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

Chicago, IL – Last year, Brazil emerged from its greatest political crisis since the dictatorship to find that Jair Bolsonaro, an extreme right winger, was now president. His victory marked the high point of the so-called ‘roll-back’ of the Pink Tide, a political phenomenon that saw left-wing governments elected across Latin America, on platforms of sovereignty and freedom from U.S. interference. Bolsonaro’s election was a moment openly celebrated in the halls of the White House, as many hoped that the few isolated governments left standing from the Pink Tide movement would soon be snuffed out.

The Pink Tide began with Hugo Chávez's victory in the 1999 Venezuelan elections, and really gained momentum with the election of Lula da Silva in Brazil in 2002. In 2004, the Cuban and Venezuelan governments founded the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) with the goal of bringing the new anti-imperialist governments together for the economic, political and social integration of the continent. By 2008, 12 governments had joined the formation, a remarkable sign of imperialist decline in a region often referred to as ‘America's backyard.’ These governments expressed a commitment not only to separating themselves totally from U.S. domination, but to building new economies that meet the needs of the people and protected the planet.

Then, in 2009, the empire pushed back. For the first time since the Cold War, a military coup d'etat took place in Latin America, this time in Honduras. One by one, other left-wing governments were pushed out in parliamentary coups or by election losses. Most stunning has been the tragedy of Brazil, where Dilma Rousseff was impeached and Lula da Silva, the metal worker once hailed as “the world's most popular politician,” sits in prison serving out a 12-year sentence for a corruption case where no evidence was brought forward to prove his guilt.

Beginning in 2017 (when Rousseff's impeachment took place), the empire got impatient. Some countries were easily brought to heel, but there still stood nations – well-organized and disciplined – that refused to bend down: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba. All four countries have faced an intensification of political attacks from the United States, ranging from sanctions (Cuba) to brutal reactionary violence (Venezuela in 2017, Nicaragua in 2018). Still they stand.

As this consolidated anti-imperialist bloc continues to defend their gains, the U.S. victory elsewhere in the continent remains unconsolidated. And, as events this month have shown, U.S. buttressing of a reactionary old order can be less a sturdy fortress and more a house of cards when faced with the masses in motion.

Ecuador and Chile: Paper tigers go up in flames

From 2007 to 2017, Ecuador was governed by Rafael Correa, an economist and the leader of the social democratic PAIS Alliance party. During his two terms, Ecuador was often held by alongside Venezuela, Brazil and Bolivia as one of the great success stories of the Pink Tide – new social programs cut poverty in half, and aggressive fiscal policy ended Ecuador's dependence on loans from the World Bank. Correa became an ally of Venezuela and Cuba, and Ecuador was an active player in ALBA.

Unlike Venezuela and Bolivia, there was never an organic unity between the governing party and the mass movements fighting for Ecuadorian sovereignty. PAIS Alliance was newly formed coming into Correa's first term, and political forces in the country's indigenous and trade union movements remained on the outside. Without a relationship between the party and the mass movements, government decisions were often made without mass support, and this led to conflict and opposition, particularly from the indigenous movement led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE).

Correa's final term ended in 2016, and his party nominated his vice president, Lenin Moreno, as its candidate. He won on a platform of continuing Correa's “Citizen's Revolution” into the next decade. Almost immediately, Moreno broke with his promises and Correa's legacy. He announced the beginning of an austerity regime, in order to make Ecuador appealing to support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Moreno also withdrew Ecuador from ALBA and joined the U.S. in its efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government. It was a complete betrayal of the Ecuadorian people.

On October 1, Moreno began to implement the IMF austerity package, starting with ending fuel subsidies. This was the final straw, and an organized uprising took place, led by CONAIE and other revolutionary forces. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital Quito, and Moreno's government was forced to evacuate the city as CONAIE led a storming of parliament. A state of emergency was declared and the military was sent out with live ammunition to put down the people. Eight were killed, but the ‘people's arrest’ of several police officers and spies – along with the movement's incredible bravery – forced Moreno to accept defeat. The austerity package was cancelled, and the future of Moreno's presidency remains uncertain.

A similar battle is underway in Chile. Last year, Sebastián Piñera was re-elected president, having served a term from 2010 to 2014. A billionaire from a family of old money, Piñera ran on a far-right agenda that reminded many of the economic policies of General Pinochet. In fact, posters of the far right former dictator could be seen in the crowd during his inauguration.

His second term is much like his first – an implementation of deadly austerity for the sake of short-term profits for the Chilean bourgeoisie. Chile has become one of the most unequal societies in the hemisphere. Millions live in terrible poverty, tens of thousands have died for lack of adequate health care, all in a country where even the water has been privatized.

Around the same time that Ecuador's capital was being stormed by the people, a popular uprising began in Chile against the latest policy to make the rich richer and the poor suffer – a huge increase in the cost of public transportation, already one of the most expensive in the world. What began as a high school protest calling for fare-dodging has exploded into a mass mobilization of student organizations and trade unions calling for Piñera's resignation, the nationalization of public services and major industries and a massive increase in social spending – in short, a resurrection of Allende's project, forced to a tragic end in 1973. Transit workers joined students in burning down buses and trains and shutting down the city of Santiago. In response, Piñera ordered the military to occupy the capital. To date, 15 people have been shot dead, dozens injured and nearly 2000 arrested, many of whose whereabouts remain unknown.

In a press conference given this week, Piñera said of the protests that his government is “at war with an enemy” that did not care about human life. This, from a billionaire who has ordered soldiers to fire on high school students and bus drivers. The violence in Santiago, along with Piñera's press conference, has led to a general strike across Chile, organized by the trade unions and other mass organizations. The struggle is ongoing, and shows no signs of slowing down.

These political puppets of imperialism have a limited social base to lean on – they are not fighting for the interests of any sector of society, save but the handful of wealthy families whose power and influence derives from decades of serving foreign multinational firms. When the masses rise up – as they are doing in every corner of the continent – their only option is to send out the military and hope that the movement can be shot into submission. There is a continent-sized infuriation at U.S. imposition of a moribund status quo – this cannot last.

This week, Evo Morales – the wildly popular and successful president of Bolivia – won re-election with a more than ten-point lead over his opponent. That country's right-wing opposition – funded by the United States, made up of old functionaries that had benefited from an apartheid-like state that left the indigenous majority in abject poverty – has already stated their intent to attempt to seize power if Morales were to win. This is a strategy known all too well now in Latin America, and in the days to come we will surely see images of protesters in Bolivia calling for “the overthrow of the dictator.” We cannot fall for it.

The dream that motivates millions to risk their lives in Ecuador and Chile today is the reality unfolding right now in Bolivia. It is the reality being built in Venezuela and Cuba, places where the masses have or are taking political power, in organic unity with revolutionary parties, and where imperialism will never again exercise control. The day is coming when reaction will crumble and revolution will be on the agenda across the continent – maybe quicker than many imagine, if the protesters in Ecuador and Chile have anything to say about it.

#ChicagoIL #OppressedNationalities #Venezuela #US #Opinion #Americas #PeoplesStruggles #ChicanoLatino #Bolivia #Socialism #DonaldTrump #PinkTide #RedTide #SouthAmerica