Military coup in Bolivia

Bolivia's coup leader, Fernando Camacho, has asked the OAS to intervene to stop democratic elections taking place on September 6th.  

Camacho says that "we mustn't allow the elections to become an act of resurrection" for the MAS.

Bolivia's Coup Leader, Fernando Camacho Has Asked OAS to Intervene [Again] to Stop Democratic Elections Taking Place September 6

https://twitter.com/MarkWeisbrot/status/1283468174181183488

"This is what happens when the OAS lies about an election, providing the political foundation for a military coup against a democratically elected government, and most of the media goes along for the ride. The damage to democracy is immense and ongoing."

And they wonder why the international community didn't vote for Canada at the UN. Please call Chrystia Freeland to the stand to answer for this and other international crimes one day.

The coup has been defeated.

https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/status/1318047228687224832?s=20

Great news. The question remains will the right accept these results despite a "resounding win" by Morales's party. 

Today, nearly one year after Evo Morales was ousted in a coup facilitated by the Organization of American States (OAS), Bolivia will finally vote in new elections. With Luis Arce, the candidate of Morales’s Movement for Socialism–Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (MAS) party leading in polls, the OAS and the right-wing opposition are laying the groundwork to yet again claim fraud and reject the results.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/10/oas-evo-morales-bolivia-presidential-...

After the Áñez regime twice postponed scheduled elections this year, Bolivians went to the polls on Sunday. They delivered a resounding victory to presidential candidate Luis Arce, Morales’s former finance minister and the candidate from his Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, Party. Although official results are still being counted, exit polls from reputable firms show Arce with a blowout victory — over 50 percent against a centrist former president and a far-right coup leader — and Áñez herself conceded that MAS has won. ...

It is difficult to remember the last time a U.S.-approved military coup in Latin America failed so spectacularly. Even with the U.S.-dominated OAS’s instantly dubious claims of electoral fraud, nobody disputed that Morales received more votes in last October’s election than all other candidates (the only question raised by the OAS was whether his margin of victory was sufficient to win on the first round and avoid a run-off).

Despite Morales’s election win, the Bolivian police and then military made clear to Morales that neither he, his family, nor his closest allies would be safe unless he immediately left the country. ...

Lula, in his Guardian interview shortly after the coup where he criticized Morales’s bid for a fourth term, nonetheless emphasized the far more important point: “what they did with him was a crime. It was a coup – this is terrible for Latin America.” ...

Ever since Morales’s election victory almost exactly one year ago today, Bolivians never stopped marching, protesting, risking their liberty and their lives — even in the middle of a pandemic — to demand their rights of democracy and self-governance. Leading up to the election, the coup regime and right-wing factions in the military were menacingly vowing — in response to polls universally showing MAS likely to win — that they would do anything to prevent the return to power of Morales’s party.

At least as of now, though, it looks as though the margin of victory delivered to MAS by the Bolivian people was so stunning, so decisive, that there are few options left for the retrograde forces — in Bolivia, Washington, and Brussels — which tried to destroy the country’s democracy. Anyone who believes in the fundamentals of democracy, regardless of ideology, should be cheering the Bolivians who sacrificed so much to restore their right of self-rule and hoping that the stability and prosperity they enjoyed under Morales expands even further under his first democratically elected successor.

https://theintercept.com/2020/10/19/bolivia-returns-evo-morales-party-to...

Just to remind everyone, Chrystia Freeland and our Canadian government actively colluded with the United Snakes  for the coup in Bolivia. The return of democracy to Bolivia is no thanks to them and rest assured there will be vengeance and further plots. Perhaps more progressive Canadians should take responsibility to work to defeat and defang our country's share in the coming imperial 'blowback'.

After one year in power the illegitimate government has likely signed deals with major NATO corporations that give away the country's resources for a pittance.

Unionist wrote:

josh wrote:

Niki Ashton offered a good response.  It's just a shame she's not party leader.  

I saw her tweet and the same thought crossed my mind - not for the first time!

 

She ran for the job and the "grown-ups" in the NDP went out of their way to try and discredit, belittle and mock the very idea of her standing for the job.  I still remember the ones on this very board who wouldn't stop throwing tantrums about the fact that she used the word "intersectionality"- as if the term that defines the course the left must take to get to unity was inherently absurd.

Oh no, we couldn't have Niki...we had to have this guy who supposedly had this extreme "charisma" and was going to give the party massive gains in Toronto and Vancouver.  There was no question that it just plain simply HAD to be that guy- the one who ended up leading the party to the lost of almost 40% of its remaining seats.

The one who still holds the leadership, even though there's no good reason for him to be in the job after a showing like that.

NDPP wrote:

[From November 2019:]

Anyone seen anything anti-coup or pro-Morales from Svend Robinson yet? I may have missed it.

I don't recall what Svend said last year, but here's what he said the day before yesterday:

Rikardo wrote:

The new president has somewhat over 50% but Morales had well less than 50% but exempted a second round by a law his government had passed.  But the Left can do no wrong ! Venceramos!

 

 

 

Morales took 48%, which was over the threshhold...that's not "well under 50%".  And the OAS investigation found no irregularities.  

Nothing justified not only Morales being forced into exile but everyone from his party being barred from succeeding him and the job of "interim president" then being handed over to a right-wing extremist whose party had only taken 3% in the previous election.  That "interim president" had no mandate to undo the policies Morales' party had implemented and replace them with a right-wing austerity agenda, nor to delay the elections.

And even if Morales had been required to go into a runoff, he'd have won the votes of the minor left-wing parties and ended up with a majority and another term.  The results this Sunday prove that the electorate never wanted a massive swing to the right on policy, or supported the violent suppression of Indigenous people and coup opponents after the election.

The coup happened because Morales nationalized the lithium mines and denied foreign corporations control of Bolivian lithium at fire-sale prices.  That's what it was all about, rikardo.

Besides which, nobody here has ever claimed "the left can do no wrong!".

Evo Morales was never a tyrant, and Bolivia was never going to turn into the East Germany of the Andes.

Thank you Ken Burch. I stand corrected. So glad the Left won.

Absolutely agree with your suscinct summary, Ken. And thanks for finding Svend's congratulatory response, Unionist. It's so great to have some good news for a change!

Unionist wrote:

You make me so happy to be back on babble!

Thank you.

YAY, a decisive victory!

"The Lima Group was created as a fig-leaf for US imperialism, so NGO regime-changers like HRW chief Ken Roth can falsely claim it is not a unilateral vehicle for US hegemonic domination. Canada stands in for the US, as the loyal running dog of imperialism."

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1323656371183767554

(And most Canadians accept this disgusting 'running dog' status quo, as long as they think servility to USA puts slops in their trough. Watch them bear the burden even more placidly under Biden than Trump.)

Your Democrat champion is no friend of Bolivia or Morales.

"Ollie Vargas, one of the only actual reporters on the ground in Bolivia, has had his account restricted by Twitter. I doubt this will happen to all the pro regime-change reporters for CNN, The New York Times, etc. however."

https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1326439224711766017

After many complaints flooded Twitter his account was restored.

A moment of justice.

Anez needs to be prosecuted for the massacres that kept her in power. As one commentator said on AlJazeera, there have been more coups in Bolivia than in any other country with the elite getting away without any accountability. Anez therefore needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 

2019 Senkata and Sacaba massacres 

On 15 November, amid continuing protests, violence and shortages in several main cities, Áñez issued Decree 4078 to enlist the police and army to pacify the country. Article 3 of the decree reads, "The personnel of the Armed Forces who participate in operations to restore internal order and public stability will be exempt from criminal liability when, in compliance with their constitutional functions, they acted in legitimate defense or state of necessity, in observance of the principles of legality, absolute necessity and proportionality."[52] This decree was criticised by several human rights groups, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Commission, who all called for its immediate revocation.[52] Amnesty International described it as "carte blanche" for human rights abuses.[53]

The same day, there was a confrontation close to Sacaba with pro-Morales protesters, mainly coca growers, attempting to cross a bridge on which a police cordon had been set up. Nine people were killed and 17 injured, 11 with bullet wounds.[54] According to the preliminary OAS investigation, the group was initially met with verbal instructions that the UN Ombudsman's Office was on its way to intervene. Moments later police and military officers allegedly opened fire on the civilians and attacked them with teargas and by beating and kicking them. The police report states that 201 people were involved in "violent acts" and 10 men were arrested for the "crimes of armed uprising, possession and carrying of firearms, and manufacture and trade of explosive and suffocating substances", and state authorities maintained that the police had not opened fire but that the protesters had shot one another.[55] On 28 November, Áñez repealed the controversial decree, but not before another massacre occurred in the Senkata district of El Alto, in which another nine people were killed and more injured.[56][55] Protesters had blockaded the Senkata gas refinery plant in previous days.[55] The government's response was, again, that it had not fired shots and had been under attack.[57] In the immediate aftermath, seven people were arrested on charges of terrorism and sedition, specifically on destruction of part of the Senkata refinery wall, which the defence minister warned could have ended in a tragedy if gas tanks and other fuels exploded.[58] Áñez said, "We deeply regret the deaths of our brothers in El Alto. It hurts us because we are a government of peace", and called for dialogue with the protesters. In addition, she asked international organizations and the church to accompany this process in order to stop the violence. "Let's unite to reconcile, to build the Bolivia for which we are all fighting and so that one Bolivian is never above the other", Áñez said.[59]

At the government's invitation, the IACHR investigated the deaths and injuries that occurred during this period of violence. On 10 December it published its preliminary observations, based on interviews conducted with eyewitnesses. It wrote, "it is appropriate to describe these events as massacres, given the number of people who lost their lives in the same way and at the same time and place, and because the acts in question were committed against a specific group of people. Furthermore, the patterns of injuries that have been recorded point strongly to extrajudicial killing practices". The report "reminded the Bolivian state that lethal force cannot be used merely to maintain or restore public order" and urged that those responsible be prosecuted, investigated, and sanctioned. ...

On that same day, a tenth victim died of wounds from the Sacaba massacre. The Bolivian Human Rights Ombudsman said the victim had "not received any assistance and died completely abandoned by the state" and demanded compliance in particular with the parts of Supreme Decree 4100 that mandated the financial coverage of medical care for victims.[64] They also denounced that, after seven months, no advances had yet been made into the investigation into the massacre, saying, "seven months after what happened, the victims are still waiting to receive justice for what happened and the compensation promised by the State."[65] In March 2020, the Plurinational Assembly convened a multi-party commission of members of MAS, PDCand UD to investigate the deaths at the two locations.[66] Their findings were delayed until 20 August and further postponed until 27 September.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanine_Áñez

Talk about chutzpah.

The United States said Saturday that it is concerned about increasingly ″anti-democratic behavior and the politicization of the legal system” in Bolivia following the arrests of officials from the country’s former interim government. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that there are questions about the legality of the arrests and urged Bolivia to release the detainees pending “an independent and transparent inquiry into human rights and due process concerns.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/us-questions-legality-of-bolivian-arrests-of-ex-officials/

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday night to approve a measure directing the State Department to investigate the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) and its role facilitating the coup against Bolivia’s three-term President Evo Morales in 2019.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/oas-bolivia-coup-investigation/

josh wrote:

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday night to approve a measure directing the State Department to investigate the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) and its role facilitating the coup against Bolivia’s three-term President Evo Morales in 2019.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/oas-bolivia-coup-investigation/

Amazing. As if the OAS has ever been anything other than said State Department's Colonial Office. From Guatemala in 1954 to the Dominican Republic in 1965 to Chile in 1970 to...I was going to keep listing them, but it's basically every violent change of government in Latin America since the OAS charter was signed...if Washington approves of it, the OAS finds a way to say it really served the interests of democracy. If the House of Representatives wants to find out what the OAS's role in the Bolivian coup was, it should start by subpoenaing Gina Haspel.