Chicago, IL – Events have not gone well for the coalition of generals and reactionaries that overthrew Evo Morales on November 10. Far from consolidating their control over the government and the country, the right-wing forces now stand on the back foot, facing the full force of an organized and enraged mass movement ready to defend their constitution and their elected government.

The first setback for the coup was their failure to assassinate Evo. On the morning of November 12, Bolivia's overthrown president, along with his vice president Álvaro García Linera, arrived in Mexico where they had been granted political asylum. “The president of Mexico saved my life,” the overthrown president said upon landing. It was revealed that there had been at least two attempts to assassinate the political leaders, who also head the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. One of Evo's security guards had come forward to say that he had been offered $50,000 to shoot the president dead.

All of this clarifies the maneuvers made by MAS on November 10. With many of their cadre being physically attacked and having their homes set on fire, the party pulled of its leadership from public office, including Morales and Linera. The ‘resignations’ were done at the barrel of a gun, but it was clear that the decision had been made by the party in order to avoid a wave of assassinations. In this they were successful – and with Evo and Linera out of the country, all of the energy of the country's revolutionary forces could now be put to defeating the coup.

This is where the second setback for the coup comes in – MAS ensured that the coup was denied any chance at democratic legitimacy. Gleeful in their seeming defeat of the socialists, the far-right opposition anointed Yeanine Añez, the leader of the right-wing bloc in the Senate, to be president of Bolivia. Añez is a theocrat who once said, “I dream of a Bolivia free of indigenous satanic rites, the city is not for Indians, they better go to the highlands.”

Standing at her side during her inauguration was the civilian leader of the coup, Luis Camacho. A millionaire who comes from a family of mine owners, Camacho is an open fascist, leading a Catholic fascist youth organization that played the leadership role in anti-government protests in the city of Santa Cruz. Fascism is, sadly, not an alien political movement in Bolivia. During the 1970s, explicitly fascist Catholic organizations formed the social backbone for the brutal military dictatorships that ran the country on and off throughout the Cold War. Coming from the largely white oligarchy, they were driven then, and now, by a profound hatred of the indigenous workers who they exploited for their wealth.

Unfortunately for Añez and her fascist friends, those indigenous workers now have political power in Bolivia, and they are not going to give it up. MAS, which as an absolute majority in both chambers of the national legislature, boycotted the Senate vote to recognize Morales' resignation and confirm Añez as her successor, denying them a quorum and therefore making her ascension to the presidency illegitimate and unconstitutional. In her place, MAS (and the country's constitution) put forward Adriana Salvatierra, the party's youth leader and president of the Senate, as the rightful president of the country. On November 13, police officers physically attacked her as she tried to enter the Senate, preventing her and other MAS leaders from calling a session during which they planned to reject Morales' resignation. Añez has nothing to stand on – unless the coup forces are able to brutally repress the mass movement into submission, her days are numbered.

And this is where the final setback for the coup comes in, and undoubtedly their greatest – their arrogance has sparked a revolution. As soon as Morales was overthrown, the country's trade unions, peasant unions and indigenous councils that form the membership of MAS and give life to a mass movement of millions began to organize for the coup's defeat. The immediate base of resistance was El Alto, the twin city of the capital La Paz and the largest majority-indigenous city in the Western Hemisphere. There, the leadership of the Rural Workers Union (CSUTCB) called on all of its affiliates to “encircle La Paz” and gave Camacho and his thugs a 48-hour ultimatum to leave the country. If they do not, “they will be responsible for whatever occurs.”

One by one, columns of rural workers marched into El Alto, waving the indigenous wiphala flag and chanting, “Camacho, Mesa [the opposition's presidential candidate], we want your head” and “Now, civil war!” They were soon joined by other organizations from the countryside, and now they have done what they said they would. The capital is completely encircled by roadblocks and demonstrators, demanding the racists be cast from office and democracy restored to Bolivia. The country's largest trade union federation, the revolutionary-led Bolivian Workers Central (COB), has launched an indefinite general strike, shutting down every major economic sector in the country until Morales is returned to power. These are unions that defended themselves with the gun only a few decades prior, during the darkest days of the Cold War in South America. They will not relinquish their hard-won political power. All union and indigenous leaders have made it clear – whatever happens, to the point of civil war, lies at the feet of the white supremacists who would rather destroy democracy than recognize the dignity of indigenous peoples.

Four days on, this coup against the Bolivian government is no settled matter. What is clear is that there will be a fight, and tragically, perhaps a brutal one, over where political power will lie in the nation's future. The Bolivian masses refuse to accept defeat. They will not allow the better world they have built to be bulldozed in the interests of imperialism and reaction. As they defiantly march in the thousands into La Paz, into the unknown, come what may, they do not do so alone. They carry with them all of us, all of the oppressed and exploited masses of this hemisphere, into a battle to determine the future.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #Bolivia #EvoMorales #Americas

After rallying at the Mission, the crowd marched to Trump Tower and continued with more speeches.

Speakers from various movements spoke about how the U.S. has intervened in their countries, including Brazil, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Others spoke about U.S. imperialism’s interest in Bolivia and why it’s important to have international solidarity.

“But why Bolivia?” asked Jessica Schwartz of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. “Is it because Evo Morales is an indigenous, working-class leader? Or is it because Bolivia is sitting on lithium that the U.S. imperialists want for themselves? It is, in fact, all of the above!”

The rally ended with chants and a call for people to join organizations to continue the struggle and demand “Hands off Bolivia!”

The call was put out by Socialist Unity Party/Partido por el Socialismo Unido and Struggle – La Lucha newspaper, with endorsements from Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Network, International Action Center, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Bolivarian Circles NYC, BAYAN USA Northeast, ANSWER Coalition, the People’s Forum, US Peace Council, United National Antiwar Coalition, December 12th Movement, and others.

#NewYorkNY #PeoplesStruggles #Bolivia #Coup #EvoMorales #Americas

Chicago, IL – Today, a military coup took place in Bolivia. The first act began on October 20 – the day that Evo Morales was re-elected president by a ten-point margin against his nearest opponent, starting with violent protests in the country's urban middle-class neighborhoods. The final act was carried out by the head of the Bolivian Armed Forces, Gen. Williams Kaliman, who went on national television today and demanded that Morales resign. This followed a day of police mutinies in key cities, and in totality it was clear that the elected government had lost the support of the armed apparatus of the state. Without arms to fall back on, and fearing the slaughter of their supporters, Morales, his vice president Álvaro García Linera, and the president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra resigned. Morales stated, ”I am resigning so that my comrades will not continue to be intimidated and threatened, so that [the reactionaries} will stop burning their homes and persecuting the humble people.”

From the beginning, it must be clear that the street violence that led to this moment was not about “the people vs. the government.” In Bolivia, where the people live under a constitution that was popularly written and democratically approved in 2009, the people are the government. For the first time since the Spanish invasion, the indigenous masses exercised political control over their own territory – Bolivia being the only country left in the Americas where the majority of the population is indigenous. In the entire history of this hemisphere, only two indigenous people have been elected president – Benito Juárez in México a hundred and fifty years ago, and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

Before Evo came to office, Bolivia was the sole governance of a handful of families, the oligarchy whose historic roots lie in the Spanish Conquest and whose only fount of current legitimacy comes from U.S. capital. It was not long ago that the country was an apartheid state, where the indigenous were denied the right to vote and own property. A national democratic revolution in 1952 tore down this order, but the oligarchy quickly regained power in the new democratic order. It was in the mass revolt against this consolidation of power that Che arrived to fight, and ultimately die, alongside his Bolivian comrades.

Evo came to office in 2005 as an indigenous trade unionist, at the helm of the Movement to Socialism (MAS), a political alliance of left-wing trade unions, peasant unions and indigenous organizations. In the thirteen years since first taking office, his government has led a transformation of Bolivia from an economic backwater – a country without any sovereignty, totally beholden to American imperialist thuggery – into a genuinely prosperous society. The mines and gas refineries that used to be the sole property of U.S. firms were nationalized, and their revenue directed to lifting the poor out of poverty. For as long as Bolivia has existed, it has not known a period of greater collective prosperity and genuine democracy.

From day one, Evo's government has been a government of the mass movements, with indigenous workers and farmers occupying the halls of power that were built on their ancestor's backs. None of this could be forgiven by the oligarchy, nor by the social classes that benefited from their patronage system. These were the forces that have resisted MAS' transformation of Bolivia, and these were the forces that took to the streets on October 20th.

So what are these demonstrations about, if not democracy? The protesters decry “electoral fraud” without offering any proof, although that does not matter at all for the shameless U.S. media outlets that serve as the faithful loudspeakers of any rich thug. But, do they turn their attention to the seats of government in the capital, occupying Congress and demanding a new election? No. Instead, they set fire to union houses. They drag the elected mayors of cities and towns, only those that belong to MAS, from their homes and beat them, along with their family members. They drag one, a proud indigenous woman, into the middle of a crowd and forcibly cut off her hair. They set fire to the house of Evo's own sister. This was terrorism, on an organized scale and with the open support of the far-right opposition parties and the U.S. media.

What will now happen to the incredible society their movement has built is unclear. Reports are coming in that at least twenty people from Evo's government have sought asylum in Mexico's embassy in the capital. The wiphala, the flag that represents the diversity of Bolivia's indigenous people, has been taken down from government buildings in the capital. Evo, for his part, has declared that he will not leave. He and his vice president have gone to the countryside, to their base, in order to lead the grim struggle going forward.

The coup faces one of the most organized mass movements on the continent, one whose resilience and revolutionary courage goes back centuries, from the resistance to the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s to the armed miner uprisings of only a few decades ago. The Bolivian people possess in their history and in their lived experience a great bravery. Now they must use it to defend the better society they have built.

This week is a sober reminder that history does not move along a straight line. An incredible victory in one corner can be, and often is, accompanied by a terrible defeat in another. Such is the nature of war. And what we are witnessing in our continent, from Haiti to Chile, is a war. A contradiction, like any tension, can only last so long before it breaks. The Americas have broken open, and all energy must be coalesced into common struggle to cast the bourgeoisie of our countries – whose descendants consciously committed genocide and forced millions into slavery so that they could live in decadence – into the dustbin. “History is ours,” said Salvador Allende as airplanes of the U.S. backed military dropped bombs around him and his comrades, “and the people make history.” In Bolivia, we suffered a defeat today. Tomorrow, let us ensure a victory there and in every corner of our America.

#Bolivia #Opinion #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #Coup #OpEd #LatinAmerica #SouthAmerica #EvoMorales