http://socialistviewpoint.org/janfeb_20/janfeb_20_07.html
Bolivia: American Empire Struck Back
By Danny Haiphong
Evo Morales’ fourth term was over before it began. After winning the
latest presidential election by over 600,000 votes, a flurry of violence
on the part of the U.S.-backed opposition in Bolivia pressured Evo to
step down. Evo’s home was vandalized and several party members of the
Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) threatened with violence. The coup in
Bolivia, which was solidified by recommendation from the military, is
the latest of dozens of military coups spearheaded by the United States
over the last century-and-a-half. U.S. imperialism has viewed Latin
America as its backyard since 1823 when it declared the “right to
protect” the region in the Monroe Doctrine. It was at this time that the
American Empire replaced the Spanish Empire as the foreign power
responsible for keeping Latin America in a state of oppression,
dependency, and poverty.
After over a century of U.S. imperial aggression, Evo Morales arose as
one of the most revolutionary leaders of the movement for socialism in
the 21st century in Latin America—a movement that gained significant
traction after the election of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez
in 1998. MAS has been in power since 2006. The MAS has acted as a
vehicle for workers and peasants to assert their dignity and
self-determination. Trade union, indigenous, and women’s organizations
have all played a major role in the implementation of social policy
under Evo’s leadership. Economic growth in Bolivia has increased by an
average of five-percent-per-year, with many of the gains distributed to
the indigenous populations formally dispossessed by centuries of
colonial and neocolonial rule. Extreme poverty has been cut in half over
the same period.
U.S. imperialism sought to dispose of Evo Morales and his indigenous-led
movement even before it came to power. A Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request found that in 2002, the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) had earmarked 97-million-dollars to assist “regional
autonomy” projects and right-wing opposition political parties in
Bolivia. These funds helped develop a U.S.-aligned political
infrastructure in Bolivia responsible for the coup. The USAID has acted
as the political arm of the IMF, World Bank, CIA, and the Bolivian
elites who do their bidding. One of the “protest leaders” of the
right-wing opposition, Luis Fernando Camacho, is the son of the founder
of Sergas, a gas corporation which owes over two million U.S. dollars to
the Bolivian state for tax evasion and fraud. Under U.S. leadership,
petty capitalists such as the Camacho family have used Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) funded by USAID to overthrow Evo and his
nationalization decree that placed petroleum, electricity,
telecommunications, and mining sectors under the direction of the state.
The coup being waged by the right-wing opposition has been labeled a
“protest movement” by the U.S. corporate media. Coup plotters such as
oligarch and former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa have alleged that
their protests have come in response to election fraud. According to the
Center for Economic and Policy Research, no evidence of irregularities
or fraudulent activities were found in the election results. The
baseless claim was used by the imperialist corporate media to provide
cover for the violent military coup. MAS politicians have been forced to
flee their homes, government buildings have been burned, and the
Bolivian economy has been ground to a halt. The oligarchy in Bolivia is
out for blood and it has the police and military on its side.
U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia
This is not the first time that the American Empire has waged a violent
coup in Bolivia. The CIA provided military and technical support to
right-wing military dictator René Barrientos. Barrientos took power by
way of military coup in 1964. His brutal suppression of the peasant
uprising to his rule led to the assassination of Che Guevara. In 1971,
the U.S. backed right-wing general Hugo Bánzer Suárez with the help of
the U.S. Air Force. Hundreds of leftists and political activists would
be murdered by his regime.
The coup against Evo Morales comes as the left in Latin America was
making a resurgence amid countless attempts by the American empire to
destroy their social democratic project. In late October, Argentina
elected Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as
president and vice president, effectively ending the right-wing and
neoliberal rule of Mauricio Macri. Tens-of-thousands took to the streets
in Ecuador and forced Lenin Moreno to back away from an IMF deal which
would have imposed harsh austerity measures on workers, students, and
peasants. Lula De Silva was released from prison in November. Lula’s
freedom represented a concrete victory for a Brazilian left currently
facing enormous challenges under the rule of former officer of the
fascist military dictatorship, Jair Bolsonaro.
Lessons to learn
The American Empire has struck back against the left in Latin America
with a devastating blow in Bolivia. There are many lessons to learn from
the U.S.-backed coup. For one, too few in the belly of the U.S. empire
are prepared to come to the defense of the peoples’ struggle in Latin
America or anywhere else. The corporate media has placed a national
blinder on the host of coups staged by the American empire in the last
ten years alone, whether we are talking about the Clinton-Obama coup in
Honduras in 2009 or the ouster of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in
2016. Awash in white supremacist ideology and confined to the most
unrestrained form of capitalism on the planet, workers and poor people
in the U.S. have few avenues from which to express concrete solidarity
with the Bolivian masses.
Another lesson of the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia is that the so-called
“end of history” proclaimed by the American empire after the fall of the
Soviet Union was a complete and utter lie. The American empire is
“capitalist to the bones” and its rulers believed the world would remain
under its thumb indefinitely. Evo Morales and the rest of the socialist
left in Latin America, while unable to completely expropriate the
property and power of the oligarchs, were able to lead a mass movement
toward the dignity and self-determination of the oppressed. This path
required that the seeds of socialism were sewn into the fabric of
governance throughout Latin America. Whether it’s called “Chavismo,”
“21st century socialism,” or the “pink tide,” this movement has
empowered workers and peasants to unify across borders to alleviate
poverty, underdevelopment, and imperial dependency.
Evo Morales was at the forefront of Latin America’s burgeoning
internationalism. He was a huge supporter of the Bolivarian Alliance for
the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). Furthermore, Evo challenged the
American empire on the military front by advocating for the development
of a continental military united in defending the sovereignty of Latin
America. The so-called “end of history” was thus nothing more than an
arrogant display of American imperial hubris that only clouded its true
interests abroad. Socialism has remained the American empire’s public
enemy number one even after the end of the so-called Cold War. The
American Empire does not respect democracy or elections, just the
profits of the few. Evo’s Bolivia is paying the price for placing the
needs of poor Bolivians ahead of the riches of the elite.
Perhaps the most important lesson from the coup in Bolivia is that the
struggle for socialism and self-determination is far from over. The
oligarchs seeking to wrestle control of Bolivia and the entire continent
back from the workers and peasants will stop at nothing to lynch Evo
Morales. A warrant is out for his arrest even though he has committed no
crime. The oligarchs want to bring the working class back into a state
of total misery. While the ouster of Evo Morales is indeed a significant
defeat, the socialist movement in Latin America will no doubt fight
back. The people of Bolivia will fight back. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela,
and other allied nations will do everything they can to support the MAS
through a difficult transition. It is important that the left living in
the belly of the American empire find a way to do the same.
—American Herald Tribune, November 11, 2019
https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/bolivia/3647-american-empire-stuck-back.html?fbclid=IwAR2pkwvmuLSmRmjoc85aSlH5M-nIzDpk02GPeLzkC23JBiXTii1y4AjoBxo
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Sam Harris
“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
so ever.”
― Sam Harris,