Thursday, December 19, 2019

BOLIVIA COUP 2019



BOLIVIA COUP NOVEMBER 2019
COLLECTION OF REPORTING AND EVALUATION OF BOLIVIAN COUP 11-12-19 TO 12-19-19

Readings gathered by Dick Bennett, arranged in roughly reversed chronological order, except for the 2014 historical introduction at the beginning .   
The Astounding Record of United States Interventions in Latin America http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/157958
By John H. Coatsworth, History News Network, posted December 22, 2014
  SOURCE: ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America
12-22-14 (accessed)  
John H. Coatsworth is Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs. Coatsworth's most recent book is The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, a two-volume reference work, edited with Victor Bulmer-Thomas and Roberto Cortes Conde.

In the slightly less than a hundred years from 1898 to 1994, the U.S. government has intervened successfully to change governments in Latin America a total of at least 41 times. That amounts to once every 28 months for an entire century (see table).

Direct intervention occurred in 17 of the 41 cases. These incidents involved the use of U.S. military forces, intelligence agents or local citizens employed by U.S. government agencies. In another 24 cases, the U.S. government played an indirect role. That is, local actors played the principal roles, but either would not have acted or would not have succeeded without encouragement from the U.S. government.

While direct interventions are easily identified and copiously documented, identifying indirect interventions requires an exercise in historical judgment. The list of 41 includes only cases where, in the author’s judgment, the incumbent government would likely have survived in the absence of U.S. hostility. The list ranges from obvious cases to close calls. An example of an obvious case is the decision, made in the Oval Office in January 1963, to incite the Guatemalan army to overthrow the (dubiously) elected government of Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes in order to prevent an open competitive election that might have been won by left-leaning former President Juan José Arévalo. A less obvious case is that of the Chilean military coup against the government of President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. The Allende government had plenty of domestic opponents eager to see it deposed. It is included in this list because U.S. opposition to a coup (rather than encouragement) would most likely have enabled Allende to continue in office until new elections.

The 41 cases do not include incidents in which the United States sought to depose a Latin American government, but failed in the attempt. The most famous such case was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961. Also absent from the list are numerous cases in which the U.S. government acted decisively to forestall a coup d’etat or otherwise protect an incumbent regime from being overthrown.

Overthrowing governments in Latin America has never been exactly routine for the United States. However, the option to depose a sitting government has appeared on the U.S. president’s desk with remarkable frequency over the past century. It is no doubt still there, though the frequency with which the U.S. president has used this option has fallen rapidly since the end of the Cold War...
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT REVISTA: HARVARD REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICA

After deposing Evo Morales in a U.S.-backed coup November 11, Bolivia’s military selected Jeanine Añez as president. Añez immediately signed a decree pre-exonerating security forces of all crimes during their “re-establishment of order,” understood by all sides as a license to kill. Those same forces have now conducted massacres of Morales supporters near the cities […]
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Disappearances, murders, arbitrary detentions, rapes, torture and hospitals that refuse to take care of those wounded by the repression were some of the events recorded during the first day of work. They were held and kicked at the airport by a pro-coup mob. Then the Minister of Government of Añez, Arturo Murillo, came out to […]
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mronline.org (11-27-19)


Economists and statisticians have pointed out that the trends displayed during the results are quite common across the world. They have also condemned the OAS, the U.S. government and the media for repeating this lie.

share on Twitter Like Economists and statisticians debunk ‘electoral fraud’ conspiracy in Bolivia on Facebook

 mronline.org (11-26-19)

A coup on November 10 removed the socialist government of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The trail of evidence—from money flows to U.S. influence within the Bolivian military, and U.S. control of the Organization of American States (OAS)—leaves little doubt that the U.S. government made preparations and orchestrated the final stages of the coup.
Source   share on Twitter Like Evidence talks: U.S. government propelled coup in Bolivia on Facebook

While some may be surprised by its response to the Bolivia crisis, Human Rights Watch’s support for a U.S.-backed right-wing coup is no aberration.
Source   share on Twitter Like How Human Rights Watch whitewashed a right-wing massacre in Bolivia on Facebook

We Continue to Fight for Justice for Indigenous Bolivians, Thanks to You!https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/profile_mask2.png
Vince Warren, Center for Constitutional Rights development@ccrjustice.org via uark.onmicrosoft.com 
Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 2:27 PM (21 hours ago)
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On Tuesday, the Center for Constitutional Rights attorneys and co-counsel represented Indigenous Bolivian family members in urging the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a judgement against Bolivia’s former president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (Goni), and former defense minister, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, for their role in the massacre of unarmed Indigenous civilians in 2003 in the period that has come to be known as “Black October.” Thank you for standing by our side so we could continue this 16 year-long fight for justice!
A U.S. jury had found the two former officials liable under the Torture Victim Protection Act in April 2018 and awarded the eight victims’ families $10 million in damages. The unanimous verdict came after a month-long trial that included six days of deliberations. The judge later took the extraordinary step to set aside the jury verdict and entered his own ruling holding the defendants not liable. Thanks to you, we fought against these high-level officials to demand accountability, for the Indigenous Bolivian families who lost their loved ones as a result of this horrific violence -- and will continue to do so to the very end!
“I was proud, during the trial, to be able to hold these two men to account in their adopted country,” said Teófilo Baltazar Cerro, a plaintiff whose pregnant wife Teodosia was shot and killed while praying inside her sister’s home. “We have faith that the Court of Appeals will see what the Bolivian people and the American jury also saw: that Goni and Sánchez Berzaín are responsible for these killings, and that justice must be done.” 

Your partnership gives us the confidence to boldly fight against abuses of power and stand with vulnerable communities who are targeted by these abuses. For more information, 
visit our case page.

In gratitude and solidarity,

Vince Warren
Executive Director

P.S. For those of you in the New York area, please join us tomorrow at 6 p.m. for Black October's Legacy: Fighting Impunity with the Aymara Community of Bolivia. This is a unique opportunity to hear from one of the families who brought this case, as they share their story, including what happened to their daughter, how they have fought for justice in the years since, and the significance of their fight to hold “Goni” accountable. Learn more and RSVP here.



The Center for Constitutional Rights stands with social justice movements and communities under threat—fusing litigation, advocacy, and narrative shifting to dismantle systems of oppression regardless of the risk.




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News Coverage of Our Protest of the U.S.-backed Bolivian
Coup
Abel Tomlinson
10:13 AM (1 hour ago)
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Dear Friends,
In case you missed it, 40/29 News covered our protest of the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.  We are not only reaching the dozens or hundreds of cars that drive by, but when we get news coverage we are speaking to tens of thousands of people.  This is why even small protests are so important.  This is especially important on this issue of the Bolivian coup, where most of the political and media establishment are not even admitting that it was a coup.  Thanks again to everyone that showed up in the cold and on such short notice! 


VETERANS FOR PEACE, E-NEWS, November 21, 2019 - VFP Condemns Racist Coup in Bolivia,.  

Veterans For Peace Condemns Racist Coup in Bolivia
Veterans For Peace strongly condemns the violent U.S.-backed right-wing coup in Bolivia. Evo Morales was the first Indigenous president in Bolivia, which is 65% Indigenous. The openly racist Bolivarian oligarchy, descendants of European colonizers, could not stand to see a government that was led by Indigenous people and whose policies were lifting millions of people out of poverty. 
The U.S. government tries to hide its involvement in Latin American coups, but we know that the U.S. and the CIA have a long history of interfering in Latin America , and USAID has "invested more than $97 million in "decentralization" and "regional autonomy" projects and opposition political parties in Bolivia since 2002". Several of the coup generals were trained at the infamous School of the Americas (aka School of Assassins) at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Veterans For Peace stands in solidarity with the Indigenous majority in Bolivia who are resisting the racist, right-wing takeover of their democracy. We demand that the coup be stopped and democracy restored in Bolivia. As military veterans who have been used and abused in too many unjust wars, we demand an end to 200 years of U.S. intervention in Latin America.
Be sure to check out About Face-Veterans Against War's statement for action items!


'Years From Now, It'll Be Clear to Everyone There Was a Coup in Bolivia'
FAIR fair@fair.org via uark.onmicrosoft.com 
11:41 AM (4 minutes ago)
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FAIR
Janine Jackson interviewed CEPR's Alex Main about the Bolivian coup for the November 15, 2019, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
NYT: Bolivia's Leader Resigns, Heeding Protesters' Call
New York Times print edition (11/11/19)
Janine Jackson: When a president announces his involuntary resignation—after weeks of law enforcement mutiny backed by armed forces and the public urging of military commanders—the way to convey that is not to say that the president “stepped down,” “left office” or had an “abrupt departure.” Yet that is what elite US media are telling the public about events in Bolivia, where Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president, was forced out of office after weeks of protests around supposed irregularities in the most recent election.
The magazine Foreign Policy stated, “It’s not a coup in any sense of the word, and Bolivia and Latin America have experience with actual coups.” Although not enough, apparently; just last year, Foreign Policy ran a piece headlined, “It’s Time for a Coup in Venezuela.”
After Morales and the vice president, other officials—citing threats to their families—stepped down in succession, and now, as we record on November 14, a second vice president of the senate, Jeanine Áñez, has declared herself president—with a Bible no less—and the State Department says they are looking forward to working with her.
Events in Bolivia are in flux. Here to ground us a little is Alex Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He joins us by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Alex Main.
Alex Main: Thank you, Janine; it's good to be back.
JJ: Definitions do matter, but setting that aside for the moment, what comes through clearly in US media coverage is the idea that Evo Morales was so unpopular after 14 years in office, so deeply unliked, that he had to jigger the constitution to try and stay in office. I wanted to ask you, first, just to talk a little bit about Morales’ tenure to date, and actual public opinion in Bolivia.
AM: Well, sure. I think the polls in the country gave a pretty good idea of his popularity. And, in fact, what's interesting in terms of the media coverage is that you saw a real shift, where some of the initial coverage—you can look at the Washington Post, for instance, just before the elections took place—were pretty much announcing that this is a done deal, that Evo Morales is most likely going to win these elections, quite possibly in the first round of the elections that took place on October 20.
AS/COA: Poll Tracker: Bolivia's 2019 Presidential Race
Americas Society/Council of Americas (10/18/19)
And, of course, there's a good explanation for that: The economy of Bolivia is doing really well, particularly compared to other economies of Latin America. And Evo Morales’ policies over the 13 years that he's been president have been very successful in reducing poverty, in reducing inequality, in improving infrastructure throughout the country.
Now, of course, there is a strong opposition. But that opposition, in the last few elections, has failed to overturn him, get him out of the presidency, or really manage to have a significant opposition even within the congress of the country. So the polls that came out give us a good sense of where Evo Morales stands in terms of public opinion. But then the media narrative shifted quite dramatically in the following days.
JJ: Yeah, and now the line, strange as it is, seems to be that, “Well, it wasn't a coup, but even if it was, that's OK, because there were serious irregularities in the election,” as if that would somehow justify a coup.
But I wonder if you can talk us through what people are reading were the groundings for this widespread protest and for the military intervention, which is that somehow Morales or his people fiddled with this most recent election. What can you tell us, including from CEPR’s work, we should know about that?

Alex Main: "The Organization of American States and much of the major media misled public opinion as to what was happening with these elections."
AM: I think what you need to know is that there are two groups that didn't do their job around this, in terms of really informing public opinion.
The first group was the Organization of American States, that was down in Bolivia observing these elections, and that produced a communiqué the day after the elections, in which they said that there had been a “drastic change in the trend” in the electronic vote count, the quick count that was taking place, and that it was unexplainable that there had been such a drastic shift in the trend.
This particular statement was very easy to debunk. You didn't really need a think tank like ours to do that; I think anyone who really looked at the election results carefully could do it. You could see that there wasn't a drastic shift in the results, and that also the shifts that you saw towards the end of the election, which the OAS was referring to—and there was a progressive shift in favor of Evo Morales that widened his margin—he had originally had, I think, 83% of the quick vote count, about 7 points ahead of the closest contender, Carlos Mesa, and gradually, with the remaining votes that came in, the margin increased to over 10 points, which was what was needed for Evo Morales to win in the first round.
And that was entirely explainable. In fact, it's what we saw in previous elections; it's pure geography: The areas of the country that reported the results last were the areas of the country that happened to be poorer, more remote, and much, much more favorable, traditionally, to Evo Morales. So it was quite normal that the margin shifted in his favor. So this was a really misleading statement that had absolutely no basis, that came from the OAS.
And then that had a huge influence on the second group that I would say misled public opinion, and that's, of course, the media, the mainstream media, that took these statements from the OAS at face value, and ran with them, didn't even try to form any kind of assessment of their own as to the value of these statements, and did two things: one, gave these statements complete credit. We and other folks, independent statisticians, were pointing out that these statements made no sense; they didn't take that into consideration at all. The OAS is the voice of authority and they left it at that. Secondly, the media decided that references to what was the electronic vote count, quick vote count—which was not the official vote count of the election—was the same thing as the official vote count.
So there was this sort of confusion (I think some of the media was genuinely confused); they focused on the fact that there had been an “interruption” in the reporting of the quick vote count, which, by the way, was something that had been anticipated to begin with. They pointed to that and said, “OK, well, then that means that the integrity of the vote count is in question,” when, of course, the official vote count that had been occurring—and that’s a much more lengthy and meticulous count, and took place over four days—was never interrupted. And there was never anything from the Organization of American States or anybody else that suggested that there was really a problem with that vote count process.
So again, the Organization of American States and much of the major media misled public opinion as to what was happening with these elections, and created this belief that there had been severe irregularities in the vote count. And that, gradually, in terms of the media coverage, became something portrayed as fraud and stolen elections, even though there's no evidence pointing to that at all.
JJ: Well, but if you tell people who are unhappy with an election outcome, “Well, that was due to fraud,” you're bound to get a response, particularly if you are a powerful entity like the United States, like the OAS, saying, “Yeah, you shouldn't accept that result.”
So now we get protests in Bolivia. And how would you describe those initial protests, and take us through the timeline in between the start of those protests and Morales’ “resignation”?
AM: What happened with these protests is that they were by and large in urban areas, they were largely middle-class protests. They definitely grew after October 21, and, I would say, after the misleading statements from the Organization of American States came out. This legitimized discourse from the opposition, which was that these elections were fraudulent, and that really galvanized the protest movement, and it turned violent. Some of that violence was oriented towards the voting centers, and the voting authority, and there were voting centers that ended up damaged, ransacked. Voting material, including ballots, were destroyed, which, of course, made it more difficult to audit the elections afterwards.
And there was also violence directed at supporters and leaders of the Movement Toward Socialism or MAS, Evo Morales’ political party, and towards indigenous people writ large. So there was also a racist element to these protests.
They grew more and more out of hand, and then you had police mutinies that were staged, I would say, Thursday, Friday, Saturday of last week, in which the police forces in some of the biggest cities in Bolivia, including Cochabamba and La Paz, declared themselves in mutiny, and refused to intervene against any of the violent protests that were taking place. Of course, this opened the door to more chaos. And then what really sealed the deal was the fact that the military then came out, the high command of the military, said that they would not intervene against the police. So at that point, you had a complete breakdown, I would say, in law enforcement in the country, and particularly in terms of dealing with the more violent elements of these protests.
And, finally, you had the high command of the military that called on Evo Morales to resign. Of course, that's when we really could see that a coup was taking place. And shortly afterwards, Evo Morales and the vice president of the country, Álvaro García Linera, announced that they were resigning. In their announcement, they also made very clear that a coup was occurring. Afterwards, they went into hiding, and the next day managed to get on a plane, with some difficulty, but managed to get on a plane to Mexico, where they were offered asylum, and where they are now located, whereas some of the other leadership from the MAS party was holed up in the Mexican embassy and also offered asylum.
NYT: Evo Morales Is Gone. Bolivia’s Problems Aren’t.
New York Times (11/11/19)
So very much a military coup, reminiscent in some ways of the coup in Honduras in June of 2009, a military coup where the president was taken out of the country, the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. And, similar to back then, even though everyone, I think, at this point is clear that there was a coup in Honduras in June of 2009, back then you also had this sort of debate in the media as to whether or not it was a coup.
And I think in part it had to do with the ambivalent position of, at that time, the Obama administration. And now we're seeing, of course, from the Trump administration, a position that's not even ambivalent, that's fully supportive of the coup that's occurred. Of course, they're not calling it a coup. And I think that sets the frame for a lot of the media coverage, which is also failing to call it a coup, and in some cases, such as the New York Times, in an editorial that was published just three days ago, celebrating what has happened in Bolivia as a step forward for democracy.
JJ: I wanted to ask you about the US role. How would the United States feel about an economically successful Latin American country run by an indigenous man and a party called the Movement Towards Socialism? What has been the US role with regard to the Morales administration, and then with regard to this coup?
AM: The relations between the two countries—between the two governments, I should say—have been very bad for quite a long time, and this stemmed from the US, through its diplomats, and particularly through its ambassador that was in Bolivia at the time in 2008, supporting violent protests. Again, this took place in August-September of 2008, when you had the ambassador who met with some of the hardline protest leaders that were encouraging protests that were also very racist, and going after indigenous peoples and MAS leaders and so on. This led to a break in diplomatic relations. The US ambassador was kicked out of Bolivia and, of course, the US reciprocated. They haven't had ambassador-level relations since then.
And, of course, in terms of its own domestic and foreign policies, Bolivia has really gone in a different direction from that that the US government has wanted to see. And they did away with US assistance to not be reliant on that. So US AID ended up leaving the country, at the request of the Evo Morales government. And then, of course, Evo Morales was close to Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and other left-wing leaders in the region.
And so I think, whether under the George W. Bush administration or the Obama administration, the US government really saw the Bolivian government of Evo Morales as an adversary in the region, and sought to undermine Evo Morales, probably not as actively as the government in Venezuela but still, I think, fairly actively, certainly in multilateral settings.
But what's happened with these last elections is that you've had the Organization of American States that’s there observing. They've observed elections in Bolivia before; there were no real issues. But I think there was a sense of an opportunity now with these elections, and the fact that there was some controversy around the elections, due to the fact that Evo Morales was standing for another term. And the constitution allowed him two terms; he was standing for a third term under this constitution. Of course, that had been authorized and was legal because of a court decision. But, ultimately, you had a sector of the population that was riled up about that. And that was part of what was behind the protest movement.
So you already had a context of some social tension that was there, that the US took advantage of, and they did that in large part through the Organization of American States. And you saw a great deal of coordination between the Organization of American States’ electoral mission and statements and the statements of the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, and the statements and positions coming from the State Department and the White House throughout this whole episode, which shifted from “There needs to be a runoff election” to “There need to be completely new elections” to supporting the forced resignation, under military pressure, of Evo Morales, to supporting a coup.
So you had both the US and the Organization of American States that were very much in line and, of course, the US has an enormous influence within the Organization of American States and provides something like 60% of its funding, not to mention that the Organization of American States is located in the middle of Washington, DC, just next to the US State Department.

AP (via Voice of America11/13/19)
JJ: And that brings us up to now, where we have protests by indigenous people against the coup in Bolivia, and also, as you noted, attacks on MAS representatives and serious unrest.
And we have also Jeanine Áñez, who was a lower-level official, now saying, “I'm the president now.” And the Associated Press has a headline saying, “Bolivia’s Declared Interim President Faces challenges,” not noting that [she's] declared by herself, you know, and we're hearing from the State Department, which just got through supporting the coup, has a statement, at least from one official, saying, “We look forward to working with Jeanine Áñez.” Is that legal? Now we have someone stepping forward, it sounds a lot like Venezuela, someone saying, “Oh, you know what, call me president now.”
AM: No, it's absolutely not legal. So you could consider that as sort of the second part of the coup, the first part being the forced resignation, under military pressure, of the president and vice president, and also other officials that were in the constitutional succession to be president. They were all under threat. They were being threatened personally, or their families were being threatened, and then they either left the country or went into hiding. But at any rate, that was a military coup right there. And then, when you had Jeanine Áñez, who stepped up in the senate and declared herself president, that was also a coup.
You had, of course, in the constitutional line of succession, the president of the senate, that would have eventually become president. However, she, Jeanine Áñez, was not the president of the senate; she belonged to the minority opposition party in the senate. And she took advantage of the fact that the legislators of both houses were not there, were in hiding, weren't able to assist in the discussion, so there was no quorum. So she spoke before a plenary that wasn't a quorum. I was not legal; you didn't have enough members of the senate that were present. And declared herself president of the senate, before then saying, “OK, if I'm president of the senate, then that makes me president of the country.”
And I think what really made it clear what this was all about was when you had the military high command, one of the officers in the military high command, who was the one who put the presidential sash around the body of Jeanine Áñez, in place, of course, of the outgoing president.
Those are the sorts of things that the media have not described in what's happened: the very unconstitutional nature of this presidential succession. Most of the articles that we're seeing now coming from most of the media are just describing Jeanine Áñez as the interim president, period, and not even mentioning the fact that there might be some debate as to her legitimacy as an interim president.
Foreign Policy: It's Time for a Coup in Venezuela
Foreign Policy (6/5/18)
JJ: Even when US media talk about what's going on, the words they use to emphatically say—for example, Foreign Policy, which said, this isn’t a coup by any understanding of it. Their subhead on their article that called for a coup in Venezuela said, “Only nationalists in the military can restore a legitimate constitutional democracy.” Now, that's them talking about Venezuela, but it's an indication that words don't mean what you might think they mean when you're reading US media's foreign policy coverage, you know? It's just kind of a topsy-turvy world in elite US media, when we're trying to understand what's going on in Latin America, certainly.
AM: Yeah, that's right. And it's, again, very reminiscent of Honduras in 2009. At that time, you had a lot of the media commentators that were pointing out that Manuel Zelaya had been trying to change the constitution, supposedly because he wanted to stay president indefinitely, and so on. And so then saying, “Well, then, it wasn't really a coup.” And you're seeing something similar now because of this debate over Evo Morales’s re-election, which, again, was legal, which was approved by the courts, but they're using that debate to say, “Well, you know, it wasn't even really legitimate for him to be running in these elections,” leaving aside the fact that he was most certainly still the president of the country until January 20, until the end of his term, and that he’d been forcibly removed from office.
And I think we're going to have a similar situation where today, no one really questions the fact that there was a coup in Honduras. I think, weeks, months, maybe years from now, it'll be clear to everyone that there was a coup in Bolivia, but by then, it will be too late. Public opinion will have only been awoken long after the coup has occurred, and people will not be mobilizing, I think, as they should, to put pressure on the US government, on the US Congress and so on, to do the right thing, and to denounce and work to undo the coup that’s just occurred in Bolivia.
JJWe've been speaking with Alex Main. He's the director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Their work on Bolivia and on other issues is online at cepr.net. Alex Main, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
AM: Thank you, Janine.

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mronline.org (11-21-19)


The Bolivian security forces set up road blocks across Cochabamba today as mass demonstrations are taking place against the brutal attacks carried out against the people last week.
Source  share on Twitter Like Thousands march in response to Cochabamba massacre as the dictatorship prepares for a State of siege on Facebook

We Condemn the U.S. Backed Coup in Bolivia!
Jovanni Reyes via email.actionnetwork.org 
11-21-19
8:01 AM (40 minutes ago)
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Dick
The Veterans of About Face vehemently and unequivocally condemn the U.S. role in facilitating and supporting the coup d’état of the democratically elected Bolivian Socialist President Evo Morales. President Morales was ousted on November 11 by the Bolivian military and its right-wing mob of reactionaries and Christian fascist paramilitaries who terrorized supporters, government ministers, and elected officials. We support the self-determination of the Bolivian people who are filling the streets to demand the restoration of the constitutional order and to return democratically elected President Evo Morales to office.
As of this statement, Morales’ supporters -- who are coming from the rural areas to the cities to protest and show their support -- are being met with military and police repression, as well as with right-wing violence. Long considered the poorest country in South America, Bolivia is an indigenous majority country with a minority European descendant population who control most of the country’s wealth. Evo Morales is the country’s first Indigenous president in 480 years. While in the past, Bolivia's government has marginalized poor and Indigenous peoples and ruled on behalf of the wealthier white elites and foreign corporate interests, Morales’ strong support base lies with the Indigenous communities who for the first time have a leader who looks like them and truly represents their concerns. Under Morales’s leadership, the country recovered its sovereignty from corporate entities, experienced an upsurge in economic growth and equity, and saw social and ecological advances. As a result, Bolivians have seen a higher standard of living- lifting 40 percent out of poverty, and 60 percent out of extreme poverty. We have no doubt that it is for exactly these reasons that the United States government, heavily influenced by corporate influence, is comfortable with, if not supportive of, this gross violation of democratic values.
We call on the global community to reject this affront to democracy and the farcical “interim presidency” of Jeanine Añez who proclaimed herself president. It is shameful that the White House so quickly legitimized the coup and recognized the coup government. Meanwhile, Democrats continue to give their consent by remaining silent. This is completely unacceptable.
Furthermore, we demand that U.S. elected officials, particularly Senator Marco Rubio (R- FL), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Congressman Robert “Bob” Menendez (D- NJ), come clean about any participation in the removal of Morales. Coup plotters themselves claim in leaked audio to have had conversations with these three U.S. officials and to have gotten their support.  
This is not the first time that Sen. Marco Rubio has involved himself in the destabilization of a Latin American country. The Senator has made several attempts to help push forward the overthrow of the government in Caracas, and at each failure, he continues to push for harsher US sanctions intended to cause economic collapse. He also pushes for crushing sanctions against Cuba and Nicaragua, which cause undue harm to everyday people rather than those in power. We urge the constituents of these three elected officials to demand answers and hold them accountable.
As Veterans who have witnessed the fallouts of U.S. policies abroad personally, we know that this support for violent coups comes with no regard for the consequences -- often leading to wars, atrocities, unnecessary deaths, and mass migrations. Despite what Trump and other politicians may claim, we understand that they have no true concern for the people or for any of the people’s grievances against the leaders the US targets -- instead, this moment fits into a long US history of overthrowing democracies in favor of right-wing regimes willing to align themselves to the US government and corporate interests. We believe in the self-determination of the people, free from US interference that will serve only to make violence and tensions worse.
Call to action:

Call, write or visit Senator Cruz, Senator Rubio, and Representative Menéndez.

1.    Demand that they actively work to stop US interventionism
2.    Demand their vocal condemnation of this coup and support for reinstating Evo Morales
3.    Demand that they respect international law and the self-determination of the people of Bolivia to choose their own government.

1.    Demand an investigation into the role that the US played in the Bolivian coup, specifically the roll that played Senator Marco Rubio (R- FL), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Congressman Robert “Bob” Menéndez (D- NJ)  
2.    Demand that the constitutional order be restored.  
3.    Demand that the Democratic candidates denounce the coup and call out President Trump's overreach in international affairs and the affairs of Bolivia.
Learn More!


About Face: Veterans Against The War
P.O. Box 3565

mronline.org (11-20-19).

The nationalization efforts of Evo Morales ensured that the State controlled 51 percent of all private energy firms that operated in Bolivia, which allowed the State’s coffers to fill rapidly. It was this money that was invested to go after poverty, hunger, and illiteracy.
Source   share on Twitter Like The coup in Bolivia has everything to do with the screen you’re using to read this on Facebook
Bolivian coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho is a far-right multi-millionaire who arose from fascist movements in the Santa Cruz region, where the US has encouraged separatism. He has courted support from Colombia, Brazil, and the Venezuelan opposition.
Source   share on Twitter Like Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire–with foreign support on Facebook
Each night there are vigils, fires, an unwavering decision: the historic, Aymara, ancient, and more recent memory of the 2003 uprising where sixty people were killed.
Source   share on Twitter Like Inferno and the plan of the Coup d’Etat in Bolivia on Facebook


Next 2 from mronline.org (11-17-19)
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Let’s put an end to this nonesense that’s peddled by MSM.


The Bolivian people are living through terrible moments, with police officers and motorcyclists storm the streets and the military high command deciding to attack the citizens as a means of pacification, including preventing prominent people, religious leaders and political leaders from finding constitutional and democratic solutions to the crisis we are facing.
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Fwd: Bolivia right-wing coup with escalating deaths of Morales supporters and threats to journalists+ How corporate media covers-up U.S. role in Lula's imprisonment

Sonny San Juan
Nov 16, 2019, 10:35 PM (8 hours ago)
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Date: Sat, Nov 16, 2019 at 1:59 PM
Subject: Bolivia right-wing coup with escalating deaths of Morales supporters and threats to journalists+ How corporate media covers-up U.S. role in Lula's imprisonment
To:
SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOLIVIA ARTICLE
As Lula Emerges From Prison, US Media Ignore How Washington Helped Put Him There

The Brazilian Supreme Court reversed a 2018 ruling on November 7, upholding the principle of innocent until proven guilty in the 1988 Constitution and declaring it illegal to jail defendants before their appeals processes have been exhausted. Within 24 hours, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was released to an adoring crowd of hundreds of union members and social movement activists who had maintained a camp outside the police station where he was held, shouting “good morning,” “good afternoon” and “good night” to him for 580 consecutive days.

The New York Times (8/25/17) depicted Judge Sérgio Moro as “the face of the national reckoning for Brazil’s ruling class.” He now heads the Justice Department in the fascist government of Jair Bolsonaro.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled, on April 5, 2018—after a threat from Brazilian Gen. Eduardo Villas Bôas—that defendants could be preemptively jailed before their appeals processes played out. Directly afterwards, Judge Sérgio Moro pressed for an immediate election-year arrest warrant for the PT party founder at a moment when he was widely leading in all polls. (The far-right candidate who won in the wake of Lula’s removal from the race, Jair Bolsonaro, went on to name Moro his “Super Justice Minister.”)
Lula’s arrest came as part of a wide-ranging international investigation, ostensibly aimed at corruption, called Lava Jato (“Car Wash”), which involved the US Justice Department, US Security and Exchange Commission and Swiss federal police, working with Judge Moro and a public prosecutor team based in the conservative Brazilian city of Curitiba (CounterSpin, 6/21/19). The only charge that prosecutors had been able to stick on Lula was that he had committed “indeterminate acts of corruption.”
At the time, the Anglo media ignored US involvement in the investigation, built Moro up as a superhero, and failed to provide any kind of critical analysis of the proceedings against Lula, despite complaints from some of the world’s leading legal scholars and human rights activists that the former president was victim of a politically motivated kangaroo court proceeding designed to remove him from the presidential elections.
There was no material evidence linking Lula to any crime. His conviction was based on coerced plea bargain testimony by a single convicted criminal named Leo Pinheiro, director of the OAS construction company, which built the building where an apartment that featured in Lula’s case was located. Sentenced to ten years and eight months for paying bribes to Petrobras Petroleum company, Pinheiro originally testified that Lula had not committed any crime, then changed his story twice, implicating Lula before having his sentence reduced to two years and six months. His third and final story stated that Lula had received free renovations on the beach-side apartment in exchange for political favors.
Seventy-three witnesses, including executives from the OAS company, testified that neither Lula nor anyone from his family had ever owned or lived in the apartment. Furthermore, a judge in Brasilia determined in January 2018, as part of a different case, that the vacant apartment still belonged to OAS. The prosecutors were unable to prove that the renovations had ever actually taken place. Although Sérgio Moro had barred the press from visiting the site, the MTST housing movement broke in and filmed a video which proved that, contrary to prosecutors claims, the strikingly cheap-looking apartment had never had any of the renovations listed by the prosecutors, including installation of a private elevator and luxury appliances. The Lava Jato task force prosecutors and Judge Moro were unable to prove that they had any legal jurisdiction over a case involving an alleged crime in a different state, São Paulo, which has its own court system, after they dropped an initial frivolous charge alleging a connection between the apartment renovations and a money-laundering scheme involving the Petrobras petroleum company. Finally, the alleged renovations, which prosecutors were unable to prove ever took place, in an apartment that they were unable to prove belonged to Lula, supposedly happened three years after he left public office, meaning that it was legally impossible to prove abuse of authority.

“Brazilians call him SuperMoro, chanting his name on the streets of Rio de Janeiro as if he were a soccer star,” Time‘s Bryan Walsh (4/21/16) reported.
When Moro, who was declared a Time personality of the year in 2016 (4/21/16), declared Lula guilty of committing indeterminate acts of corruption, Western corporate media made little to no mention of prosecutorial misconduct, which was written about extensively in independent Brazilian media and legal publications. Moro had broken the law on multiple occasions in his zeal to put the former president behind bars. Using a legal loophole dating back to the Inquisition that enabled him to both oversee the investigation and rule on it, he ordered the Federal Police to wiretap Lula’s defense lawyers. This enabled the prosecutors to map out all possible moves by the defense and plan their reactions in advance. Moro also illegally wiretapped President Dilma Rousseff, then illegally leaked out-of-context audio to Brazil’s largest TV network on the eve of her impeachment hearings. In 2017, US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco bragged about informal communications with his friends in the Lava Jato task force, which violates Brazilian law by bypassing security protocols.
There was certainly enough information out there to suggest that Lula might be the victim of a political witch hunt to keep him from becoming president. This is, in fact, what the AFL-CIO, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Bernie Sanders and 29 Members of Congress were all saying at the time. However, no shadow of a doubt was allowed to fall over the proceedings in Anglo media. In the New Yorker (7/13/17), Alex Cuadros gushed that Lula’s conviction was “the most important criminal conviction in Brazil’s history.” And the week of Lula’s arrest, the Guardian (4/3/18) erroneously claimed that his conviction was connected to an “R$88 million graft scheme” involving Petrobras that Judge Moro had specifically explained in his ruling was not the case.
Behind bars and (illegally) barred from speaking to the press, Lula continued to run for president. Three months after he was arrested, he still led all election polls, with double the support of his nearest competitor. Then the UN Human Rights Committee issued a ruling, legally binding according to both international and Brazilian law, stating that Lula had the right to run for president. But as in the April 5, 2018, Supreme Court ruling, the judiciary decided to make an exception to the law, specifically to bar Lula from the campaign. Less than one month before the elections, the PT party was forced to provide a replacement candidate.
All things considered, the electoral results were better than expected. The PT party remained the largest party in Congress and became the party with the most governors. Last minute candidate Fernando Haddad made it to the final round and received 47 million votes, but it was not enough.

The Intercept‘s revelations (6/9/19) of judicial collusion were mentioned in the Brazilian Supreme Court ruling that ordered Lula da Silva’s release, but were often ignored in US media coverage of his return to freedom.
Months after Bolsonaro took office, the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald revealed thousands of hours of social media conversations between Lava Jato prosecutors and Moro. They showed the supposedly impartial judge giving instructions to the prosecutors, not only on how to improve the accusations, but on how to conduct a media strategy to commit character assassination against Lula. They exposed collusion with a Supreme Court Justice to issue a gag order preventing Lula from speaking to the press during the leadup to the 2018 presidential elections, in order to aid Bolsonaro’s campaign. They showed Lava Jato prosecution task force leader Delton Dallagnol praying to God that Bolsonaro would win the presidential election. Most damning of all, perhaps, is the conversation conducted between Dallagnol and the other prosecutors, only a few hours before the final trial, revealing that they didn’t think they had any proof, but that Moro was going to guarantee a conviction.
The US Department of Justice announced in March 2019 that it was going to give Dallagnol and his Lava Jato task force $682 million to open a privately managed “anti-corruption” foundation in Curitiba. The money would come from the $3.5 billion in fines that the DoJ and SEC collected in Lava Jato’s process of bankrupting and dismantling Brazil’s largest companies in the leadup to the 2016 legislative coup against President Rousseff.
The move was blocked by the Superior Justice Court, but it raised questions among some US lawmakers about how deep the US government’s role went in Lava Jato. On August 21, Rep. Hank Johnson (D.-Georgia) and 12 other members of Congress delivered a letter to Attorney General William Barr demanding answers to a series of questions about possible legal and ethical violations committed by the DoJ during its partnership with Moro and Lava Jato. One of the questions reads, “Did DoJ provide assistance with the collection or analysis of evidence compiled by the Lava Jato Task Force and Judge Moro for President Lula’s case?”
On September 25, Rep. Raul Grijalva and 14 other members of Congress introduced House Resolution 594, “expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, the rule of law, democracy and the environment in Brazil.” Moro is repeatedly criticized in the text of the resolution, which mentions the Intercept leaks, and states that
Sérgio Moro, the presiding judge in da Silva’s case, acted in a clearly biased manner toward da Silva, violating his right to a fair and impartial judicial process under Brazilian law.
One might think that by now US corporate media would finally begin to question the narrative that Lula is somehow guilty of corruption. Wouldn’t American readers be interested in learning about the role their Justice Department played in this process? Aren’t the leaked social media chats published by the Intercept relevant to the story of Lula’s release, especially since they were mentioned in the Brazilian Supreme Court ruling?

The New York Times (11/8/19) waited until the 18th of 28 paragraphs to mention “questions about the fairness of Mr. da Silva’s prosecution.”
Unfortunately, since Lula’s release, none of the major corporate media outlets have mentioned the US Department of Justice role in Lava Jato at all. Although a few papers mentioned the Intercept revelations, they are reframed and rendered less threatening to the narrative, presented in the context of “raising doubts among some” about the investigation.
On the day Lula was released, Bloomberg (11/8/19) ran an article which does not mention illegal collusion between judge and prosecutors. It states instead:
The ex-president was convicted of corruption in 2017 and lost two appeals since then, but he has not exhausted the entire process. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has said he’s victim of political persecution.
The Washington Post’s first article (11/8/19) on Lula’s release also failed to mention the corruption scandal which has enveloped Lava Jato, although it provided a link to a previous article (6/17/19) on that subject.
In two articles about Lula’s release, the BBC (11/9/19) likewise ignored the illegal collusion between judge and prosecutors in Lava Jato.
On the day Lula was released, the Guardian, whose Latin America editor Tom Phillips wrote 22 articles normalizing Bolsonaro in October 2018 in the leadup to the elections, made the editorial decision to rerun an AP article that makes no mention of the leaked social media conversations. One day later, the Washington Post‘s Dom Phillips (11/8/19), who was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Lula’s political imprisonment in the international media, briefly mentioned the Intercept revelations and Moro’s ethical problems in the context of an article that misrepresented Lula’s conviction as being connected to “money laundering,” and ended with an uncritical treatment of other frivolous charges against the former president.
The New York Times (11/8/19) mentioned the leaked audio messages, saying that they “made clear, for instance, that Mr. Moro had actively advised prosecutors on strategy in the case, conduct that legal analysts have called an ethical and legal transgression,” then quoted Moro on the case and stated that he disputes the idea that he acted improperly.
Despite the evidence of Lula’s innocence and illegal persecution, with the cooperation of the US DoJ, that removed him from the 2018 presidential elections, establishment media cling to a false narrative that, while weakened by the subsequent actions of current “Super Justice Minister” Moro, still attempts to damage the public image of the most popular president in Brazilian history.
As the smear campaign continues, it is important to remember that Lula represented a social democratic national development project, in the tradition of what Brazilians call desenvolvimentalismo, based on strategic control over natural resources and their use to fund public services like health and education, strong minimum wage policies and labor rights, increased access to free public universities, and strong investment in scientific research. This is the project that was dismantled after the 2016 coup, to the benefit of corporations like Monsanto, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Boeing. History shows that every Brazilian president who ever tried to implement desenvolvimentalista policies—from Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek and Jango Goulart to Rousseff and Lula—has been subjected to a coup, political imprisonment or assassination, with perennial suspicion of US involvement. And as we see corporate media working to normalize the military coup in Bolivia (FAIR.org, 11/11/19), it is clear that this problem is not limited to Brazil.

Bolivia: Coup-Born Government Threatens Independent Journalists
Supporters of Bolivia's President Evo Morales carry Wiphala flags as they block roads in El Alto, Bolivia, Nov. 15, 2019 | Photo: Reuters
Four Cuban officials were also accused of demonstrating against a de facto regime headed by Senator Jeanine Añez, who self-proclaimed president on Tuesday.
Independent journalists who are covering protests in Bolivia were accused of carrying out "sedition" by Communications Minister Roxana Lizarraga, who was paradoxically appointed by a US-backed government that emerged from a coup d'etat against the socialist President Evo Morales.
"Law will be fully enforced against those journalists or pseudo-journalists who are seditious, whether they are nationals or foreigners," Lizarraga said and took the opportunity to blame Cuba and Venezuela for the ongoing social unrest in Bolivia.
“They want to put us on their knees,” she added and warned that the Interior Ministry already has a list of the journalists who are stirring up resistance or rebellion against the coup-born regime.
After these announcements, four Cuban officials were arrested and accused of demonstrating against the interim government headed by Senator Jeanine Añez, who self-proclaimed president on Nov. 12.
According to identity documents to which international journalists had access, however, the detainees are cooperating technicians who are part of the Cuban Medical Brigade.
Physician Ramon Emilio, economist Idalberto Delgado and electromedical engineer Amparo Lourdes are currently being held at the Police Operations Tactical Unit (UTOP) in La Paz. The fourth detainee's identity is not yet known.

The Organization of American States (OAS) is a coup plotter and must answer for its complicity in kidnappings, torture, and deaths of Bolivian citizens, who are resisting and denouncing Bolivia's coup d'etat that was executed with interference from the U.S. Enough of media censorship! The United Nations should disseminate information and intervene.
Despite the blockade that mainstream media are making to what is happening in the Andean country, expressions of international solidarity with the Bolivian people are multiplying.
In Mexico City, for instance, human rights defenders and social activists on Friday will hold a rally in front of the U.S. embassy in rejection of the coup d'etat, which is being consummated under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS).
"We are all invited to denounce the U.S. empire blatant interference in this country," the rally organizers said and added that the Bolivians will keep a stubborn resistance against the racist oligarchy.

Bolivia: 9 Corpses in 24 hours Prove Dictatorship's Violence
Teresa Zubieta, the Ombudsman's office delegate, holds that 23 people have died amidst the coup d'etat.
Over the last 24 hours, at least nine Bolivians have died as a result of repressive actions carried out by the security forces that support the coup-based government headed by Senator Jeanine Añez.
"23 people have died since the coup. The most recent victims are four people shot dead in La Paz and five in Sacaba," La Paz Ombudsman' Office delegate Teresa Zubieta told teleSUR.
"They have killed our brothers as if they were animals," Zubieta said and explained that Añez's regime is generating "a setback of more than 30 years with respect to the protection of people."
Judging by the complaints filed before the Ombudsman's office, far-right paramilitary groups have been activated to "repress and intimidate people even when they are simply walking home from work."

Coup in Bolivia: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) condemned the Sacaba massacre. Five dead and dozens injured by the repression. After the murder of five protesters, the IACHR reminded the self-proclaimed president of her "obligation to ensure the right to life and physical integrity of those who protest peacefully" and condemned the "disproportionate use of police and military force."
As a consequence of the prevailing institutional chaos, however, the figures on human rights violations vary constantly.
Until Nov. 14, for example, the Ombudsman's Office maintained that 536 people had been injured and 12 people killed in the midst of intense repression against the people who resist in the streets.
On the other hand, according to the international news agency EFE, the conflict in Bolivia has left at least 18 dead and more than 500 injured since the presidential elections held on October 20.
Despite the evidence on violence against Bolivians, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Colombia recognized the regime of Jeanina Añez as their direct interlocutor.
While that was happening, however, the governments of Uruguay, China and Russia have joined the voices that forcefully reject the coup in Bolivia.

Bolivia: repressive forces at the service of Jeanine Añez killed 7 people. Amid the pain, the people shout: "Añez, murderer!"
In the midst of the political crisis, the Senate on Thursday elected the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) Senator Monica Cota as its new president.
She will replace Ariana Salvatierra, who was forced to resign on the weekend in which the right-wing politicians also managed to press for President Evo Morales' resignation.
By electing a new president, the Senate attempts to rebuild the normal functioning of democratic institutions amid the persecution and repression which the self-proclaimed president Añez is leading.


11-16-19
 JUSTICE INITIATIVE

Condemn the Coup Against
Bolivian President Evo Morales


We join thousands of organizations and millions of people across the globe in condemning the Coup carried out against President Evo Morales of Bolivia. To suggest that he voluntarily resigned ignores the demand placed on him by the military, which, along with the police, had been influenced by US intelligence services and aligned with the right wing opposition.

President Trump has lauded the Coup because it is a critical part of his administration's efforts to overthrow progressive governments in Latin America and force failing neoliberal economic measures on the masses that have experienced some gains under the policies of the progressives. In the case of Bolivia, wages and social benefits improved and as the full name of the country suggests -the Plurinational State of Bolivia- the indigenous population was recognized and brought into the political life of the country. Evo is not only a socialist but also the first Indigenous President of the majority Indigenous nation. Already the Coup backers are physically attacking the Morales' supporters and destroying their cultural symbols.

Last week nearly 1,400 activists from 87 countries gathered in Havana, Cuba to denounce the escalation of economic attacks on Cuba but also the sanctions against Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The US supported plot by the Bolivian right was unfolding at the time and the body took note of this in the final declaration: "Congratulate the people of the Plurinational State of Bolivia for their electoral victory and President Evo Morales Ayma on his re-election, as a result of measures benefitting the people and economic growth. Likewise, we denounce the attempts at coup d'états and destabilization unleashed by sectors of the opposition, instigated by the United States, against peace and public safety in Bolivia." 
As this all plays out, the working class and popular masses in Chile continue their protests against harsh austerity measures and former Brazilian President Lula da Silva has been released from prison after 18 months based on politically motivated and bogus charges and promises to continue the fight against the Fascist Bolsanoro government. This is all a part of the resistance to the 21st century version of the Monroe Doctrine that guided US policies in the past. There have been an estimated 56 US interventions in Latin America since the late 1800's.


The Trump regime although embroiled in defensive struggles at home is not asleep in Latin America and as long as they remain in power African descendants and Indigenous people will be vulnerable to the exploitation and violence of the elites and racists supported by the US Empire. It is imperative that we align ourselves with the anti-imperialist movement in the hemisphere to defend the gains and make new advances in the struggles for social transformation and sovereignty. 
Black Workers for Justice
November 12, 2019

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Gray & Associates, PO Box 8048, Atlanta, GA 31106



 mronline.org (11-15-19)

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Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible.
Source   share on Twitter Like Imperialist imprint in Bolivia coup on Facebook

Despite what the mainstream media headlines would have you believe, a coup is underway in Bolivia.
Source   share on Twitter Like 5 fast facts about the military coup in Bolivia and what you can do on Facebook
Commanders of Bolivia’s military and police helped plot the coup and guaranteed its success. Before they were educated for insurrection through the US military’s notorious School of the Americas and FBI training programs.
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FAIR

WaPo: Bolivia is in danger of slipping into anarchy. It’s Evo Morales’s fault.
(Washington Post11/1/19)
This week on counterspin: The Washington Post doesn't want you to be confused, so they headlined their editorial, "Bolivia Is in Danger of Slipping Into Anarchy. It’s Evo Morales’s Fault." Elite US media, you understand, are deeply invested in the well-being of Bolivia's people, who are in uproar after a coup ousting Morales, over charges of irregularities in the recent election that appear to have no evidential grounding—nor, in media's view, to require any. Back in 2006, US media were counseling Morales that policies like nationalizing the country's gas industry were popular but "not the answer to Bolivia’s problems.” Their preferred answer, judging by today's coverage, is celebrating the extra-legal pushout of the country's first indigenous president, and welcoming the self-declared leadership of a legislator who has tweeted that she "dream[s] of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rites." That's the topsy-turvy world of elite US media's "concerned" foreign policy. Which is why we'll look for a different view from Alex Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at coverage of Veterans Day.
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Following from mronline.org (11-12-19)
The Bolivian tragedy eloquently teaches several lessons that our peoples and popular social and political forces must learn and record in their consciences forever. Here, a brief enumeration, on the fly, and as a prelude to a more detailed treatment in the future.
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“Mesa and Camacho, discriminators and conspirators, will go down in history as racists and coup plotters,” Morales said in a tweet early Monday morning.
Source  share on Twitter Like Evo Morales slams coup plotters for keeping up violence on Facebook

Following written before Morales forced out of office
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Morales also called for calm and peace amid opposition protests and mobilizations, which have turned violent, against his victory in the Oct. 20 elections.
Source   share on Twitter Like Bolivian President Evo Morales calls new presidential elections on Facebook

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounces destabilization campaign and violence.
Source   share on Twitter Like Bolivia on alert: Coup plot underway! on Facebook



END COLLECTION OF REPORTING AND EVALUATION OF BOLIVIAN COUP 11-12-19 TO 12-19-19
                     

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)