Coup in Bolivia

The Bolivian Coup: What the Mainstream Media Don’t Tell You

Bolivia’s oligarchy launched an orgy of racist and fascist violence to oust president Morales

November 12, 2019 Francisco Dominguez  MORNING STAR

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Bolivia adopts the new constitution

Bolivia approves a new constitution

Aprueban bolivianos nueva Constitución: encuestas
Vota 60 por ciento por el “sí”, según sondeos preliminares. Para el presidente Evo Morales es el nacimiento de una nueva Bolivia y el fin del Estado colonial y latifundista.

Agencias y La Jornada On Line
Publicado: 25/01/2009 12:25

La Paz. Los bolivianos aprobaron este domingo en un referendo una nueva Constitución impulsada por el presidente Evo Morales que abre las puertas del poder a la mayoría indígena y da al Estado el control total sobre la economía, según proyecciones no oficiales.

Aunque los resultados oficiales de la Corte Nacional Electoral (CNE) serán dados a conocer más tarde, el mandatario boliviano -junto con el vicepresidente Alvaro García Linera- encabezó en la Plaza Murillo una multitudinaria concentración donde mencionó que el triunfo en el referendo significaba la refundación del país, así como la reivindicación de los derechos de una población mayoritariamente indígena, así como el fin del Estado colonial y latifundista.

Según las encuestas de salida realizadas por los medios de comunicación, se informó que la estatal Radio Patria Nueva, el "sí" tendría 62 por ciento, el "no" 28 por ciento, y ocho por ciento votó en blanco.

President Bush's Plan to Put 20,000 Bolivians Out of Work

President Bush's Plan to Put 20,000 Bolivians Out of Work


For a month, since the U.S. and Bolivia took turns expelling one another's ambassadors (Bolivia went first), the diplomatic war between Washington and La Paz has continued unabated.

Now President Bush, in his efforts to strike out against Bolivian President Evo Morales, has decided to take economic hostages. Last month, and again in Washington yesterday, Mr. Bush declared his intention to destroy the jobs of more than 20,000 innocent Bolivian workers, by axing Bolivia out of a trade plan originally developed under his father. To do so would be a mistake – morally, diplomatically and economically.

Some Background

Nearly two decades ago, under the first President Bush, the U.S. began the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPDEA). That program offers Bolivia and a handful of other Latin American nations reduced U.S. tarriffs, allowing them to develop new industries and jobs exporting products such as textiles and handmade furniture. For the U.S., the aim is to create opportunities for employment as an to alternative to growing coca for the illegal drug market.

In September, as part of the Bush administration's diplomatic battles with Bolivian President Evo Morales, President Bush announced that he will use his executive authority eliminate Bolivia's participation in those trade preferences.

The actual victims of President Bush’s move, however, won't be President Morales, but women and men who eke out modest livings as weavers, jewelry-makers and carpenters, creating products for U.S. markets. The U.S. Congress knows that, and just two weeks ago approved a six-month extension for Bolivia. But yesterday in Washington President Bush repeated his intent to sidestep Congress and use his powers to cut Bolivian workers out of the program.

Listen to the Voices of the People who Will be Affected by Bush's Plan

We profiled some of these workers for our new book, Dignity and Defiance, and after President Bush’s announcement last month we traveled out across Bolivia to ask them how his threat would affect their lives.

Today we have posted a five-minute video of their own words here on the Blog. Take a moment now and hear what they have to say by clicking on the screen above.

The Democracy Center also demanded and won the right to have their video testimony from Bolivia played next week in Washington when the Bush administation holds the public hearing required by law before he implements his plan. Administration officials told us that this will be the first time that video testimony like this has been played in such a proceeding.

On October 23 in Washington, those officials will hear directly from people like Joaquín Aquino, a carpenter in his 50s who hand-makes furniture for the U.S. market and Natalia Alanoca Condori, a 28-year-old mother who makes clothing sold in American stores. These are the people, along with thousands others like them, who will be the real victims of President Bush's actions against Bolivia.

What You Can Do to Help

We have an opportunity and an obligation to these workers to take action and help stop President Bush's plan. Here are three simple ways that you can help:

1. Share this request for action with others

All across the United States there are people and organizations that care about making U.S. policy in Latin America more just. Help us spread the word about the need to act on this now, by forwarding this Blog post to others.

2. Sign the Democracy Center's Online Petition

You can directly add your voice to the campaign to stop President Bush's threat against Bolivian workers. In less than sixty seconds right now you can add your name to an online petition that the Democracy Center will be submitting as part of the formal public record against Bush's anti-Bolivia policy. Sign that petition here. If your organization wants to join the petition please send us an email telling us so at: Bolivia@democracyctr.org.

We need your petition endorsements no later than midnight October 30.

3. Submit Formal Comments to the Bush Administration

If you or your organization want to do more, federal law guarantees the right to submit formal comments to the Bush administration's Trade Representative. To do that you must submit your comments by e-mail no later than 5pm on October 31. Those comments must be sent in the form of an attachment and must include the subject line, “Review of Bolivia’s Designation as a Beneficiary Country Under the ATPA and ATPDEA.” The address is: FR0812@ustr.eop.gov. You must also include in the attachment a cover letter with your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address.

Even if we can't make President Bush back down on his plan to put Bolivians out of work, taking action now helps build the case for Congress and the new President to reverse it. Those leaders need to see that people in the U.S. care about this issue.

Raising Up Voices from Latin America

President Bush's move against the Bolivian people is just one more example of how we, as citizens, need to not only change leaders but also change the political winds that drive U.S. policy toward Latin America. To help do that the Democracy Center is launching a new campaign – Voices from Latin America.

Voices from Latin America marries new technology and old-fashioned organizing to build a bridge between citizens in the U.S. and Latin America. It is a platform from which we can work together to help educate one another and take joint action, like the one we are starting today on Bush's assault on Bolivian workers. On the website you will find:

Briefing papers (in English and Spanish) on some of the main issues in U.S./Latin America relations, on topics such as trade, the 'U.S. war on drugs', and immigration.

Video testimonies from across the region in which people tell how U.S. policy affects their lives and their nations.

How to get involved, and real examples from people who have.

As citizens we have to be educated and involved in U.S foreign policy in ways that we never have before. That includes making sure that the people in other countries who are so affected by what the U.S. does have their voices heard in the U.S. Help us do that by visiting the Voices from Latin America web site here.

POSTED BY THE DEMOCRACY CENTER AT 8:14 PM
Jim Schultz.

Defend Bolivia's Democracy

Respect Bolivia's Democracy
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.- BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor
October 2, 2008

http://www.blackcommentator.com/293/293_aw_bolivia_democracy.html

There is a struggle underway in Bolivia which has been
largely overlooked or misrepresented in the mainstream
circles in the USA. For the first time ever in Bolivia,
the majority of the population exercises its rights as
fully recognized citizens through electoral and civic
participation. Efforts to battle poverty and
illiteracy, the largest societal ills, are underway.
Indian families, who for centuries suffered the
consequences of racist policies, including economic
deprivation, and physical violence, (much like African
Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in the
USA) are finally respected and recovering their
dignity.

While one would have hoped for enthusiasm here at home,
the response to Bolivia's efforts within establishment
political circles in the USA has been less than
welcoming. Under the leadership of Evo Morales, that
country's first Indian president, Bolivia is pursuing a
national economic development plan to uplift all of its
citizens. According to a 2005 United Nation Development
Programme report, at least six out of ten Bolivians
have incomes below the poverty line, and wealth
polarization is very significant between those at the
bottom, and the rich elite which has traditionally
dominated Bolivian society. The infant mortality rate
fares no better and is one of the worst in the region.
Faced with this reality, the Bolivian government
understands that rectifying its historical inequalities
is no small feat, but nevertheless, a necessary one for
the nation to advance.

In North America in the late 1800's, the Confederate
States of America seceded from the United States of
America and waged a bloody civil war against the North.
Wealthy landowners plotted to keep the wealth of the
South to themselves and out of the hands of Northern
industrialists who were developing the nation at a
rapid pace. While the retention of economic and
political power by Southern elites was the real issue
at hand, racist arguments and slavery (the basis for
their wealth) were used to justify their treasonous
actions to the world.

Today, an analogous secessionist movement is underway
in Bolivia's wealthiest region, Santa Cruz. After a
referendum vote recently ratified Evo Morales as
Bolivia's democratically elected president by an
overwhelming majority, there should be no more support
given to such illegal measures. This province holds
abundant natural resources and much of Bolivia's wealth
is derived from its natural gas, farmland, iron ore,
water and forests. As their constitution reads, these
riches should be used for the development of the entire
society, not for the benefit of a few.

Currently, democracy is on the line as a small sector
of opposition actors known to use racist violence
against the poor, have called for the overthrow of the
president and for secession. They have done so by
utilizing the national media which has mobilized the
most radical right-wing sectors to take to the streets
and engage in civil disobedience. Unfortunately, these
actions have been all but civil, including the
instigation of violence. Although the Bush
Administration has chosen to stand by those calling to
secede and in so doing support the most racist and
backward elements of Bolivian society, it is the hope
of fair and genuinely democratic-minded people that
Bolivia's right to sovereignty and respect for its
constitution will be honored by the United States.

Secession, and the balkanization of Bolivia would be a
disaster for the people of Bolivia (and the region),
just as such processes have been disasters in Eastern
and Central Europe, Africa and Central Asia. The
nation-state is tasked with helping to redistribute the
wealth of a country. In those countries with
enlightened leaders, such redistribution pays attention
to historic injustices that must be repaired. For this
reason, we in the USA should be very careful before
responding favorably to abstract calls for democracy
that actually hide the ambitions of the wealthy elites.
After all, in our own history the Confederate States of
America claimed that they were fighting a war against
Northern alleged aggression and oppression. Most
histories, however, tell a very different story.

We in the USA should respect Bolivia's right to self-
determination and refrain from unhelpful interference.
Just as the struggle against secession in North America
between 1861-65 was an internal matter for the people
of the USA to settle, so too is it for the people of
Bolivia today.
______

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher,
Jr., is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com, a
Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies,
the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and
co-author of the book, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis
in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice
(University of California Press), which examines the
crisis of organized labor in the USA.

Bolivia and the other Sept.11

Bolivia and the Echoes of Allende
Morales Confronts the Insurrection

By ROGER BURBACH

September 15, 2008

As Bolivia teeters on the brink of civil war, President
Evo Morales staunchly maintains his commitment to
constructing a popular democracy by working within the
state institutions that brought him to power. The show
down with the right wing is taking place against the
backdrop of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the
overthrow of Salvador Allende, the heroic if tragic
president of Chile who believed that the formal
democratic state he inherited could be peacefully
transformed to usher in a socialist society.

Like Allende, Morales faces a powerful economic and
political elite aligned with the United States that is
bent on reversing the limited reforms he has been able
to implement during his nearly three years in power.
Early on, Morales--Bolivia's first indigenous
president--moved assertively to exert greater control
over the natural gas and oil resources of the country,
sharply increasing the hydro-carbon tax, and then using
a large portion of this revenue to provide a universal
pension to all those over sixty years old, most of whom
live in poverty and are indigenous.

The self-proclaimed Civic Committees in Media Luna
(Half Moon)--Bolivia's four eastern departments--have
orchestrated a rebellion against these changes,
demanding departmental autonomy and control of the
hydro-carbon revenues, as well as an end to agrarian
reform and even control of the police forces. The Santa
Cruz Civic Committee, dominated by agro-industrial
interests, is supporting the Cruceno Youth Union (UJC),
an affiliated group that acts as a para-military
organization, seizing and fire bombing government
offices, and attacking Indian and peasant organizations
that dare to support the national government.

Morales' efforts to transform the institutions of the
country have focused on the popularly elected
Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution. The
assembly was convened in mid 2006 with representatives
from Morales' political party, the Movement Towards
Socialism (MAS) holding 54 percent of the seats. In the
drafting of the new constitution, the right wing
political parties, led by Podemos (We Can), insisted
that a two-thirds vote was needed even for the working
committees to approve the different sections of the
constitution. When they were overruled and a new
constitution was close to being approved in November,
2007, members of the assembly, including its indigenous
president, Silvia Lazarte, were assaulted in the
streets of Sucre, the old nineteenth century capital
where the assembly was being held.

Using words that evoked Allende's last stand in the
Chilean presidential palace, Evo Morales declared "dead
or alive, I will have a new constitution for the
country." He quartered the assembly in an old castle
under military protection where it adopted a
constitution that has to be approved in a national
referendum. Labeling Morales a "dictator," the civic
committees and the departmental prefects (governors) of
Media Luna were able to stall the vote on the
referendum, and instead organized departmental
referendums for autonomy in May of this year that were
ruled unconstitutional by the National Electoral
Council.

Taking recourse in democracy rather than force, and
searching for a national consensus, Morales then held
up the vote on the new constitution, and instead put
his presidency on the line in a recall referendum in
which his mandate as well as that of the prefects of
the departments could be revoked. On August 10, voters
went to the polls and Morales won a resounding 67
percent of the vote, receiving a majority of the
ballots in 95 of the country's 112 districts with even
the Media Luna department of Pando voting in his favor.

However, the insurgent prefects also had their mandates
renewed. Based on the illegal, departmental plebiscites
held in May, they moved to take control of Santa Cruz,
the richest department. UJC shock troops roamed the
streets of the city and surrounding towns, attacking
and repressing any opposition by local indigenous
movements and MAS-allied forces. Not wanting to provoke
an outright rebellion, Evo Morales did not deploy the
army or use the local police, leaving the urban area
under the effective control of the UJC.

Simultaneously, the right wing--led by the Santa Cruz
Civic Committee--began sewing economic instability,
seeking to destabilize the Morales government much like
the CIA-backed opposition did in Chile against Salvador
Allende in the early 1970s. As in Chile, the rural
business elites and allied truckers engaged in
"strikes," withholding or refusing to ship produce to
the urban markets in the western Andes where the Indian
population is concentrated, while selling commodities
on the black market at high prices. The Confederation
of Private Businesses of Bolivia called for a national
producers' shutdown if the government refused "to
change its economic policies."

The social movements allied with the government have
mobilized against this right wing offensive. In the
Media Luna, a union coalition of indigenous peoples and
peasants campaigned against voting in the autonomy
referendums, and have taken on the bands of the UJC as
they try to intimidate and terrorize people. In the
Andean highlands, the social movements descended on the
capital La Paz in demonstrations backing the Morales'
government, including a large mobilization in June that
stormed the American embassy because of its support for
the right wing. In July, the federation of coca growers
in the Chapare, where US anti-drug operations are
centered, expelled the US Agency for International
Development.

This past week the Civic Committees stepped up their
efforts to take control of the Media Luna departments.
In Santa Cruz on September 8, crowds of youth lead by
the UJC seized government offices, including the land
reform office, the tax office, state TV studios, the
nationalized telephone company Entel, and set fire to
the offices of a non-governmental human rights
organization that promotes indigenous rights and
provides legal advice. The military police, who had
been dispatched to protect many of these offices, were
forced to retreat, at times experiencing bloody blows
that they were forbidden from responding to due to
standing orders from La Paz not to use their weapons.
The commanding general of the military police, while
angrily denouncing the violent demonstrators, said that
the military could take no action unless Evo Morales
signed a degree authorizing the use of firearms.

What was in effect occurring was a struggle between
Morales and the military over who would assume ultimate
responsibility for the fighting and deaths that would
ensue with a military intervention in Media Luna. The
armed forces do not support the autonomous rebellion
because it threatens the geographic integrity of the
Bolivian nation. Yet they are reluctant to intervene
because under past governments, when they fired on and
killed demonstrators in the streets of La Paz, they
were blamed for the bloodshed.

On September 10, as violence intensified throughout
Media Luna, Evo Morales expelled US ambassador Philip
Goldberg for "conspiring against democracy." The month
before, Goldberg had met with the prefect of Santa
Cruz, Ruben Costas, who subsequently declared himself
"governor" of the autonomous department and ordered the
formal take over of government offices--including those
collecting tax revenues. Costas is the principal leader
of the rebellious prefects, and the main antagonist of
Evo Morales.

September 11, the 35th anniversary of the coup against
Allende, was the bloodiest day in the escalating
conflict. In the Media Luna department of Pando, a
para-military band with machine guns attacked the
Indian community of El Porvenir, near the departmental
capital of El Cobija, resulting in the death of at
least 28 people. In a separate action, three policemen
were kidnapped. The Red Ponchos, an official militia
reserve unit of Indians loyal to Evo Morales, mobilized
its forces to help the indigenous communities organize
their self defense.

The next day Morales declared a state of siege in Pando
and dispatched the army to move on Cobija and to retake
its airport that had been occupied by right wing
forces. Army units are also being sent to guard the
natural gas oleoducts, one of which had been seized by
the UJC, cutting the flow of gas to neighboring Brazil
and Argentina. General Luis Trigo Antelo, the commander
in chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces declared: "We
will not tolerate any more actions by radical groups
that are provoking a confrontation among Bolivians,
causing pain and suffering and threatening the national
security." In signing the order authorizing the use of
force in Pando, Morales stated that he felt responsible
for the humiliation of the military and the police by
radicals and vandals because he had not authorized them
to use their weapons. This was the quid pro quo for
getting the military high command to act.

After sustained fighting with at least three dead, the
army took control of the airport and moved on the city.
An order for the arrest of the prefect of Pando was
issued for refusing to recognize the state of siege and
for being responsible for the massacre in El Porvenir.
In Santa Cruz, the police arrested 8 rioters of the
UJC. Peasant organizations have announced they will
march on the city to retake control of the government
offices. The dissident prefects, led by Costas, are
still demanding departmental autonomy and refusing to
accept a national vote on the referendum for the new
constitution.

Evo Morales refuses to back down, declaring in a
meeting with supportive union leaders, "we will launch
a campaign to approve the new constitution." He did,
however, indicate he may modify the draft to
accommodate some of the demands for autonomy by the
prefects. Like Allende, Morales continues to search for
a democratic solution to the crisis in his country. For
the moment, he has the backing of the Bolivian armed
forces along with overwhelming popular support, thereby
avoiding the ultimate fate of the Chilean president.

Roger Burbach is Director of the Center for the Study
of the Americas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, CA. He has
written extensively on Latin America and is the author
of "The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global
Justice."

United Nations + Bolivia

U.N. declaration becomes law of the land in Bolivia
© Indian Country Today December 10, 2007. All Rights Reserved


AP Photo /Juan Karita -- Bolivia's President Evo Morales, right, greeted an indigenous leader. Surrounded by cheering Native leaders and other representatives, Morales announced the passage of National Law 3760, legislation that is an exact copy of the United Nation's recently passed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Nov. 7 in the Government Palace.
LA PAZ, Bolivia - On Nov. 7, in the Government Palace of Bolivia and surrounded by cheering Native leaders and other representatives, President Evo Morales announced the passage of National Law 3760 or the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, legislation that is an exact copy of the United Nation's recently passed Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The original declaration contains 46 articles and allows Native peoples the right to preserve their respective political, social, economic, juridical and cultural institutions. It also assures their rights to full participation in the political, cultural, economic and social spheres of their countries, and recognizes their rights to self-determination.

Bolivia is the first country in the world to adopt the declaration as national law.

Morales noted, in his speech at the event, that only 40 years ago Quechua, Aymara and other Native people from the eastern part of the country were not allowed to enter the Government Palace, nor were they allowed to walk on the sidewalks in certain important cities.

''We have advanced, we are in the palace, and now we are in the important cities although still in some cities they do not allow us to visit the business fairs,'' Morales asserted, adding that some groups still ''treat us like animals.''

''That is the past for indigenous people in Bolivia and also for Latin America,'' he said. ''I feel we have progressed. I feel that this exploited, humiliated and offended indigenous movement has organized to move forward, and we are not only working for the indigenous movement, but for all Bolivian men and Bolivian women.''

Hundreds of Native Bolivians, including representatives of all 36 different indigenous ethnicities and Afro-Bolivian leaders, were on hand to celebrate the announcement and provide vocal support to Morales. Along with the Bolivians were other Native dignitaries such as Gloria Batzin, a Mayan Guatemalan who offered a ''cordial and fraternal greeting'' to the president on behalf of indigenous peoples from 16 Latin American countries including Aymara, Quechua, Nahuatl, Mapuche, Kuna Yala, Miskito, Arahuaco, Garifuna, Yanacona, Maya Sakapulteka (Batzin's ethnicity) and Maya Kakchikel, among others.

''I want to ask all of you to unite our forces to promote and circulate these laws so that other countries may know the legal basis that is fundamental to our existence, and that we may know the rights that help us as indigenous peoples,'' Batzin stated.

Morales also addressed the themes of rights and responsibilities.

''From the passage of this declaration,'' Morales continued, ''I feel that the indigenous movement has gone from one of resistance to one of power, but not sectarian, personal, individual or regional power, but to create a power that, at it's core, is a way of living in a community ... it is the power of resolving problems equally for all, not only in Bolivia but in the entire world.

''I feel that the United Nations is giving us a mandate, our mandate,'' he asserted, ''... to defend life and work for all; we have that responsibility. The indigenous movement is not vengeful, it's not going to take vengeance on anything; we only want our rights to be respected.''

Along with the support demonstrated by various members of the audience, Morales announced that the United Nations had sent the Bolivian Congress a letter of congratulations for passing the declaration into national law and that ''this declaration is without a doubt an advance for humanity.''

Rick Kearns is a freelance writer, poet and teacher of Boricua heritage who focuses on indigenous issues in Latin America.

Bolivia withdraws military from School of the Americas

Evo Morales Announces: "No More Bolivian Soldiers to the SOA/WHINSEC!"

We are very excited to announce that President Evo Morales announced Tuesday that Bolivia will gradually withdraw its military from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School for the Americas (SOA). Bolivia is now the fifth country after Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela to formally announce a withdrawal from the school!

"We will gradually withdraw until there are no Bolivian officers attending the School of the Americas," said Morales. Questioning the U.S. government's foreign policy he noted that "they are teaching high ranking officers to confront their own people, to identify social movements as their enemies."

This is a great victory for torture survivors, social movement leaders and human rights activists of Bolivia and the Americas. The SOA/WHINSEC has played a significant role in Bolivia's recent political history, Hugo Banzer Suarez, who ruled Bolivia from 1971-1978 under a brutal military dictatorship attended the school in 1956 and was later inducted into the school's "hall of fame" in 1988. The SOA has trained tens of thousands of Bolivian military officers in the past fifty years. In October of 2006, two former graduates of the SOA/WHINSEC, Generals Juan Veliz Herrera and Gonzalo Rocabado Mercado were arrested on charges of torture, murder, and violation of the constitution for their responsibility in the death of 67 civilians in El Alto Bolivia during the "Gas Wars" of September-October 2003.

In March 2006 a School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) delegation led by Lisa Sullivan-Rodriguez, Salvadoran torture survivor Carlos Mauricio, and SOA Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois met with President Evo Morales to request that Bolivia cease to send troops for training at the SOA/WHINSEC.

* Our work in Latin America has been made possible through your support and donations, please contribute to our Latin America Project by making a donation to SOA Watch.