Lessons To Learn From The Coup In Bolivia
Gen. Williams Kallman Romero—a new Pinochet? Perhaps. But his links to te Pentagon are undeniable. Why didn't the Bolivian left keep an eye on such individuals, or better still, replace them?
A dispatch by "b", the editor of Moon of Alabama
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he coup in Bolivia is devastating for the majority of the people in that country. Are there lessons to be learnt from it?
Andrea Lobo writes at WSWS:
Bolivian president Evo Morales of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party was forced to resign Sunday evening by the Bolivian military in a coup backed by the United States. Last night, Morales tweeted that he is “leaving for Mexico” after that country agreed to grant him asylum.
After three weeks of protests following the disputed October 20 presidential elections, the imperialist powers and their Bolivian client elite have overthrown the government of Morales. In the context of a deepening crisis of global capitalism and a resurgence of the class struggle internationally, including recent mass strikes among miners and doctors in Bolivia, the ruling class lost confidence that Morales and the MAS apparatus can continue to suppress social opposition.
During his twelve years in office Evo Morales achieved quite a lot of good things:
Illiteracy rates:
2006 13.0%, 2018 2.4%
Unemployment rates
2006 9.2%, 2018 4.1%
Moderate poverty rates
2006 60.6%, 2018 34.6%
Extreme poverty rates
2006 38.2%, 2018 15.2%
But Morales failed to build the defenses that are necessary to make such changes permanent. The leadership of the military and police stood against him. Why were these men in such positions?
Jeb Sprague @JebSprague - 20:19 UTC · Nov 11, 2019
The US coup connection
Officials who forced #Evo to resign worked as #Bolivia's Mil. Attachés in DC. The CIA often seeks to recruit Attachés working in DC.
2013: Gen. Kaliman served as Mil. Attaché
2018: Police Com. Calderón Mariscal was Pres. of APALA in DC
The Agregados Policiales de América Latina (APALA) is supposed to fight international organized crime in Latin America. It is curiously hosted in Washington DC.
These police and military men cooperated with a racist Christian-fascist multi-millionaire to bring Morales down.
Morales had clearly won a fourth term in the the October 20 elections. The vote count was confusing (pdf) because it followed the process defined by the Organization of American States:
The [Tribunal Supremo Electoral, or TSE] has two vote-counting systems. The first is a quick count known as the Transmisión de Resultados Electorales Preliminares (TREP, hereafter referred to as the quick count). This is a system that Bolivia and several other Latin American countries have implemented following OAS recommendations. It was implemented for the 2019 election by a private company in conjunction with the Servicio de Registro Cívico (SERECÍ), the civil registry service, and is designed to deliver a swift —but incomplete and not definitive- result on the night of the elections to give the media an indication of the voting tendency and to inform the public.
The early and incomplete numbers let it seem that Morales had not won the 10% lead he needed to avert a second round of voting. The rural districts in which Morales has high support are usually late to report results and were not included. The complete results showed that Morales had won more than the 10% lead he needed to avoid a runoff.
Kevin Cashman @kevinmcashman - 1:36 UTC · Nov 11, 2019
Eventually, the official count was released: Morales won in the first round 47.08% to 36.51%. If you had been watching the polls before the election, 5 out of 6 of them predicted the same result. Weird to have a fraud that matches up with polls.
Poll Tracker: Bolivia's 2019 Presidential Race
To allege false election results to instigate color revolutions or coups is a typical instrument of U.S. interference. In 2009 Mahmoud Ahmedinejad won his second term in the Iranian presidential elections. The U.S. supported oppositions raised a ruckus even as the results fit perfectly with previous polling.
The OAS which recommended the quick count scheme that allows for such manipulations receives 60% of its budget from Washington DC.
Western media do not call the coup in Bolivia a coup because it was what the U.S. wanted to happen:
Army generals appearing on television to demand the resignation and arrest of an elected civilian head of state seems like a textbook example of a coup. And yet that is certainly not how corporate media are presenting the weekend’s events in Bolivia.
11/10/19), amid widespread “protests” (CBS News, 11/10/19) from an “infuriated population” (New York Times, 11/10/19) angry at the “election fraud” (Fox News, 11/10/19) of the “full-blown dictatorship” (Miami Herald, 11/9/19). When the word “coup” is used at all, it comes only as an accusation from Morales or another official from his government, which corporate media have been demonizing since his election in 2006 (FAIR.org, 5/6/09, 8/1/12, 4/11/19).
The poor and indigenous people who supported Morales will have little chance against the far right para-militaries and police (vid) who now go from door to door (vid) to round up leftists and Morales supporters.
Evo Morales found asylum in Mexico. Bolivia will now turn into a neoliberal hell and a quasi-dictatorship. It will take time, a lot of effort and probably a civil war to regain what was lost through this coup.
What can one learn from this?
- As one person remarked to me: "When one wants to win and keep a socialist revolution one has to bring guillotines."
- Socialist movements who come into power must neutralize their biggest local enemies. They need to build their own defenses. They can not rely on those institutions, like the military and police, they inherit from previous regimes.
- Such movements must never rely on U.S. affiliated organizations like the OAS or on military and police personal that had come under U.S. indoctrination.
- A movement needs a public voice. It must build its own media locally and internationally.
Hugo Chavez knew all this. As soon as he won the presidential election in Venezuela he built the necessary forces to defend the state. It is the only reason why his successor Nicolás Maduro defeated the coup attempts against him and is still in power.
Evo Morales unfortunately failed to follow that path.
Bolivia's Pres. Evo Morales (r), with Fidel (c) and Pres. Chavez. President Morales did not follow Fidel's approach to defending the revolution.
Posted by b on November 12, 2019 at 18:08 UTC | Permalink
Select Comments
I'm just disappointed true leftist leaders and rebels didn't learn from past experience. Posted by: Clueless Joe | Nov 12 2019 18:31 utc | 1
That's why one of the first things Lenin ordered after the October Revolution (1917) was the creation of the Red Army and Red Air Force (February 1918).
P.S.: the Navy already was on the side of the Revolution, so there was no need to create a new one.
The example of Venezuela is well given. Thanks too to posters on the previous thread for their reporting.
Posted by: juliania | Nov 12 2019 18:38 utc | 6
"Bolivia, With Huge Untapped Reserves, Gears Up For Soaring Lithium Demand" Yahoo [9/14/19] "Over 3,600 meters above sea level on the blinding white plain of the world's largest salt flat, landlocked Bolivia is dramatically ramping up production of lithium to cope with soaring global demand for the prized electric-battery metal. Bolivia, among the poorest countries in South America, sits on one of the world's largest lithium reserves, at the Salar de Uyuni -- or Uyuni Salt Flats -- ready to take full advantage in the coming age of the electric car. But while it sits at the apex of South America's "lithium triangle," along with Chile and Argentina, Bolivia has not had the capacity to produce the metal on a commercial scale. That will change when its Llipi plant comes online in 2020. The factory, guarded by the army because of the metal's value, will have an annual production capacity of 15,000 tons of lithium carbonate, project manager Marco Antonio Condoretty told AFP. State company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB), established by the government of President Evo Morales in 2008 to exploit lithium in the salt flats, aims to make Bolivia the fourth-largest producer by 2021. Morales, a leftist and former coca farmer, is (was) counting on lithium to serve as the economic engine that lifts his country out of poverty.[...]" Sept 2019
| Note:: The US regime wants the Lithium mines, and will do anything to get control, and that means get Morales out of office, which is happening now, two months after the Yahoo article.
Bolivia, With Huge Untapped Reserves, Gears Up For Soaring Lithium Demand Sept 2019
The US Hegemonic establishment did learn from its failure in Venezuela, in that it went for the throat vs. Morales. The playbook was perhaps closer to what was done in Ukraine, where massive violence was unleashed against the heads of the elected government, than it was to the Venezuela approach. This violence was perhaps even more brutal in Bolivia, it seems, where kidnappings and houseburnings apparently targeted those close to Morales.
Posted by: paul | Nov 12 2019 18:47 utc | 8
via CommonDreams
Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than A Week After Morales Stopped Lithium Deal
“The Sunday military coup in Bolivia has put in place a government which appears likely to reverse a decision by just-resigned President Evo Morales to cancel an agreement with a German company for developing lithium deposits in the Latin American country for batteries like those in electric cars.
"Bolivia's lithium belongs to the Bolivian people," tweeted Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins. "Not to multinational corporate cabals."
Posted by: Stever | Nov 12 2019 18:48 utc | 9
I totally agree.
And it takes a lot of ingenuity to let the OAS determine the counting procedure.
Posted by: pnyx | Nov 12 2019 18:49 utc | 11
US: "Resistance is futile. South America will be assimilated."
School of the Americas, Christian Jihad, Right-wing (and occasionally Left-Wing) death squads... South America is starting to look a lot like Afghanistan. We (the US) suck at being the Borg and I'm tired of paying for it. So, fifty more years of eager little-people immigrants to clean US toilets. Take that, EU!
Posted by: PavewayIV | Nov 12 2019 18:49 utc | 12
Excellent post. The left is often blinded by its reason into thinking it can win by argument and goodwill. But one does not bring a knife to a gunfight. Bring guillotines? Absolutely goddam right.
Posted by: Patrokos | Nov 12 2019 19:00 utc | 13
[premium_newsticker id="211406"]
Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读
[google-translator]
OR you can simply scan our QR code—
[/su_spoiler]
THE DEEP STATE IS CLOSING IN
The big social media —Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—are trying to silence us.
NYT is "almost frank" today:
Evo Morales Flies to Mexico but Vows to Return to Bolivia ‘With Strength’
The ousted Bolivian president signaled that his exile would be brief, while officials in La Paz prepared to try to form an interim government.
THE INTERPRETER
Bolivia Crisis Shows the Blurry Line Between Coup and Uprising
The Cold War binary of “bad” coups and “good” popular revolts no longer applies. But the labels persist, with important consequences.
5h ago
By MAX FISHER
Another gloomy note in Business section: we will be ruled by racist lecherous robots. Two article headers next to each other:
We Teach A.I. Systems Everything, Including Our Biases
Researchers say computer systems are learning from lots and lots of digitized books and news articles that could bake old attitudes into new technology.
McDonald’s Lawsuit Targets ‘Pervasive’ Culture of Sexual Harassment
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Nov 12 2019 18:31 utc | 2