A 471-page report by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia (GIEI-Bolivia) recently presented to Bolivian President Luis Arce in La Paz on Tuesday this week confirms the U.S.-backed coup’s persecution of opponents, including “systematic torture and summary executions” in 2019. The report is based on interviews with 400 victims of the Anez regime and other witnesses, as well as 120,000 files related to abuses between September 1 and December 31, 2019.

The findings prompted Bolivian prosecutors to charge the self-styled “interim leader” Jeanine Anez with genocide. Anez faces charges over the massacres in Sacaba and Senkata, where 20 protestors were killed by the security forces.

At the announcement of her arrest in March this year, Anez tweeted, “They are sending me to detention for four months to await a trial for a ‘coup’ that never happened.”

Yet the U.S. was swift to recognize Anez as interim president as well as to endorse the Organization of American State’s (OAS) report in 2019, which alleged electoral fraud in Bolivia with the intent to keep Evo Morales in power.

The former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s address to the OAS office in Washington gives quite a succinct summary of U.S. interference in Latin America – a twisted narrative of alleged democratic intent trickling down from the U.S., when the facts speak otherwise. Pompeo spoke of the U.S. role in recognizing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and how members of the OAS followed suit, as well as a historical overview which attempted to disfigure the leftist movements in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s as “producing repression for their own kind at home.”

Pompeo also described Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as the countries through which “we face stains of tyranny on a great canvas of freedom in our hemisphere,” before moving on to praise the OAS for its role in ousting Morales. And as is typical of the U.S., with its long history of supporting military coups in the region, not a word was uttered about Anez’s persecution of the indigenous in Bolivia.

Yet the OAS report was denounced by the New York Times as having “relied on incorrect data and inappropriate statistical techniques.” The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Co-Director Mark Weisbrot declared, “If the OAS and Secretary General Luis Almagro are allowed to get away with such politically driven falsification of their electoral observation results again, this threatens not only Bolivian democracy but the democracy of any country where the OAS may be involved in elections in the future.”

The GIEI report has established that the Anez regime committed summary executions, torture and sexual violence against indigenous people. Through the report, the Sacaba and Senkata massacres were revisited and will once again form part of Bolivia’s most recent memory of U.S.-backed violence. Just a day prior to the Sacaba massacres, on November 14, 2019, Anez signed a decree which established impunity for Bolivia’s armed forces.

Contrary to the rushed way in which the Trump Administration had recognised Anez as Bolivia’s legitimate leader, the U.S. is reluctant to comment on the GIEI report findings which established the U.S.-backed regime as having committed human rights violations. In March this year, however, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement in March after Anez’s arrest, stating he was “deeply concerned by growing signs of anti-democratic behavior and politicization” with regard to Bolivia’s quest for justice.

Of Bolivia’s quest for justice now, the U.S. can hardly be expected to voice support. Yet the report goes a long way in overturning the U.S. intervention narrative. Bolivia’s victims are victims of a U.S.-backed coup, and U.S.-funded political violence should equally share the spotlight now highlighting Anez’s short-lived legacy of human rights violations in Bolivia.

Communtarian-indigenous based Movement toward Socialism (MAS) regained governmental control of the country, October 18, 2021, defeating the U.S.-backed rightest coup government. (1)

Luis Arce, President Evo Morales’ (2006-2019) minister of economy and public finance, and David Choquehuanca, Morales’ foreign minister, won the presidency and vice-presidency with 55% of the vote (3.4 million). The closest opposition candidate was former conservative president Carlos Mesa (2003-5), with 28%, followed by rightest coup-maker Luis Fernando Camacho, with 14%. Coup dictator, Jeannie Áñez, dropped out of the campaign when polls showed her with a possible 8%.

MAS also regained control of both houses of parliament: 75 of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and 21 of 36 seats in the Senate. The Senate now has a female majority. MAS did not, however, accomplish a two-third majority as occurred during Morales tenure.

In November 2019, Áñez, a right-wing senator, assumed leadership of the coup when military leaders threatened to remove Evo Morales by force. He went into exile (first in Mexico, then Argentina), in order to avoid massive bloodshed, as he foresaw would occur had he stayed.

Within days of this U.S.-backed coup, pro-Morales protestors were shot to death by military soldiers and helicopter gunners. At least three dozen anti-coup activists, mostly indigenous people, were murdered during the year-long dictatorship.

Evo returned to his country the day after the new government was inaugurated, November 8. He told his people in the state of Cochabamba, “The transnationals do not forgive us for having nationalized our natural resources…Lithium is why the U.S. backed the coup.”

Morales resumed chairmanship of MAS but is not part of the new government.

Early Reforms Underway

Jeannie Áñez’s rule was marked by authoritarian assaults and a pattern of insults to Bolivia’s indigenous peoples. She called Ayamara’s celebrations “satanic”, which gave a helping hand to racists who burned indigenous peoples Wiphala flag.

Bolivia’s coup government left the people with a foreign and domestic debt of 4.9 billion dollars. The coronavirus pandemic, and dictatorial rule—marked by regressive economic policy, cuts in taxes for the rich—is predicted to cause a 6% economic contraction World Bank forecasts for 2021.

Luis Arce was born in a middle class family of teachers. He got his university degrees in economy. During the first decade as Morales’ head of economy Arce’s plans, including nationalization of natural gas & oil, reduced extreme poverty form 38% to 17% of population. Quién es Luis Arce, el presidente electo de Bolivia – Noticias económicas, financieras y de negocios – El Cronista

Arce is not considered to be indigenous, and is seen as a moderate Marxist.

“I have had my ideas since I was 14 years old and I started reading Karl Marx. Since then I have not stopped having the same ideological position and I am not going to change for anything,” Arce told Reuters in an interview in October. In Evo’s shadow, Bolivia’s new president Luis Arce promises moderate socialism (msn.com)

President Luis Arce inauguration. TeleSUR You Tube photo.

As economy minister, Arce pushed for nationalization of many sectors, which steered Bolivia to an average annual growth rate of 4.6%, one of the best in Latin America. Bonuses were paid to pregnant women, school children, the elderly, and huge investments industrializing natural gas and lithium for batteries and nuclear physics.

Arce has reinstituted a new “Bonus against Hunger”, which will help over four million people. The beneficiaries will be people over 18, who do not receive income from public or private institutions, people with disabilities, mothers, and people who collect the Universal Bonus. Bolivia: President Arce Approves Bonus Against Hunger | News | teleSUR English.

Arce has promised not to cut public spending, though he acknowledges that some austerity measures will be needed. He also declared the “process of change [will be resumed] without hate, and learning and overcoming our errors as MAS.”

Half of all revenues still come from natural gas and oil. Agricultural production is second. Arce wishes to diversify the economy. He has stopped the exportation of food, in order to assure that all Bolivians are well fed. He has fixed the currency rate of exchange to curb inflation.

“With a new [U.S.] government we predict better relations that will translate into the well-being of our peoples,” Arce wrote on his Twitter account. The Obama government cut off ambassadorial relations upon assuming the presidency in 2008.

Vice-President David Choquehuanca, leader of the Confederación Sindical Única de Campesinos de Bolivia and the Movimiento Campesino Indígena, was born in 1961, in an Aymara community of La Paz. The former foreign minister learned to speak Spanish at the age of seven. During his years in Morales cabinet, he assumed the general secretariat of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Bolivia has returned to ALBA after Áñez had withdrawn from the cooperative-oriented alliance of eight Latin American countries. The state has also resumed diplomatic and fraternal relations with Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua leftist governments. Áñez had also expelled Cuba’s 700 doctors and medical workers.

Half the population is indigenous (some sources place the percentage even higher). In the beginning of the Morales presidency, a new constitution was created with grass roots participation. It recognizes 36 peoples as indigenous, and made three of their languages, along with Spanish, official languages of the nation. Quechua people make up half the indigenous population; Ayamara’s 41%.

Yet of the 17 ministers, only one is indigenous and four are women. Sabina Orellana, a Quechua union activist, was appointed Minister of Cultures, Decolonization and Depatriarchalization.

Ten days following assumption of the presidency, Arce fired military right-wingers loyal to the coup-makers and to the U.S. He replaced them with officers purportedly loyal to the people and the constitution.

Corona prevents full recovery

Western mainstream media (MSM) have ignored most developments in Bolivia since the election other than some coverage about corona and floods. MSM puts Bolivia in bed with Russia, because it is supplying Sputnik V vaccine to Bolivia—one of 50 countries to buy this inexpensive vaccine. Russia to supply Algeria, Bolivia with Sputnik V vaccine | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera

The government has also ordered Western made vaccines such as Astra Zeneca, which charges three times more than the Russian vaccine.

At the beginning of February, 218,000 people had tested positive. The population is 11.5 million. Around 50 persons are dying daily. Evo Morales’ sister, Ester, died from the virus at age 70.

Fearing an economic collapse, Arce has not shut down as much business as many people desire. Health workers are upset. Hospitals are filled to near overflowing. Health workers in the most conservative Santa Cruz region conducted a partial 24-hour strike (February 2), demanding a greater lockdown of society, in order to prevent more spreading of the virus and its mutations. Médicos bolivianos hacen paro en región golpeada por COVID – Infobae.

Many people also wish to postpone the planned regional and municipal elections scheduled for March 7. The government intends to maintain the date despite fears of more corona infections.

Coup-makers to be tried

Ten days following the election victory, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate approved a final report on the “massacres of Senkata [and] Sacaba.” The report recommended that Añez be prosecuted for genocide and proposed criminal indictments of 11 of her ministers. Senate president Eva Copa specified that the report would be submitted to prosecutors for possible proceedings.

Several coup-makers, including dictator Áñez, key cabinet ministers and top military officers have been detained temporarily and prevented from leaving the country as the new anti-corruption prosecutor, Luis Atanacio, prepares charges. Proceedings are barely beginning, and have been largely postponed due to the corona epidemic. President Luis Arce Appoints New Military Leadership in Bolivia | News | teleSUR English.

Notes:

1. MAS was founded by Evo Morales, in 1998, an outgrowth of coca farmers struggles to maintain the indigenous tradition of chewing its leaves (not cocaine) as a stimulant, especially used by chauffeurs. MAS’ struggles included the right to have free access to water, and to change the extreme greedy competitiveness of capitalism.Communitarianism aspires to collective decision-making and a cooperative economy, connecting the individual with the community and rejecting laissez-faire policies. Some see this form of a visionary society as “utopian socialism”, or “socialism of the 21^st century”. The thought is to avoid 18^th, 19^th, 20^th century violent revolutions. Working class rule would be replaced with all citizens rule without capital/corporate rule. Direct voting at assemblies is the preferred manner to select leaders, who should not become permanent leaders.

   Communitarianism is an outgrowth of the pan-Hispanic liberation movement led by the Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivar (1783-1830). Insurrections threw out Spanish colonial rule in Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia (Panama). The Gran Colombia was formed in 1821 under Bolívar’s leadership. This federation included much of what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. In 1824, he was named dictator of Peru, followed by the creation of Bolivia in 1825.

Creative Commons photo: Bolivians and internationalists at World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

The return of Evo Morales to Bolivia on Monday, November 9, one day after President Luis Arce’s inauguration, marked the formal end of last year’s U.S.-backed coup. What does his return mean for Bolivia, and for the world? Is he just a former president who the media will turn to periodically for comment? Is he yesterday’s news to his party? The answers to those questions remain unclear, but what is clear is that his three-day return tour was a statement that he intends to provide strong leadership for social movements in Bolivia and abroad.

Corporate media, both national and international, have been promoting a narrative that Morales is somehow in conflict with the incoming government of Luis Arce. A recent piece in the New York Times stated, “Mr. Morales return now risks undermining Mr. Arce’s efforts to bring the nation together to overcome the crisis,”’ and Reuters classified Arce as being “in Evo’s Shadow.”

Of course, Bolivia’s coup government knew that Evo Morales would strengthen, not weaken, any future MAS government. They understood that he was, and is, the leader of Bolivia’s powerful social movements. They knew they had to keep him out of the country, so they piled on more than 20 criminal charges and a warrant for his immediate arrest if he ever set foot on Bolivian soil. The charges included terrorism, sedition, genocide, and more.

Morales was forced to escape to Mexico after the coup, he then moved to Argentina where he was also given asylum. The absurdity of the charges was proven when the coup regime, through its own hubris, took them to Interpol in an effort to force Morales’ adopted country to hand him over. Of course, Interpol rejected the two attempts to place a ‘red alert’ on Morales, as they considered the charges against him to be political and without any legal basis.

Thrown out by international bodies, the legal persecution against Morales also collapsed at home. Just after the October 18 election results handed a victory to MAS, the power of the regime to pressure Bolivia’s courts immediately evaporated, and his arrest warrant was lifted just days after the election.

The stage was now set for his return to Bolivia. The 9th of November was a carnival fit for a king. He crossed the border on foot, from the Argentinian town of La Quiaca to the Bolivian town of Villazon with tens of thousands of supporters ready to receive him. As one of the many reporters there, I was naive enough to believe that the crowds would be kept at bay by the union activists from the Chapare region who were the designated security, but I quickly lost my good position as the masses of assembled supporters immediately overwhelmed the burly men who were supposed to form a protective ring around Evo.

Looking to the future

Our cameras jolted about as we were dangerously squashed by the sheer weight of those trying to touch him or at least take a photo. His victory parade went from the border to the town’s central plaza, about five blocks from the bridge through which he entered.

When asking those at the rally what Morales meant to them, the answers were not describing a loved, but has-been figure, most spoke in the future tense. Juan, a miner from Potosi, said, “We have to receive him and make sure he gets here ok, because he’s our leader, at both the national and international level. I want to salute [President] Arce and [VP] Choquehuanca, but our true indisputable leader is Evo Morales Ayma and he always will be.”

BREAKING: Evo Morales has crossed over the Quiaca-Villazón international border, marking his return and the social movements’ victory over the 12 month coup. pic.twitter.com/leIi8pPHrW

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 9, 2020

A union activist from Argentina crossed the border for the Villazon rally and told me that “Evo is a Latin American leader and he’ll be the key for building a unified continent that’s strong, sovereign and for the people, for workers. That’s why we’re here, this concerns us too.

Morales’ first speech in Bolivia, delivered at the plaza in Villazon, struck a similar tone, discussing the future rather than reminiscing about past glory. “We have to keep working, our task now is to protect President Arce and our process of change, because the right doesn’t sleep and the empire is always looking at our natural resources, but we use our experience to go forward even stronger.”

So how does he plan to go about doing that? Morales is not just another private citizen. He has now assumed his role as the President of the 6 Federations of the Tropico, the powerful Chapare region rural workers union that he led throughout the 1990s and from which he founded the MAS. He’s also still the president of the MAS, the Movement Towards Socialism. He’s not the leader of the state, but he is the political leader of the ruling party.

A hero’s welcome

Following the Villazon rally, Morales and his comrades, and those of us covering the tour, jumped into our vehicles and sped away for what was the beginning of a long and physically taxing three-day road trip. Gone were the days of Evo being shipped around in a helicopter. After more than eight hours of driving through the freezing Potosi highlands, we got to the rally in the mining town of Atocha, making only a brief stop before getting back in the car for another hour to the town of Uyuni, arriving at 11:30 pm. Considering the rally was supposed to take place at 6 pm, and that temperatures had now dropped to 7 degrees celsius, I assumed that the event had been called off or that everyone would have gone home. I was wrong. Thousands were densely packed, filling the entire square.

Huge crowd for Evo Morales in the town of Uyuni at 11.30pm, 7 degrees celsius. This is where Bolivia’s lithium reserves are, the people here have been fighting off the coup regimes attempts to privatize their natural resources. pic.twitter.com/cuzivibu9y

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) November 10, 2020

We got to know the grueling schedule that has long been the norm for Evo. Throughout his time as president and before, he’s been famous for working from 4 am to midnight, without taking weekends off. That night, we all got to bed at 3 am and had to be up and ready before 7 am for his morning press conference, during which he addressed the issue of the country’s lithium reserves, referencing Elon Musk’s Twitter outburst regarding his participation in the coup. Morales stated clearly:

The coup was for lithium, imperialism doesn’t want us to develop value-added products within Bolivia, they want the transnational corporations to take it all.”

Нe then explained that just last week he had meetings with Argentina’s Science Minister to draw up a binational plan to process the natural resource. Of course, he isn’t a government official so he cannot sign off on any agreement, but his participation in such meetings is evidence of his relationship to the new MAS government, assisting where possible, but with the newly elected executive firmly in control. That approach is in accordance with what Luis Arce laid out in an interview with the BBC when he stated that “Evo Morales is very welcome to help us, but it doesn’t mean he’ll be in government.”

Those in the media desperately searching for an example of Morales overshadowing the new government, or of Morales being left out in the cold, are still seeking evidence of it. Meanwhile, Evo continues his work on what was always his stated goal, to help Luis Arce, and to strengthen the MAS from his position as a social movement leader and president of the party.

The rest of the caravan was equally taxing, driving the whole day through Potosi to Evo’s home village of Orinoca in Oruro, where he visited his childhood home constructed of dried mud and a straw roof. Orinoca, though, is not his only home.

Evo Morales went to his hometown in Oruro yesterday and danced with his people. Due to poverty, his family then migrated to the Trópico of Cochabamba where he became a union leader. He’s now back in the Trópico for a huge rally later today in his political home. pic.twitter.com/tgo4e4jVOP

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) November 11, 2020

As a child, his family left the village, driven out by the extreme poverty that most rural Bolivians faced during the twentieth century. They finally settled in the Chapare region, where Morales became the leader of the coca-growers union during the struggle against the presence of USAID and the DEA in the region.

After a very short rally in the nearby city of Oruro, we drove overnight without stopping to his Evo’s political home, the Chapare, also known as the Tropico of Cochabamba. Arriving at 5 am the next day, Morales rested for just two hours before heading out at 7 am for meetings with local senators and mayors.

Giant rally in the Trópico of Cochabamba to welcome home Evo Morales. One year in exile, but now back as leader of Bolivia’s social movements. pic.twitter.com/1uKqOm2rR6

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) November 11, 2020

What came after was the giant closing rally in Chimore Airport, the airbase in the Chapare region where Morales left for Mexico last year. More than half a million people filled the landing strip where he delivered a blistering speech laying out his politics:

We are anti-imperialist, that’s not up for debate. But sisters and brothers, listen to me closely, it’s not about being ‘populist’ or ‘progressive’ or ‘in solidarity.’ If you’re not anti-imperialist then you’re not revolutionary. Get that in your head brothers and sisters.’’

What does Evo’s future hold?

The dust has now settled, with no more huge rallies nor travel by car. Evo has set up base in the town of Lauca Ñ in the offices of the 6 Federations of the Tropico and home to their union’s media outlet, Radio Kawsachun Coca.

The large crowds are no longer gathering, but the real political work has begun. Every hour has been filled with private meetings with every local leader of the MAS from each region of the country. Though, just as important, has been the international work.

Morales has been receiving delegations from the indigenous movement in Ecuador, as well as the principal worker’s unions of Argentina, where they put the call out for a Latin America wide congress of social movements, with the purpose of creating a new international indigenous organization and launching projects for regional integration on the basis of ‘plurinationalism’ and anti-capitalism. After launching the call for the international congress, Leonidas Iza, a leader of Ecuador’s indigenous CONAIE organization, said of Evo ‘’We feel represented by him, he’s not just recognized in Bolivia, but in all the continent.”

It’s clear that Morales has a future as a political leader in Latin America. Freed from the bureaucratic trappings of power, he can guide social movements at a national and international level, using the experiences he’s accumulated successfully leading social struggles to power, and helping defeat a coup after just one year. Those achievements alone make him an obvious figurehead for a project of unification of the Latin American left in particular. Those around the world looking to replicate such success could do worse than to turn to him as a figure that can orientate and provide leadership to those who need it.

mintpressnews.com

In the following interview for Strategic Culture Foundation, veteran activist and author Ron Ridenour shares his insights on the prospects of war and peace. Ridenour has lived and worked as a journalist in several countries, including as a press aide to the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. He was born in the U.S., “the devil’s own country”, as he puts it, in 1939. Ridenour joined the American air force in 1956 to “fight commies”. However, the failed American Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 radicalized him. Over the next six decades he has worked as a journalist and anti-war activist all around the world. He has been jailed numerous times for his principles and sacked from jobs in the U.S. mainstream media due to blacklisting by the FBI. See his full bio here. Ridenour has authored numerous books, including Backfire: The CIA’s Biggest Burn, in which he exposes with firsthand knowledge the numerous covert terror plots conducted against Cuba. Our interview covers wide-ranging subjects in international politics and history, including the persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. A central theme in Ridenour’s work and activism is why the United States under its prevailing capitalist system is obsessed with waging war against Russia over the past century. First though, we begin with his views on the recent stunning election victory in Bolivia.

INTERVIEW

Question: Would you like to comment on the recent election victory in Bolivia? The landslide win by Luis Arce of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party seems a remarkable victory against the rightwing coup plotters and their backers in Washington who last year ousted former President Evo Morales.

Ron Ridenour: Luis Arce, and running mate David Choquehuanca Céspedes, victory is a victory for the majority of Bolivians, a victory for the world’s poor, the indigenous, and supporters of equality, bread and land for all, and world peace.

It could have been expected if the coup-makers did not fix the election, which, apparently, they did not. It would have been difficult as 55 per cent of the 11.7 million population are Amerindian. With some mestizos identifying as aboriginals, 60 per cent of the country is indigenous. Whites make up only 15 per cent, yet they have a lot of power, land and money. The largest province, Santa Cruz, has a strong racist separatist movement.

While abject racists will not desist being hateful and puppets of the U.S., the new government must put a stop to their violence and subversion.

The coup-makers, especially the “interim president” Jeanine Añez, did a lousy job governing: she lost 30 per cent of export income; became immersed in corruption scandals; treated the coronavirus like her soulmates Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. She also ordered rightest military and police to murder indigenous protestors. Three dozens were murdered.

Question: You previously worked as an aide to former President Morales, but at the same time you believe he made some critical errors while in office. Can you outline some of those errors, in your view? Do you think the new MAS-led government of Luis Arce will learn from these past mistakes?

Ron Ridenour: The greatest impact of Morales’ 13 years governing are mostly positive. His policies greatly decreased poverty and unemployment; increased life expectancy by seven years; educated Bolivians about the evils of capitalism and its wars; drafted a new constitution, making three indigenous languages official alongside Spanish; and brought stability to a nation used to chaos.

When I worked with him, I witnessed how he listened to his people, and they saw him as a brother not an elitist. Yet in later years, Morales focused power around his personality, reneged on promises, and made contradictory accommodations with some elite interests. He lost a referendum seeking a fourth term for presidency, but maneuvered around that decision. These errors immersed the country in political crises, and split leftists, including some indigenous peoples.

One of his greatest errors was not to have reformed the military and police, by placing anti-racists and pro-socialists in leadership. A year before his attempt to win a fourth term, Morales appointed General Williams Kaliman Romero to head the armed forces. Kaliman is one of six key Bolivian coup plotters who had been trained at the U.S. military School of the Americas at Fort Benning, in the U.S. state of Georgia. SOA was renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation after dedicated American peace activists exposed its torture training methods, which, they say, continue.

Arce was Morales’ minister of finance and economy, and Choquehuanca was his foreign minister. They ran a campaign based on MAS’s program without much discussion concerning Evo Morales. They have no quarrel with the achievements made under his leadership. I got to know Choquehuanca a bit. I see him as an honest man, close to his people, who was able to disagree with Morales. I surmise that both Arce and Choquehuanca will be their own masters and not be subordinate to Morales. They are indigenous nation Aymarans (two million in Bolivia). I hope they make important appointments to other native peoples, especially the largest of them, Quechuas (2.5 million), and some whites. That would help heal some hard feelings.

The new government will drop the phony charges that the coup government leveled against former President Morales, charges of terrorism and sedition, and even “rape” for sexual relations with a 16- year-old consenting girl.

I’m nearly certain that they won’t try to prolong their stay in office in conflict with the constitution, and thereby they will need to prepare other people to be leaders. It is also possible that they might not be so forthrightly anti-capitalism as Morales was most of the time.

The left throughout Latin America has suffered severe losses in recent years. The new leadership will feel the need to bargain with conservative opponents and businessmen.

(See the excellent program promulgated by Evo Morales: 10 Commandments to Save the Planet, Humankind and Life (End Capitalism and Renounce Wars).

Question: What are the political implications for the wider Latin American continent from Bolivia’s return to socialist government?

Ron Ridenour: I think that many leftist parties and groupings will be encouraged especially because it is clear that their northern neighbor had little convincing effect on the majority of Bolivians. They want their own sovereignty. The “embassy of death”, as many Latinos call U.S. embassies, could not turn the tide their way.

Bolivia will resume fraternal relations with Venezuela’s elected government, with Iran and Cuba, which Añez had terminated. No Latino who needs medical care could possibly view Cuban doctors as “terrorists”, which is what that mad woman called those brave and highly skilled doctors and nurses Cuba sent to Bolivia.

This victory could also strengthen ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas).

Question: Turning to other international affairs, it seems that the United States and its European allies are relentlessly pursuing a hostile policy towards Russia. We see new sanctions against Russia issued almost every week by the Western powers over dubious claims, such as the alleged poisoning of dissident figures or alleged violation by Russia of arms controls treaties. In your book, The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert, you take a long historical view on what motivates Western animosity towards Moscow. Can you elaborate?

Ron Ridenour: The West, led by the U.S., endeavors to dominate the entire world. That is what “globalization” means. Some of us call that “imperialism”. A strong state that defends its sovereignty is an automatic threat to their global world plan, and Russia is the largest country in the world with nearly unlimited space and natural resources. However, all those goodies are not just for the taking under Vladimir Putin’s governing.

The U.S./UK concocted the “Cold War”, in order to dominate the world post WWII. At the very end of the war in Europe, Churchill even had a plan to invade Russia with nuclear weapons. His “Operation Unthinkable” was stopped, because he lost the July 1945 elections to Labour Party’s Clement Atlee. Labour did not want a new war. Furthermore, U.S. President Truman didn’t have enough atomic weaponry. He needed what he had to drop on Japan, and the Soviets were helping him on the ground in Japan at the same time.

I truly thank all those insiders who gave information to the Russians so they could get their own atomic weaponry fast enough before the U.S./UK could develop more atomic weapons, in order to pull off WWIII.

Skipping over the hot “Cold War” to its end when then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called his “friend” U.S. President George Bush I the night before he declared the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bush and Wall Street were ecstatic. Russia’s new leader Boris Yeltsin along with his “friend”, and capitalist comrade, U.S. President Bill Clinton decimated Russian sovereignty, increased poverty from 1.5 per cent to 50 per cent – that’s right, half the population – and life expectancy fell by five years from 69 to 64. Those are figures from the World Bank, a bastion of capitalism. Not to mention Yeltsin’s murdering hundreds of people, including parliamentarians, in an invasion of the parliament, in 1993, which Clinton encouraged.

After just one decade of this rape-of-a-nation, Vladimir Putin comes into power. At first, he was willing to be “friends” with George Bush II, helping him in Afghanistan against the Taliban, for one key example. But when Bush could not stop the CIA from conducting proxy terrorist attacks against Russian interests, Putin woke up. Since then the president of Russia has acted as a real president, and an overwhelming majority have supported him.

Putin has also clearly shown those who have their eyes open that he acts to prevent wars. He convinced his ally Syrian President Bashar-al Assad to hand over whatever chemical weapons Syria had, and he actually delivered them to the greatest chemical/biological warfare state in the world, the USA. Putin convinced Iran not to construct nuclear weapons but limit itself to nuclear energy, and now he is trying to get Azerbaijan (along with Turkey) and Armenia to end that armed conflict.

We need to know, to recall, how much the Russian people have suffered from wars to understand that they have no urge to go to war again.

During WWII, the British lost only 1 per cent of its population; the U.S. lost 0.32 per cent of its population.

In the first half of the 20th century – Russia-Japan war 1905, two world wars, the Russian civil war with U.S. and allies invading to support the aristocracy and its White Army – at least 40 million Soviets lost their lives and a similar number were seriously wounded. That number is the equivalent of 40 per cent of Soviets who survived WWII, and half the number of Russians living today. (See chapter 10 of The Russian Peace Threat.)

German Nazis, Italian and Spanish fascists were bankrolled, in large part, by the biggest capitalists in the U.S. The same capitalists who set about to overthrow President FD Roosevelt (The Business Plot, aka The Fascist Plot of 1933-4), exposed by Marine General Smedley Butler.

Henry Ford receiving Hitler’s Grand Cross of the German Eagle, 1938, for his support to the Nazis

It is not the Russians who are a threat to world peace!

While Russia is no aggressor, capitalism always needs enemies, in order to control its populations, and “earn” astronomical profits for the weapons industry, war rebuilding industry, fossil fuel, medical and drug industries. Capitalism cannot exist in a peaceful world nor one in which all people are equal. Owner-classes must stand over wageworkers and slave-workers else there will be no constant profit growth rates for the benefit of the few. So, there must always be inequities, rich and poor, haves and have nots. Racism and jingoistic nationalism are essential ingredients for capitalism to keep people afraid and divided.

None of this can be admitted by any of their politicians. To keep the population in wraps, the owner-class must control the state and politicians. Thus, the mass media must ignore these realities. People must be insecure and fearful of outside forces so they won’t see who is really exploiting and oppressing them. Enemies have to be made up.

The highest-ranking CIA officer to come over to our side, John Stockwell, wrote a book whose very title supports this analysis: In Search of Enemies. His title is analogous to what my own book is about, Russia, the “peace threat”.

Below is a succinct extract about this from Stockwell’s June 1986 lecture available here.

“You have to be asking yourself, why are we destabilizing 50 corners of the troubled world? Why are we about to go to war in Nicaragua, the Central American war? It is the function, I suggest, of the CIA, with its 50 de-stabilization programs going around the world today, to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize the American people to hate, so we will let the establishment spend any amount of money on arms…”

Question: What needs to happen, in your view, for Western nations to adopt a normal, cooperative foreign policy towards Russia?

Ron Ridenour: “Cooperative foreign policy towards Russia” has never been “normal”, not since the 19th century. Yeltsin’s period was abnormal. During the U.S. civil war, Russia’s Tsar Alexander II actually sent two naval fleets to U.S. waters to prevent an armed British-French military collaboration with the racist-slave confederacy. The Tsar had liberated, in fact, all 23 million Russian serfs, in 1861. He saw a similarity with slavery in the U.S., I suppose, while Britain and France were at their colonialist-slavery height.

At that time, capitalism had not developed to the point whereby one country could dominate the world. There were several centers of power, and they all needed allies, which shifted opportunistically. There was no one dominating intelligence agency as today with the CIA and its key allies Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad.

I think there can be no cooperative foreign relations with Russia as long as the latter remains independent and as long as corporate capitalism dominates the West and other areas of the world.

It doesn’t matter which political party rules, or whether the West’s national leaders are men or women, or whatever color. Obama, for instance, had seven wars going at one time, more than any other president in U.S. history. They all do what Wall Street/City of London demands.

Question: The same applies to Western relations with China, would you agree?

Ron Ridenour: Yes.

Question: Why has President Donald Trump’s past election promise to restore relations with Russia not materialized? Bilateral relations seem worse than ever. Surely Trump had executive authority to renew the New START treaty on strategic nuclear weapons, for example, but he procrastinated on the matter, thereby adding to tensions. Can Trump’s seeming reneging on improving bilateral relations with Russia be all attributed to “deep state” resistance?

Ron Ridenour: Deep State-Pentagon resistance is a part of it. After all, every American president must kowtow to these deadly militarists, something JFK tried to change. They murdered him and his brother, and there was no uprising. The people accepted this lethal coup in broad daylight.

While Trump is unusual in many ways, he is still a major capitalist with his own corporation and he is part of Wall Street. He has to play the game. Much of his clout comes from the same warmongering industries as all other Republican and Democrat leaders.

At first, Trump thought he could make profitable trade ventures with Russia. Some corporations, including some oil-gas magnates, could profit from competitive yet cooperative relations with Russia. However, other powerful capitalists want Russia as an enemy as do the militarists. The fracking industry also views the Russian-German Nord Stream natural gas partnership as a threat to potential profits.

Question: Do you have a view on how a Joe Biden administration, if the Democrat contender is elected on November 3, will impact on U.S. foreign policy and relations with Russia in particular?

Ron Ridenour: Biden-Harris foreign policy will be as always the juggernaut’s. I think they will step up conflicts with Russia. After all, it was the Democratic Party leadership (Clinton-Obama and his CIA director John Brennan) that started “Russiagate”. The FBI is now spreading the new fantasy that both Russia and Iran are intruding in the election campaign. This is pure psychological projection.

Furthermore, if they win, Trump will continue to encourage his racist hinterland. The KKK, neo-fascists, militias will grow. If Harris takes over the presidency from Biden either through sickness, death or the following election, I believe that the racists-fascists will start a race war. That is what the real left, and a conscious working-class in U.S. America must prepare for already now. Part of that preparation is for the left to prioritize building working-class consciousness on the job.

Question: You have written passionately about the persecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and how it represents a mortal threat to human rights for all citizens in Western nations. You contend that if Assange is extradited to the U.S. from Britain, he will not receive a fair trial over fabricated spying charges and will therefore be imprisoned for the rest of his life. That infers it is imperative that the British public mobilize to halt his extradition which is slated to be ruled on in January of next year. What can be done to win justice for Julian Assange?

Ron Ridenour: The need to support Julian Assange is the same necessity we all have to protect whatever free press there is left. Every human being, who wants that fundamental right and need, must act, must resist his extradition to the U.S. gulag.

First and foremost, people in those countries whose leaders are conspiring to kill him – U.S., Britain, Sweden, Ecuador, Australia – must stand up and be heard. They must let those snobby aristocratically robed British magistrates and judges dare not let this hero of democracy be tortured to death either in British or American inhumane prisons.

Here are some suggestions to support freeing Julian Assange:

1. Write letters-to-editors
2. Contact media to cover the hearings
3. Organize actions/happenings at U.S./UK government buildings
4. Donate to his legal defense fund at this link.

Question: I remember hearing you speak at a public forum in Cambridge, England, to antiwar activists. That was nearly 30 years ago. Are you more or less optimistic for the prospects of peace, justice and international solidarity prevailing than you were back then? What needs to be done?

Ron Ridenour: Optimistic? Absolutely not. At the time of that forum, 1992, I was living in Cuba and working for national media. Fidel was still alive. Cubans were practicing real solidarity, in order to survive due to the negative economic and political consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union. A decade later, Fidel and Hugo Chavez started ALBA and soon eight Latin American countries were working together, trying to gradually transform capitalist economies to socialist ones. Today, a large majority of Cubans want social welfare with capitalism, trade with and “help” from the U.S. And ALBA is weak.

True, one optimistic development is the anti-racist, anti-police brutality movement of some millions of brave and energetic people in U.S. streets, and many others in some European countries resisting police brutality and left-over colonialism. There are more protesters today than in my youth in the U.S., but there is hardly any direction, hardly any socialist alternatives being advanced. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter are in the hands of the Democratic Party and some of their big capitalists’ payroll.

The Democratic Party is the party that absorbs or smashes real opposition movements. Bernie Sanders and his lot confuse people with a false socialist rhetoric with no real socialist and anti-war substance.

Right-wing nationalism, as always based on racism and divide-and-conquer strategies, is rising violently in many countries. We “real leftists” are not well organized, are not unifying.

I see this historic moment similar to the 1920s-30s in Mussolini’s fascist Italy.

Europeans must reject being dominated by all U.S. governments and Wall Street. They need to retake their sovereignty. They need to come out in large numbers against wars, and also engage in civil disobedience actions. The climate movement must resist wars as the number one polluter of the planet, as well as murdering millions of people, causing other millions to flee and become unwanted refugees. Even most European social democrats have turned their backs on these poor, desperate human beings, because of the wars that create refugees instead of opposing the causes.

The first priority of every person who wishes to live in a peaceful world with justice and equality is to act against wars of aggression for domination and profit.

I wish I could end on a positive note. I can’t find anything better to offer than what our soulmate singer-songwriter the late Leonard Cohen who tells us: “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in!”

Mainstream propaganda attempted to justify the coup by spreading a false narrative of the people rejecting Morales’s government. However, when faced with a choice between the two main candidates, the former right-wing president Carlos Mesa and the MAS former Economy Minister Luis Arce, voters opted for the a future governance that has consistently rejected U.S. and international interference. The elections gave the MAS a resounding victory, with a bigger margin than the 2019 elections in which Morales was elected.

Arce will officially take power in December this year. Senate candidate Leonardo Loza described the forthcoming path towards justice thus: “We will not be a government of persecution. But there will be no forgetting or forgiving for those wo got killed in Senkata and Sacaba during the 2019 coup.”

In Senkata and Sacaba, at least 19 people were killed by the military in the aftermath of the coup. In addition, the coup instigated a climate of extreme repression and violence, reminiscent of earlier dictatorship practices in Bolivia itself and in Latin America.

Añez has reportedly asked the U.S. to provide 350 visas for officials involved in the 2019 coup, in a bid to avoid prosecution. As soon as the MAS victory was evident, Añez recognised the electoral result and asked the socialist party “to govern with Bolivia and democracy in mind.”

Democracy also requires justice. Añez’s request, undoubtedly part of the U.S. narrative of “restoring democracy to Bolivia” albeit through a coup leading to dictatorship, had still not differentiated between the people’s democracy and coercive neoliberal violence – the latter being the brand which her government promoted and which the people so clearly rejected.

Arce has also called for the resignation of Luis Almagro, the OAS Chief who alleged electoral fraud in the 2019 elections which saw Morales return to power. The call for resignation is regional – Almagro’s vested interests in promoting the U.S. agenda opens up Latin America to imperialist interference. “There should not be interference in the internal affairs of a country. If Almagro did that in Bolivia, imagine, he can do it with any other country, and we cannot allow that,” Arce explained. Morales also declared he would be pursuing judicial action against Almagro.

The Bolivian elections have illustrated the centrality of social movements to the political process. While the coup attempted to push the indigenous people to the periphery, the elections provided an opportunity to reverse the changes desired and envisaged by the U.S., and a strong return to the MAS. However, the new government faces the task of curbing the right-wing reactionary groups which are supported by the U.S.

However, the electoral triumph many not spell the end of U.S. intervention in the country. The U.S. is known to have used diverse tactics to instigate violence and unrest in Latin America, biding its time until it strikes again. The military and the police have yet to completely prove their allegiance to the new government and against U.S. designations on Bolivia. Añez also subjugated the country to an IMF loan of $327 million. Regional and international solidarity with Bolivia is imperative in order to isolate U.S. interference and to allow Bolivia to rebuild itself from the deprivation ushered in a single year of U.S.-backed dictatorship rule.

The new president-elect of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has told the Spanish international news agency EFE that he intends to restore the nation’s relations with Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. This reverses the policies of the US-backed coup regime which immediately began closing embassies, kicking out doctors and severing relations with those nations after illegally seizing power last year.

Arce also spoke of warm relations with Russia and China.

“We are going to reestablish all relations,” he told EFE. “This government has acted very ideologically, depriving the Bolivian people of access to Cuban medicine, to Russian medicine, to advances in China. For a purely ideological issue, it has exposed the population in a way that is unnecessary and harmful.”

Arce expressed a willingness to “open the door to all countries, the only requirement is that they respect us and respect our sovereignty, nothing more. All countries, no matter the size, who want a relationship with Bolivia, the only requirement is that we respect each other as equals. If that is so, we have no problem.“

If you know anything about US imperialism and global politics, you will recognize that last bit as brazen heresy against imperial doctrine.

Bolivia will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, said President-elect Luis Arce in an interview with EFE. He will also re-establish good relations with China & Russia.

Arce condems the coup govt for its ideological & pro-US approach to foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/3ATXjSVbuF

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) October 20, 2020

The unofficial doctrine of the empire-like cluster of international allies that is loosely centralized around the United States does not recognize the sovereignty of other nations, much less respect them as equals. This empire takes it as a given that it has every right to determine what every nation in the world does, who their leaders will be, where their resources will go, and what their military posture on the world stage will be. If a government refuses to accept the empire’s right to determine these things, it is targeted, sabotaged, attacked, and eventually replaced with a puppet regime.

The US-centralized empire functions like a giant blob that slowly works to absorb nations which have not yet been converted into imperial client states. It is rare that a nation is able to escape from that blob and rejoin the unabsorbed nations like China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba in their fight for self-sovereignty, and it is encouraging that it was able to do so.

We saw the dynamics of the imperial blob explained quite vividly last year by American political analyst John Mearsheimer at a debate hosted by the Australian think tank Center for Independent Studies. Mearsheimer told his audience that the US is going to do everything it can to halt China’s rise and prevent it from becoming the regional hegemon in the eastern hemisphere, and that Australia should align with the US in that battle or else it would face the wrath of Washington.

The rules based human rights defending democratic order, ladies and gentlemen https://t.co/ZEfxGm6LFi

— RaHoWarrior Steve Bannon, 1st Boomer Division (@healingbyhenry) October 8, 2020

Mearsheimer said China is going to continue to grow economically and will convert that economic power into military power to dominate Asia “the way the US dominates the western hemisphere”, and explained why he think the US and its allies have every ability to prevent that from happening.

“Now the question is what does this all mean for Australia?” Mearsheimer said. “Well, you’re in a quandary for sure. Everybody knows what the quandary is. And by the way you’re not the only country in East Asia that’s in this quandary. You trade a lot with China, and that trade is very important for your prosperity, no question about that. Security-wise you really want to go with us. It makes just a lot more sense, right? And you understand that security is more important than prosperity, because if you don’t survive, you’re not gonna prosper.”

“Now some people say there’s an alternative: you can go with China,” said Mearsheimer. “Right you have a choice here: you can go with China rather the United States. There’s two things I’ll say about that. Number one, if you go with China you want to understand you are our enemy. You are then deciding to become an enemy of the United States. Because again, we’re talking about an intense security competition.”

“You’re either with us or against us,” he continued. “And if you’re trading extensively with China, and you’re friendly with China, you’re undermining the United States in this security competition. You’re feeding the beast, from our perspective. And that is not going to make us happy. And when we are not happy you do not want to underestimate how nasty we can be. Just ask Fidel Castro.”

Nervous laughter from the Australian think tank audience punctuated Mearsheimer’s more incendiary observations. The CIA is known to have made numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.

If you’ve ever wondered how the the US is so successful in getting other nations around the world to align with its interests, this is how. It’s not that the US is a good actor on the world stage or a kind friend to its allies, it’s that it will destroy you if you disobey it.

Australia is not aligned with the US to protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US to protect itself from the US. As a Twitter follower recently observed, the US doesn’t have allies, only hostages.

As the recently released Palace Letters illustrated, the CIA staged a coup to oust Australia’s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam because he was prioritizing the nation’s self-sovereignty. Journalist John Pilger wrote in 2014 after Whitlam’s death:

Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility. He abolished royal patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported “zones of peace” and opposed nuclear weapons testing.

The primary difference between the coup in Australia and the one in Bolivia was that the Bolivians refused to roll over and take it while we shrugged and said no worries mate. We had every option to become a real nation and insist on our own self-sovereignty, but we, unlike the Bolivians, were too thoroughly propagandized and placid. Some hostages escape, some don’t.

The US empire got rid of Whitlam, and then when we elected in 2007 a Prime Minister who was considered too friendly with China they did it again; in order to facilitate the Obama administration’s “pivot” against Beijing the pro-China Kevin Rudd was replaced by the compliant Julia Gillard. World Socialist Website reports:

Secret US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in December 2010 revealed that “protected sources” of the US embassy were pivotal figures in Gillard’s elevation. For months, key coup plotters, including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union (AWU) chief Paul Howes, secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership…

Rudd had proposed an Asia-Pacific Community, attempting to mediate the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China, and opposed the formation of a Quadrilateral military alliance between the US, India, Japan and Australia, aimed against China.

Gillard, who had cultivated her pro-US credentials through Australia-US and Australia-Israel leadership forums, was literally selected by the US embassy as a reliable replacement to Rudd. In her first public appearance after knifing Rudd, she demonstrated her devotion to Washington by posing for a photo op with the US ambassador, flanked by US and Australian flags. She soon had a phone call with Obama, who had previously twice postponed a planned visit to Australia under Rudd.

The centrality of Australia to the US preparations for war against China became apparent in November 2011, when Obama announced his “pivot to Asia” in the Australian parliament, rather than the White House. During the visit, Gillard and Obama signed an agreement to station American Marines in Darwin and allow greater US access to other military bases, placing the Australian population on the front line of any conflict with China.

Gillard’s government also sanctioned the expansion of the major US spying and weapons-targeting base at Pine Gap, agreed to the US military’s increased use of Australian ports and airbases, and stepped up Australia’s role in the US-led top-level “Five Eyes” global surveillance network, which monitors the communications and online activities of millions of people worldwide.

Rudd’s removal marked a turning point. US imperialism, via the Obama administration, sent a blunt message: there was no longer any room for equivocation by the Australian ruling elite. Regardless of which party was in office, it had to line up unconditionally behind the US conflict with China, no matter what the consequences for the loss of its massive export markets in China.

This is what we’re seeing all around the world now: a slow motion third world war being waged by the US power alliance against the remaining nations which have resisted being absorbed into it. As the most powerful of the unabsorbed nations by far, China is the ultimate target of this war. If the empire succeeds in its ultimate goal of stopping China, it will have attained a de facto planetary government which no population will be able to oppose or dissent from.

I don’t know about you, but I never consented to a world where powerful nuclear-armed forces wave armageddon weapons at each other while fighting for planetary domination and subverting less powerful nations if they don’t play along with their cold war games. Detente and peace must be sought and obtained, and we must all work to live together on this planet in collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem.

This omnicidal, ecocidal way of living that the oligarchic empire has laid out for us does not suit our species, and it will drive us to extinction along with God knows how many other species if we do not find a way to end it. Rulers historically do not cede their power willingly, so we ordinary human beings as a collective are going to have to find a way to destroy their propaganda engine, force an end to imperialism, and build a healthy world.

caitlinjohnstone.com

A victory for the majority of Bolivians, a victory for the world’s poor, the indigenous, and supporters of equality, world peace, bread and land for all. October 19 exit polls show that the majority’s leader, Luis Arce, and running mate David Choquehuanca Céspedes, won the election.

With around a quarter of the votes counted, exit polls showed them ahead of rightest opponents with 52-53% of the vote. No runoff election will be necessary.

Opponents Carlos Mesa (a former president) and Luis Fernandez Camacho received around 30% and 14% of the voters. Both are right-wingers who aggravated a military-threatened coup last November. Mesa, and the self-appointed coup president Jeanine Añez, have admitted defeat.

Mesa was ousted from power in 2005 following large demonstrations against privatized natural gas companies. Camacho is known as the “Bolivian Bolsonaro” in reference to Brazil’s extreme right-wing president. Camacho’s hometown, Santa Cruz, is the stronghold of the separatist movement. He led protests that culminated in the coup against Morales.

Arce and Choquehuanca are leading members of MAS (Movement for Socialism), whose founding leader was Evo Morales, president 2006-17. They embrace the indigenous political tradition of Suma Qamaña, emphasizing reciprocity, collectiveness, and balance with Mother Nature (Pachamama).

(See also the excellent background article by Jeremy Kuzmarov, Covert Action Magazine managing editor. )

“We have recovered democracy,” Arce said in a public speech following the cited exit polls. “We promise to respond to our pledge to work and bring our program to fruition. We are going to govern for all Bolivians and construct a government of national unity.”

Luis Arce served as Morales’ minister of economy and public finance. David Choquehuanca served as the foreign minister from January 2006 to January 2017. A couple months later, he became secretary general of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

Jeanine Añez supported Mesa’s candidacy after she dropped out of the election race. She received little support due to corruption scandals; abuse of civil liberties; backing police murders of three dozen indigenous people; a 30% decline in exports; eliminating the Ministry of Culture; reversing an EU-backed program allowing farmers to cultivate coca leaves for non-narcotic purposes; for allowing foreign corporations to control lithium resources; and poor response to the Covid-19 crisis, which has claimed 8,000 Bolivian lives and 130,000 infected out of a population of 12 million.

Twice postponed due to the corona virus, the October 18 election was the culmination of last year’s October election. In order to prevent a bloody civil war, Morales resigned under force and went into exile, first to Mexico and then to Argentina where he is today.

Morales received more votes than Carlos Mesa, who ran against him last year. Mesa, however, called Morales’ claimed victory a “fraud”, contesting the president’s assertion that he had won more than 50% of the votes, which meant there would be no runoff election. The US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) claimed that Mesa was right.

The fraud allegation is discredited by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) commissioned by a liberal research group based in Washington, D.C. They found that the OAS had overstated the significance of voting discrepancies from before and after a pause in the vote count.

“The OAS allegations were indeed the main political foundation of the coup that followed the October 20 [2019] election three weeks later,” wrote Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research last month. “But they provided no evidence to support these allegations—because there wasn’t any. This has since been established repeatedly by a slew of expert statistical studies.”

Military Threaten Coup

Perhaps the greatest error Morales made during his generally successful presidency was not to have reformed the military and police, placing anti-racists and pro-socialists in leadership. A year before his attempt to win a fourth term in office, Morales appointed General Williams Kaliman Romero to head the armed forces. Kaliman is one of six key Bolivian coup plotters who had been trained at the US military School of the Americas (SOA was renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). (1)

General Kaliman led the call for Morales removal. He publically stated, “We suggest the President of the State renounce his presidential mandate, allowing peace to be restored and stability maintained for the good of our Bolivia.”

Hours later, Morales said, “I am resigning”, adding it was his “obligation as indigenous president and president of all Bolivians to seek peace.” Vice President Álvaro García Linera also resigned.

Shortly thereafter, Camacho said, “Today we won a battle.” He then entered the government palace with a Catholic priest to “return God” to the palace. Camacho is a multi-millionaire who had spent years leading an overtly fascist separatist organization called the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista.

As soon as Morales stepped down, police  ordered his arrest and vandals ransacked his house. Right-wingers happily burned the banner of Bolivia’s indigenous people, showing them that the white elite intended to put them back in their place.

President Donald Trump applauded the coup-makers. “The resignation yesterday of Bolivian President Evo Morales is a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere.” So much for democracy.

Morales-MAS Improved Living Standards

Arce and Choquehuanca ran a campaign based on MAS’s program without much discussion concerning Evo Morales. They have no quarrel, however, with the achievements made under his leadership. (See my piece on this site)

Poverty 2006=60%; 2018=34%; Extreme poverty 2006=38%; 2018=15%

Life expectancy 2006=62; 2015=69; Infant mortality 2006=46 per 1000 live births; 2018=28.8

Bolivia’s economy underwent structural transformation with nationalization of major resources. GDP= 5% to 5.5% annual growth for the last several years. Real (inflation-adjusted) per capita GDP grew by more than 50 percent over 13 years, twice the rate of growth for the Latin American and Caribbean region.

Unemployment 2006=5%; 2017=3.4%

Gender equality 2006=4% women in municipal assembly posts; 2015=50% in municipal posts, 53% in the parliament.

During Morales presidency, all persons 60 years old+ received state pensions, and hundreds of thousands affordable social housing units were built.

Nevertheless, Morales made serious mistakes that alienated many followers. In later years of his presidency, Morales focused power around his personality, reneged on promises, and made contradictory accommodations with some elite interests. He lost a referendum seeking a fourth term for presidency, but maneuvered around that decision. These errors immersed the country in political crises, and split leftists, including some indigenous peoples.

Conclusion

Much of the international “real left”, as opposed to liberal/progressives catering to capitalism, ignore left-wing government errors and corruptions—not just those of Comrade Stalin and Chairman Mao, but also of the new 21^st century socialist-oriented governments, including in the ALBA countries.

I believe that we must put an end to patriarchal patterns of top-down leadership. Those of us living in countries where there is no current hope of electing people-oriented governments, and who support revolutions or major progressive shifts of power elsewhere, need to stop glorifying everything they do. To be true solidarity workers, to be true comrades, we need to point out major errors and “sins” where they exist. In that way, we offer real solidarity, and we prevent delusion amongst ourselves and those we wish to encourage and support.

El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido! The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

(1) The military renamed SOA because of effective protests, led by followers of the “theology of liberation”, against training Latin American militarists to use torture against leftist opposition activists and intellectuals. Protestors assert torture is still on the menu in disguise.

thiscantbehappening.net