyd, an organizer of the conference, said she met Zurita in 1996 during one her first tours of the US. "At that point I saw her very strong commitment to her community, the farmers in the Chapare and I heard about the oppression they were facing from then Bolivian President Banzer, a drug war zealot. He was following the dictates from Washington down the line, supporting a plan for zero coca in a country where this is impossible because coca is a leaf that many people chew as part of traditional ceremonies and daily work," Lloyd said. "Leonida Zurita is an important figure in Bolivian politics and we invited her here to exchange ideas and articulate the change that needs to happen in the war on drugs."

The case for Zurita's visa cancellation is not an isolated one. Dr. Waskar Ari is an Aymara Indian from Bolivia who received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He was recently offered a teaching position at the University of Nebraska, but his visa was denied because his name was "placed on a list of individuals under 'conspicuous revision'--that is, he is being subjected to extensive background checks due to alleged security concerns," reported the American Historical Association.

Barbara S. Weinstein, the President of the American Historical Association told the Chronicle for Higher Education that Dr. Ari "has certainly never been a member of any movement that would be of a security concern to the U.S. government."

"We invited Leonida here to increase the dialogue between US citizens and Bolivians at a time of historic change in Latin America. Yet the US government is clamping down exchanges such as this in the name of the war on terror," Robin Lloyd said. "The US government is taking a hard line against countries like Venezuela and Bolivia; they are trying to stifle the winds of change that are sweeping through Latin America."

Lloyd and other organizers of the "Winds of Change in the Americas" conference are working to bring Zurita to speak in spite of the visa rejection. They have contacted the US embassy in La Paz, the offices of Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Bernie Sanders to obtain a new visa for Zurita in time for Sunday's conference. If she cannot arrive in person, she will give a speech via phone to the conference crowd.

The "Winds of Change in the Americas" conference will take place on Sunday, March 5th from 3-9 PM at the Unitarian Church at the head of Church Street in Burlington, Vermont. In addition to the presentation by Zurita, George Ann Potter, Zurita's political advisor in Bolivia, will also to speak at the event. There will be discussions led by Vermonters who recently returned from Caracas, Venezuela for the World Social Forum, a gathering of social movements, NGOs and activists from around the globe. Representatives from the Vermont Worker's Center will be discussing social movements in Vermont.

For those interested in calling the US Embassy in La Paz to voice their concerns, and support Leonida Zurita Vargas' right to travel to the US, the number is 011-591-2216-8000. For more information on the "Winds of Change in the Americas Conference," call 1-802-862-2024.

When the leaders of the world's eight most powerful countries arrive in Sea Island, Georgia for the Group of Eight (G8) Summit from June 8-10, activists from around the globe will be there to unwelcome them. With the Democratic and Republican National Conventions right around the corner, many protesters are converging at the G8 Summit to kick off what will be a summer of dissent.

The G8 Summits began in 1975 and currently include leaders from the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Russia and this year's president of the European Union (a rotating position currently assigned to the Prime Minister of Ireland). Leaders from each country meet at the Summits annually to coordinate efforts around such issues as international trade, the war on drugs and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This year's meeting will be dominated by talks regarding the conflicts in the Middle East, global economic growth and the war on terror.

To protest the centralization of power that the G8 represent, and to create an alternative gathering of the minds, activist groups in Georgia have planned parallel events, forums and film screenings on topics ranging from biodiesel to human rights. The scheduled marches will focus on environmental issues, ending the occupation of Iraq and dropping IMF/World Bank debt for impoverished countries. In addition to daily demonstrations, a Fair World Fair and People's Summit are scheduled to take place in Brunswick, a city near Sea Island.

Isabelle Myles, a pastor and long-time resident of Brunswick, Ga. said one of the major topics among speakers at the People's Summit will be the environment. Toxic waste from the Hercules and the Georgia Pacific plants, which manufacture wood pulp and products extracted from pine stumps, have been contaminating the area for years. As a result, Brunswick has one of the highest cancer rates in the country.

Myles said the People's Summit will be a forum for citizens to congregate and voice their concerns about issues they feel will be under represented at the G8 Summit. "I am not against the G8 meetings," Myles explained, "but behind closed doors, President Bush needs to think of the implications before he signs on the dotted line. People work each day without benefits and don't earn enough to pay rent. The job market is kaput and minimum wage is about 5-6 dollars an hour. That's ludicrous. The president couldn't live on that paycheck, but he expects us to."

Naomi Archer, an organizer with the Save Our Civil Liberties Campaign, said activists will converge in Georgia for a variety of reasons, but that "what is an affront to almost everyone is the fact that eight white men will be meeting in private on a lavish island behind army lines, while the rest of the six billion have to "await" their decisions about world policies."

Though the G8 is in many ways an elite club, Bush has invited leaders from Middle Eastern and African countries to the Summit. In a press conference, Condoleezza Rice said the presence of Arab leaders at the meeting will offer an "opportunity for the G8 to discuss how it can support freedom and political, economic and social progress in the Middle East, and to hear from these leaders about their efforts to pursue democracy and reform in their countries..."

Lisa Fithian, the National Co-Chair of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of more than 750 local and national groups, said "the Arab leaders aren't going to have any influence; they can choose to participate by not coming, and they'll be given only two hours to cover nine major issues. That says it all." When asked about the possible effects anti-Iraq War leaders from Russia, France and Germany could have on conversations at the summit, Fithian said, "My hope is that they convince Bush and others to withdraw troops. There is no way to have sovereignty when you have a foreign country occupying your land."

Pepper Spray and Rubber Bullets

Fithian expects police strategies at the G8 to be similar to those used at the November 2003 FTAA protests in Miami, Fla. where excessive use of force by police resulted in 283 arrests. Pepper spray and rubber bullets were commonly used by police in Miami and in one case, an officer shot pepper spray into a building used as a clinic for injured activists.

Brunswick is already beginning to look like an occupied city. Chito Lapena, a member of Savannah for Peace and an organizer for the Fair World Fair, said, "I was born in the Philippines at times when Marcos instituted martial law. The biggest difference right now between Brunswick and a country under martial law is that thankfully, these guys are not holding their rifles in the open." Lapena spoke of tanks blocking the causeway to Sea Island, convoys of state patrol cars shuttling all over town, buses filled with law enforcement and humvees flown in on a fleet of cargo planes. "Locals," he said, "Don't know what to think."

Tensions between protesters and police at G8 Summits are nothing new. At the 2001 Summit in Genoa, Italy one protester was killed by a policeman and at the meetings in Canada in 2002 there were countless incidents of police brutality. Many activists planning to attend this year's events in Georgia fear that excessive use of force by the police will be the rule rather than the exception.

The State of Georgia has received $25 million in federal funding for G8 security efforts and Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has declared a State of Emergency for areas near the Summit. Perdue cited "potential danger...for unlawful assemblages, threats of violence" as reasons for the declaration, which allows over 25,000 police to institute an extensive crackdown on the right to dissent.

Aside from the expected conflicts between police and protesters, the gathering of world leaders at the G8 Summit could produce some positive results. Those from countries against the Iraq War could help convince the Bush administration to establish better policies in Iraq, or pull troops out entirely. Leaders from African and Arab nations attending the meeting could work with the G8 to alleviate poverty and unrest in their countries.

"Miracles can happen," said Chito Lapena. "But some G8 Summits have proven to be no more than expensive photo ops." However, the activist events and forums will bring people together to exchange ideas and promote alternatives to G8 policies. "It is an excellent opportunity to educate the people ... about globalization and how their actions or inaction impact the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Bush's only policy is -- Me cowboy, you lose. And the American people need to learn that America and democracy should be above that."