Bolivia

by: OLIVIA ARIGHO-STILES Photo by Olivia Arigho Stiles. La Paz, Bolivia Last Thursday thousands of people descended into La Paz from El Alto carrying the caskets of eight people shot dead by police earlier that week. Emotions were running high and protestors had tears streaming down their faces. They had assembled peacefully to demand justice. “Áñez, murderer. We want your resignation”, they shouted. “Justicia!”. It was not a march in support of a political party; it was a march of grief and fury. Around thirty minutes later, the police dropped cans of tear gas over the marchers, forcing the families to abandon the coffins on the ground under the hot sun. As the tear gas floated across Plaza San Francisco, people implored “calma, calma” to prevent a crush as the crowd fl...

by VIJAY PRASHAD Photograph Source: Sámediggi Sametinget – CC BY 2.0 Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to bring economic and social democracy to his long-exploited country. It is important to recall that Bolivia has suffered a series of coups, often conducted by the military and the oligarchy on behalf of transnational mining companies. Initially, these were tin firms, but tin is no longer the main target in Bolivia. The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. Over the past 13 years, Morales has tried to build a different relationship between his country and its resources. He has not wanted the resources...

by JOE EMERSBERGER Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair It would be hard to point to a country whose president has more democratic legitimacy than Evo Morales. Nobody can seriously dispute that he won the first round of the presidential election on October 20 by a landslide. He received 47% of the vote in an election with 88% turnout, as most polls predicted. That doubles the percentage of the eligible vote that US presidents generally receive. I’ll say a bit more about that below, but it’s crucial to note that he was elected to his present term (which does not expire until January) with 61% of the vote in an election with roughly the same turnout. Morales’ recent “resignation” came at the point of a gun.  He fled to Mexico whose government offered him asylum. The unelected m...

by NINO PAGLICCIA Photograph Source: Canal 7 de Jujuy – CC BY 2.5 A coup took place in Bolivia on November 10. The fact that the president of the country, Evo Morales, resigned does not contradict the fact that a coup has taken place. Morales was forced by the military to resign. The perpetrators of the Hybrid War were envisioning this same scenario for Venezuela but failed while they succeed in Bolivia. What made the difference? Bolivia and Venezuela are similar in their independent approach to following a socialist path to break away from the hegemonic interference and economic exploitation from the US and its allies. Both countries have been successful in reducing poverty and achieving economic growth by the social use of their resources. And both countries have been subj...

Right-wing opposition forces, and their supporters in the U.S. government, benefited from the sheer ignorance of the electoral process in Bolivia, which was weaponized to further destabilize the country. by: Kevin Gosztola Moments after Trump’s statement praising the Bolivian military, Mexico announced it had granted Morales political asylum. Around two dozen lawmakers and officials from Bolivia already had sought refuge from Mexico. (Photo: Flickr) President Donald Trump celebrated a military coup in Bolivia that forced President Evo Morales, who recently won a fourth term, to resign on November 10. “After nearly 14 years and his recent attempt to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales’ departure preserves democracy and paves the way for th...

The media message from the Bolivia case is clear: A coup is not a coup if we like the outcome. by: Alan MacLeod His policies drew the great ire of the US government, Western corporations and the corporate press, who function as the ideological shock troops against leftist governments in Latin America. (Photo: CBS/Screenshot) Army generals appearing on television to demand the resignation and arrest of an elected civilian head of state seems like a textbook example of a coup. And yet that is certainly not how corporate media are presenting the weekend’s events in Bolivia. When the military forces the elected president to “step down” (New York Times, 11/10/19), there’s a four-letter word for that. No establishment outlet framed the action as a coup; instead, President Evo Mo...

The overthrow of the elected leader cannot be understood without a glance at the nation's massive reserves of this crucial mineral. by: Vijay Prashad Supporters of Bolivian ex-President Evo Morales, take part in a march in downtown La Paz on November 12, 2019, after he left in exile to Mexico. - Bolivia's Evo Morales was en route to exile in Mexico on Tuesday, leaving behind a country in turmoil after his abrupt resignation as president. The senator set to succeed Morales as interim president, Jeanine Anez, pledged to call fresh elections to end the political crisis. (Photo: Aizar Raldes/AFP via Getty Images) Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to ...