ABSTRACT
The public display of force by the comunarios was a reminder of the power of the indigenous majority and the tenuous hegemony of their vecino antagonists. Towns remained a hostile environment where use of a sidewalk constituted trespassing, and transgressors could be forced into such indignities as cleaning the town plaza or sweeping streets. The hacendados who abandoned their estates following the 1952 Revolution found that the hostility of their former colonos followed them to their urban sanctuaries. Attacks by peasant militias on Altiplano towns were commonplace. A peasant militia invaded the pueblo of Ilabaya in Larecaja Province. The timely airlift of carabineros from La Paz relieved the town of Apolo from the threat of invasion by hostile peasants. Three hundred comunarios from the Cheja community encircled Sorata, a town in Larecaja Province (La Paz Department) in late February 1954 demanding the release of their secretary general jailed by the local authorities.
