{"id":166522,"date":"2020-08-17T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=166522"},"modified":"2020-08-08T07:24:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T06:24:48","slug":"as-bolivian-regime-delays-elections-a-third-time-media-continue-to-ignore-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/08\/as-bolivian-regime-delays-elections-a-third-time-media-continue-to-ignore-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"As Bolivian Regime Delays Elections a Third Time, Media Continue to Ignore Coup"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

6 Aug 2020 – <\/em>In the Bolivian elections last October 20, incumbent President Evo Morales of the Movement Toward Socialism party (MAS in Spanish) won a 10-point victory over his nearest challenger, as pre-election polls predicted<\/a>. The next day,\u00a0 the Organization of American States issued a statement<\/a> challenging the legitimacy of the elections, asserting a \u201chard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results.\u201d Immediately, right wingers violently took to the streets to protest the president. The OAS issued a followup statement <\/a>confirming their analysis on November 10. The same day, the military forced Morales to step down.<\/p>\n

\"Washington<\/p>\n

Reports like the Washington Post<\/strong>\u2018s (11\/10\/19<\/a>) failed to convey the reality that Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced out by the military.<\/em><\/p>\n

Senator Jeanine A\u00f1ez declared herself president with the support of high-ranking members of the Bolivian military, as well as the US State Department<\/a>\u2014despite the fact that her conservative party earned a mere 4% of the vote during the elections.<\/p>\n

This military coup was immediately decried by observers<\/a> who have seen this familiar pattern of toppling governments. Mark Weisbrot, director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research, debunked<\/a> the OAS statement, noting that it provided \u201cabsolutely no evidence \u2014 no statistics, numbers, or facts of any kind,\u201d to support its conclusions. The CEPR objections were largely ignored by corporate media (FAIR.org<\/b>, 11\/18\/19<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Immediately after A\u00f1ez took power, security forces unleashed deadly violence<\/a> against those who resisted. A\u00f1ez began to sell off<\/a> public resources and take loans from international creditors.<\/p>\n

When a country\u2019s military forces the ouster<\/a> of a sitting president, that is a military coup. Referring to it simply as a \u201cresignation\u201d\u2014as in the Washington Post<\/b>\u2019s \u201cBolivia\u2019s Morales Resigns Amid Scathing Election Report, Rising Protests\u201d (11\/10\/19<\/a>)\u2014fails to capture the nature of the overthrow. Describing Morales\u2019 ouster as merely happening \u201camid widespread unrest\u201d is a way of telling readers: \u201cThis sort of thing happens all the time in this part of the world. No need to look into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

US media ignored dissenters from the OAS throughout this period, and endorsed the coup, as FAIR (3\/5\/20<\/a>) has previously reported. Even when dissenting <\/a>views were brought up, there was little discussion of the implication: that the US had supported<\/a> yet another unlawful coup.<\/p>\n

\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

Both the New York Times<\/strong> (6\/7\/20<\/a>) and Washington Post<\/strong> (2\/27\/20<\/a>) have now run articles casting doubt on the OAS\u2019s accusations of vote fraud.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Four months after the coup was a done deal, with Morales and others forced from the country, the Washington Post <\/b>published a research piece (2\/27\/20<\/a>) that found that \u201cthe OAS\u2019s statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed.\u201d The piece opened by explicitly describing the November 10 ouster of Morales as a \u201cmilitary-backed coup.\u201d There was still no mention of the US role.<\/p>\n

A\u00f1ez came into power as an \u201cinterim<\/a>\u201d president, with a mandate to hold elections as soon as possible. The government instead delayed elections in March, then again in May, both times citing concerns about coronavirus. Notably, polls<\/a> show that the MAS candidate, Luis Arce, has been leading in the polls for some time and would win fair elections.<\/p>\n

Even the New York Times<\/b> (3\/30\/20<\/a>)\u00a0 acknowledged that this delay was a way of consolidating power, publishing a piece headlined, \u201cFor Autocrats, and Others, Coronavirus Is a Chance to Grab Even More Power\u201d that included the (first) delay of Bolivia\u2019s \u201cmuch anticipated\u201d elections. It\u2019s unclear whether A\u00f1ez is meant to be considered an \u201cautocrat\u201d or one of the \u201cothers\u201d; the piece only mentions that \u201ca disputed election last year set off violent protests and forced President Evo Morales to resign.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times <\/b>(6\/7\/20<\/a>) has since reported its own analysis of the Bolivian election results, concluding that \u201cthe Organization of American States\u2019 statistical analysis was itself flawed.\u201d The irregularities the OAS found were \u201can artifact of the analysts\u2019 error,\u201d the academic paper<\/a> cited by the Times<\/b> found.<\/p>\n

FAIR (7\/8\/20<\/a>) has previously reported on the Times<\/b>\u2019 belated admission. Glenn Greenwald,\u00a0 writing for the Intercept <\/b>(7\/8\/20<\/a>), put a fine point on the subject in a piece headlined \u201cThe New York Times<\/b> Admits Key Falsehoods That Drove Last Year\u2019s Coup in Bolivia: Falsehoods Peddled by the US, Its Media and the Times<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet after both of the nation\u2019s leading papers admitted that the reason for declaring the October election a fraud was itself a fraud, few have asked the critical questions about why the OAS and the United States were so quick to have Morales removed from office. In fact, few media outlets altered their coverage of Bolivia at all.<\/p>\n

Reuters <\/b>(7\/9\/20<\/a>) described how \u201ca disputed election led to widespread protests that eventually toppled\u2026Evo Morales,\u201d with a later piece (7\/15\/20<\/a>) reporting that A\u00f1ez \u201ctook power in a political vacuum.\u201d A CNN <\/b>segment (7\/17\/20<\/a>) on the COVID crisis in Bolivia described how \u201cwidespread unrest last year led to the resignation of longtime leader Evo Morales.\u201d None of these gave any hint that the complaints about the election had been debunked, and that the shift in power amounted to a coup.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Bolivian government announced<\/a> that elections would be delayed for a third time. Critics again claim that the crisis is being used to further consolidate power. Former President Morales, who is currently living in exile in Argentina, said<\/a> that \u201cthe de facto government wants to gain more time to continue the persecution of social leaders and against MAS candidates. It\u2019s yet another form of persecution.\u201d One of the coup leaders, far-right leader Fernando Comacho, is calling<\/a> for elections to be canceled altogether.<\/p>\n

\n

\"AP:<\/p>\n

AP<\/strong>\u2018s headline (7\/23\/20<\/a>) takes the coup government\u2019s rationale for delaying elections at face value.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In Western reporting on the latest election delay, outlets consistently failed to place it in the context of the coup. It is as if the Times<\/b> and Post<\/b>\u2019s admissions never happened.<\/p>\n

A Reuters <\/b>piece \u00a0<\/b>(7\/23\/20<\/a>)\u00a0 headlined \u201cBolivia Election Delayed to October as Pandemic Bites, Opposition Cries Foul,\u201d described how the current government came to power: \u201cA fraught election last year sparked widespread protests and led to the resignation of the country\u2019s long-term leftist leader.\u201d They kept to the official narrative of a \u201cfraught election,\u201d rather than the reality of a right-wing usurpation, given cover by false OAS proclamations. There was no indication that the delay could be a form of power consolidation.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press <\/b>(republished by Washington Post<\/b>, 7\/23\/20<\/a>) not only ignored the context of the coup, it also whitewashed the opposition\u2019s criticism of the delay. Morales was cited as objecting to the delay on procedural grounds, and worrying about the \u201ccountry\u2019s crisis of legitimacy.\u201d No direct quotes from the former president were used.<\/p>\n

US media have a well-documented history<\/a> of supporting right-wing coups and regimes around the world, and not much seems to be changing. It is abundantly clear that Morales was unlawfully overthrown by his country\u2019s military on false pretexts. The United States supported and continues to support this coup. That media narratives remain unchanged even after the release and acknowledgment of new evidence indicates that it is official dogma, and not reality, that sets the tone of journalistic coverage.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bryce Greene is a student at Indiana University\/Bloomington.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Aug 2020 – When a country\u2019s military oust a sitting president by force, that is a military coup. Referring to it simply as a \u201cresignation\u201d–as in the Washington Post\u2019s 11\/10\/19–fails to capture the nature of the overthrow. Describing Morales\u2019 ouster as merely happening \u201camid widespread unrest\u201d is a way of telling readers: \u201cThis sort of thing happens all the time in this part of the world. No need to look into it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[1140,1607,232,120,354,1085,267,1126,487,1050,866,541,1625,780,551,109,287,103,329,70,126],"class_list":["post-166522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-bolivia","tag-bolivian-coup","tag-capitalism","tag-conflict","tag-economics","tag-evo-morales","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-lithium","tag-military-intervention","tag-neocolonialism","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-racism","tag-resources","tag-usa","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}