Jenaro Flores Santos

Who is Jenaro Flores Santos?

Jenaro Flores Santos, often Genaro Flores Santos, is a Bolivian trade union leader and politician.

Flores Santos was the founder of the Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, or CSUTCB. He also played a prominent role in formulating katarismo as a distinct trend in the social and political struggles in Bolivia.

Flores Santos did his military service in the Waldo Ballivián Regiment in 1965. During his military service he witnessed the suppression of the popular militias, an event that impacted his political orientation. Later he began studies at the Faculty of Law at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés. There he founded, along with other students from his home province, the Julián Apaza University Movement. From 1968, Flores Santos emerged as the leader of the La Paz-based Aymara nucleus of peasant activists that sought to challenge the Military-Peasant Pact.

In January 1969, Flores Santos became the local head of the trade union in Antipampa, and two months later he became the union head for the Aroma province. In June 1969 he became the executive secretary of the La Paz Department Farmer-Labourers Federation.