U.S. Out of Bolivia! No More U.S. Coups!

U.S. Out of Bolivia!  No More U.S. Coups!

Statement by the MN Anti-War Committee – November 22, 2019

On November 8, Bolivia’s military staged a coup and ousted democratically-elected President Evo Morales. Even though Morales accepted asylum in Mexico, the people’s movements have refused to back down and have been protesting in the capital.

U.S. ROLE IN THE COUP:

There is a long list of direct U.S. military interventions in the late 19th and early-to-mid 20th century in Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Puerto Rico.  

The U.S. played a key role in this specific coup.  USAID began funding right-wing political parties and civil society organizations in 2001, five years before Evo Morales was elected president, in an effort to try to steer the country away from progressive change.  According to the International Federation for Human Rights in 2008 the U.S. “promoted separatism and ethnically- and socially-based hatred through the Civic Committees (Comités Civicos), in particular the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee. Luis Camacho, the millionaire coup leader with ties to (Bolivian) paramilitaries, is the current president of this committee, which has received U.S. funding in the past.” Just like in Venezuela, the U.S. is aligning itself with right wing nationalists while labeling them as “pro-democracy” in an effort to once again justify interfering in the internal affairs of Latin America.

Six of the Bolivian military commanders and two of the police who plotted the coup were educated at the US Government’s notorious School of the Americas (now called WHISC).  The Grayzone explains, “The School of the Americas is a notorious site of education for Latin American coup plotters dating back to the height of the Cold War. Brutal regime change and reprisal operations from Haiti to Honduras have been carried out by SOA graduates, and some of the most bloodstained juntas in the region’s history have been run by the school’s alumni. The November 10 coup d’état did not materialize out of thin air. Events that have transpired inside Bolivia are intimately connected to U.S. efforts to influence military and police forces abroad through programs like SOA.”  The Anti-War Committee has participated in the movement to close the School of the Americas for over 20 years. Bolivia, like many Latin American countries, is experiencing the consequences of cooperating with the SOA.

Lastly, leaked audio recordings have been published that show that U.S. senators Marco Rubio, Bob Menendez and Ted Cruz have been coordinating with the Bolivian opposition to support regime change.  

U.S. interference in Bolivia, as in the Middle East, is motivated by greed.  50-70% of the world’s lithium reserves are found in Bolivia, a country sometimes called the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” The global demand for lithium has steadily increased as cell phones, laptops, and hybrid cars have become essential to our modern world. Evo Morales, in the weeks leading up to the coup, was defending Bolivia’s right to be in charge of its own natural resources and its right to use them to take care of its people. Bolivia chose Chinese firm Xinjiang TBEA as its business partner in this endeavor over Western companies, a policy  which stood directly in the way of the U.S. free trade plans for Bolivia.

WHO IS EVO MORALES?

Evo Morales is a member of the indigenous Aymara nation who have their ancestral homeland in the Andes in Bolivia, Chile and Peru. He grew up speaking primarily the Aymara language and eventually became a coca farmer. He found himself involved in the farmer unions’ fight against U.S. imperialism when U.S. and Bolivian troops began beating up Bolivian coca farmers and burning their crops in the early ’80s “War on Drugs”. Morales was arrested many times in direct actions. and became widely recognized as a leftist leader in the anti-government movement.  This movement became an indigenous-led political party called the Movement for Socialism (MAS in Spanish) which made the nationalization of industry and the fairer distribution of Bolivia’s national resources top priorities.

In 2005 Evo became the first indigenous president in South America, winning by 25%. As president he ended the country’s loans with the predatory IMF, nationalized key industries, increased social program funding, and raised the GDP by 50%, the highest growth in South America during that time period. Critically, having grown up in extreme poverty himself, Morales was able to reduce poverty by 46%, extreme poverty by 60%, and cut unemployment by 50%.

Evo Morales and the MAS party represent the power of the indigenous people in Bolivia and throughout all of the Americas. Since Morales was removed from power, MAS activists, most of whom are indigenous, have been taking to the streets demanding the return of their president.  As of 11/18, 23 protesters have been killed and over 700 people have been injured by police and the Bolivian military. The coup government is attacking MAS members and leaders, establishing a new taskforce to go after MAS members for sedition. Some have already been arrested and have had their homes raided.

Protests have been held in Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, and Venezuela to show their solidarity with Evo Morales and the indigenous and workers movements in Bolivia.  In Venezuela they are all too familiar with U.S. imperialism. In 2002 and 2019 the U.S. supported failed coup attempts. In 2002 Hugo Chavez was forced out of office, but protests and the loyalty of Venezuelan military helped him regain power.  The Bolivian people are continuing to protest, hoping that they too can overturn another U.S.-supported coup attempt!

STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT!

The Anti-War Committee joins with the AFL-CIO, National Nurses United, Code Pink and other national organizations to say NO to the U.S. role in the coup in Bolivia.  We demand that the U.S. stop interfering in the sovereign affairs of Latin American countries. We demand an immediate closure to the School of the Americas/WHISC in Fort Benning, GA.  We call on our supporters to call their senators and ask them to join MN’s 5th District Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar in denouncing the coup in Bolivia.