{"id":181934,"date":"2021-04-05T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=181934"},"modified":"2021-03-30T08:28:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T07:28:37","slug":"despite-u-s-dirty-tricks-bolivia-is-finding-a-way-to-stay-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/despite-u-s-dirty-tricks-bolivia-is-finding-a-way-to-stay-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite U.S. Dirty Tricks, Bolivia Is Finding a Way to Stay Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

29 Mar 2021 – <\/em>Sentiments in Bolivia for and against the coup d\u2019etat of November 2019 are predictably along class lines. Those from more affluent sections felt that the socialist policies of the government of President Evo Morales (which was in power from 2006 to 2019) were eating into their authority. But these sections could not oust Morales at the ballot box because his policies of redistribution were wildly popular among the mass of the population. Morales won three elections, each of them with a decisive mandate: winning 53.74 percent in 2005, 64.08 percent in 2009, and 61.36 percent in 2014.<\/p>\n

Pressure to prevent Morales from running in the election in 2019 mounted early, but it failed. The opposition\u2014with the full backing of the U.S. government\u2014tried to undermine the October 2019 election by painting it as fraudulent. With no real evidence, the military\u2014with a green light from Washington, D.C.\u2014moved against Morales, sending him into exile.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Bolivia coup-appointed president Jeanine Anez. November 2019 VOA News -YouTube<\/p><\/div>\n

Coup Regime<\/strong><\/p>\n

Morales was replaced by a minor extreme right lawmaker, Jeanine \u00c1\u00f1ez, who became the interim president. Harsh repression against Morales\u2019 party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS), followed, and Morales was forced to leave Bolivia. Almost immediately, then U.S. President Donald Trump said<\/a> that the coup \u201cpreserves democracy.\u201d As the violence of the coup unfolded, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described<\/a> it as \u201cBolivia\u2019s political transition to democracy\u201d; Pompeo\u2019s statement was made on November 21, 2019.<\/p>\n

Two days before Pompeo\u2019s statement, troops under the authority of \u00c1\u00f1ez conducted two documented massacres of MAS supporters at Senkata and Sacaba (near El Alto). The day after the killings, and the day before Pompeo\u2019s statement, the New York Times reported<\/a> on the killings in Senkata. None of this mattered to \u00c1\u00f1ez, whose Defense Minister Luis Fernando L\u00f3pez denied the murders (\u201cnot one bullet was fired,\u201d he said<\/a>), or to Pompeo. This kind of coup was business as usual for Washington, D.C. (I recount the story of this coup in Washington Bullets<\/em>, my book<\/a> about the CIA, coups and assassinations.)<\/p>\n

But the Bolivian people were not going to allow their democratic rights to be stolen. They began to organize against the \u00c1\u00f1ez regime, which tried to postpone elections over and over again. Eventually, a month before the October 2020 elections were held, \u00c1\u00f1ez herself dropped out for her embarrassingly low poll numbers, and the MAS\u2014led by Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca\u2014prevailed with 55.10 percent of the vote. Morales returned to the country triumphantly, and President Arce revived the MAS agenda to advance the interests of the Bolivian people.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ex President Evo Morales of Bolivia.
Peter Foley\/EPA<\/p><\/div>\n

No Impunity for Coups<\/strong><\/p>\n

No coup can go by without some framework to reestablish faith in institutions and to prevent the feeling of impunity among the coup makers. Therefore, after a legal process, on March 13, the Bolivian authorities arrested<\/a> a dozen people, most of them political leaders of the coup, and released arrest warrants for military officers who exceeded their constitutional authority. The most high-profile arrest was of \u00c1\u00f1ez, who tweeted<\/a>, \u201cThe political persecution has begun.\u201d A warrant was made for General Williams Kaliman who nudged Morales to resign. It is telling that two of the men who were to be arrested\u2014Defense Minister Luis Fernando L\u00f3pez and Interior Minister Arturo Murillo\u2014have taken refuge in the United States. Yerko N\u00fa\u00f1ez Negrette, another minister, who came out shouting<\/a> about a \u201chunt for former ministers,\u201d has vanished.<\/p>\n

Not long after the arrest, the new U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, released a statement<\/a> warning of the \u201canti-democratic behavior\u201d of the Bolivian government. It is important to pause here: Blinken, U.S. President Joe Biden\u2019s secretary of state, is not critical of the coup of November 2019 but of the arrest of the coup makers in March 2021. Trump said that the coup \u201cpreserves democracy,\u201d and now Blinken says that the legal process against the coup makers is \u201canti-democratic.\u201d The word \u201cdemocracy\u201d has lost its meaning when uttered by U.S. government officials.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Luis Arce, centre, celebrates with his running mate, David Choquehuanca, right, on 19 Oct 2020. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Group of Friends<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the most part, the Biden administration continues the broad U.S. policy to seek paramountcy over the countries of the world. The U.S. government\u2019s unilateral and illegal sanctions against more than 30 countries come alongside the promotion of regime change policies against countries such as Venezuela and Iran. Blinken\u2019s statement about Bolivia indicates the continuities between the Trump and Biden administration.<\/p>\n

No wonder that 17 countries\u2014including Bolivia\u2014formed a new group in 2019 to address the way in which some countries\u2014such as the United States\u2014have undermined the United Nations Charter. The Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations first met<\/a> on the margins of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting held in Caracas, Venezuela, in July 2019. This was before the coup in Bolivia. The pandemic disrupted the process of building the group, which resurfaced<\/a> in March 2021 at the United Nations. \u201cStrengthening multilateralism is essential,\u201d said<\/a> Venezuela\u2019s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza. The members of the group include China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, which gives heft to the process.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Marandi, who teaches at the University of Tehran, told me that this group is an antidote to the \u201cmajor problems that currently exist with the UN, such as the undemocratic nature of the organization that severely handicaps the Global South.\u201d The U.S. and its allies, he said, are \u201cincreasingly ignoring the current global order and the UN Charter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos Ron, Venezuela\u2019s vice minister of foreign affairs for North America, told me that the group \u201cis a decisive move in support of multilateralism and international law at the moment when humanity faces the most serious challenges in recorded history.\u201d These challenges include climate change and increased inequality. From the standpoint of Venezuela and Bolivia, this group, Carlos Ron said, \u201cis a mechanism to defend peoples against the threats of hybrid warfare,\u201d which include sanctions and coups. \u201cDiplomacy, cooperation and solidarity,\u201d Carlos Ron told me, \u201care the only keys to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolivia has decided to act against the coup makers. The U.S. government is now using that action to delegitimize the government of President Arce. Platforms such as TMS might turn out to be essential as a conduit for Bolivia to tell its story and not be suffocated by Washington\u2019s information war, a vital part of the regime change strategy.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Vijay Prashad<\/em> is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books<\/a> and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research<\/a>. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies<\/a>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including <\/em>The Darker Nations<\/a> and<\/em> The Poorer Nations<\/a>. His latest book is <\/em>Washington Bullets<\/a>, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was produced by Globetrotter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Mar 2021 – Bolivia has decided to act against the coup makers. The U.S. government is now using that action to delegitimize the government of President Arce. Platforms such as TMS might turn out to be essential as a conduit for Bolivia to tell its story and not be suffocated by Washington\u2019s information war, a vital part of the regime change strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":148203,"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-181934","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\/181934","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=181934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}