The mask comes off the Bolivian Coup Regime, as Presidential elections delayed yet again
Photo Credit: (Bloomberg / Google Images)
Written by: Daniel Xie
The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was overthrown in a coup on Nov 10, 2019. Western media downplayed the fact that it was a coup, perhaps owing to the fact that such a coup was organized with the help of Canada, the United States and other allied right-wing governments allied with them that make up the Organization of American States.
Back then, journalists such as Yascha Mounk wrote in glowing terms in the Atlantic about how the coup opens up “opportunities for free elections,” as if it wasn’t a coup to impose neoliberalism in Bolivia, but rather a democratic revolution against a leader overstepping his bounds with “fraudulent elections”. However, the claims of fraudulence were later admitted by even the New York Times to have been false.
The true nature of the forces that instigated Morales’ ouster-- neoliberalism rather than a popular democratic uprising--was made clear very recently when the Bolivian interim government, announced that elections originally planned for Sept 6 2020, will be postponed under the pretext of new infections of the coronavirus..
This was the third time in four months that the Bolivian elections have been suspended. Bolivia’s indigenous leaders and trade union activists responded to the decision with mass resistance, with Bolivia's COB workers' federation announcing a 72-hour deadline for the government to retract their decision to push back elections that will be met with a general strike on Monday if it was not met. The Bolivian government’s was to file a lawsuit against COB labour leader Juan Carlos Guarachi, along with deposed president Evo Morales, for inciting protests against the decision to cancel elections.
The decision of the Bolivian government to postpone elections exposes the true nature of the regime as a dictatorship imposed on the Bolivian people by a coup. Using the Coronavirus as a pretext to consolidate power and stamp out democratic dissent is a strategy similar to those of other authoritarians in countries such as Hungary, Israel and the Philippines.
The Bolivian government’s desire to use the existence of the coronavirus as a pretext to suppress elections is almost certainly due to how candidates tied to MAS are leading in opinion polls before elections. In fact, the polls for the recently postponed Presidential election show that the current coup government under Jeanine Áñez was in a distant third place, while MAS is poised for a first-round victory.
Facing the prospect that MAS could return to power in these elections and halt the government’s attempts to implement neoliberalism, far-right figures involved in the coup have called on Western governments that supported the coup to intervene in their favor. On July 15th, Luis Fernando Camacho, a key leader in the coup and a member of a fascist, secessionist paramilitary group, called on the Organization of American States to stop elections happening on September 6th on the basis that the elections could result in a MAS victory. A call for foreign interference to cancel elections that MAS could win fairly clearly demonstrates that the fears of an outbreak are simply another pretext to weaken democracy in Bolivia and consolidate power for an autocratic neo-liberal regime.
Anyone looking closely at Bolivia could see the true character of the coup regime even before their desperate attempts to dodge democracy. The coup government has sought to remove indigenous representation from governance upon assuming power, and was also responsible for the killings of indigenous and pro-democracy protesters in Sacaba, Cochabamba, and Senkata, El Alto, which have been labeled as massacres by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In addition, the new government has harassed political candidates representing the Movement Toward Socialism. For instance, the coup regime has sought to prosecute Luis Arce, the MAS presidential candidate with politically motivated charges, and are also threatening the electoral council with prison terms if they refuse to ban him and MAS candidates from standing in the election. Activists in Bolivia have even warned that simply showing data that MAS candidates are popular in Bolivia would lead to crackdowns by the coup regime. So much for democracy.
While this supposedly democratic regime wastes no time in suppressing democracy, it also wastes no time in implementing neoliberalism. It immediately moved away from Evo Morales’ anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist foreign policy, re-establishing ties with the US and Israel.
The coup regime has also invited back the IMF into Bolivia with a huge $327 million loan, which the government accommodated through ending many of the economic projects planned by the Morales government before Morales was ousted. For instance, the construction of a huge urea and ammonia plant opened in the Cochabamba region was brought to a halt by the coup government, which refused to pay the Chilean border agency to facilitate the start of the tram system that could allow the plant to start operations.
The halting of massive public works and economic initiatives started by the Morales government had severe repercussions for the population. 38 per cent of people in Bolivia have completely lost their income, while 52 per cent have lost a part of their income, which together means the livelihoods of 90 per cent of the country have been hurt by the coup. As more and more neoliberal measures are implemented, Bolivians have also been left vulnerable to the spread of COVID-19. 90 per cent of those under quarantine are not receiving any economic support apart from a universal payment of $70 USD in April.
Even clearer proof that the coup is a far-right, neo-liberal effort to benefit American corporations emerged recently regarding the interest of foreign multinationals in Bolivia’s lithium supply. This was something that Evo Morales himself has always believed to be a driving force with regards to the US-led coup directed against him.
While links between specific lithium-using companies in the US and the coup have not been fully solidified, a driving factor in this coup may have been the desire for companies operating in the Global North such as Tesla to control the production of lithium for themselves in the Global South. A week before the coup occurred, Morales backed out of Bolivia’s December 2018 agreement with Germany's ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA) following weeks of protests from residents of the Potosí area. That region has 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the world's lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. In cancelling the deal, Morales stated that "Bolivia's lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate cabals."
The role of lithium-exploiting companies like Tesla should not be overlooked. Besides the coup happening just one week after Bolivia cancelled their agreement to supply lithium to ACISA, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, recently gloated on Twitter about how they can “coup” whomever they want. Musk has also just been invited by the Bolivian government to fight the Coronavirus. The ACISA, which Morales initially cancelled the deal with, provided lithium batteries to Tesla, whose stocks rose the week of the coup. Afterwards, various Cmagazines related to the mining, energy, and tech sectors such as NSEnergy, Protocol, and Mining-technology, all explored the possibility of a new period of economic investment into Bolivia that could be ushered in with Morales gone.
Elon Musk’s tweet alone does not prove the coup was driven solely by a desire to control Bolivia’s lithium. However, the fact that Morales claimed that Lithium was the main driving force behind his ouster all along, combined with the excitement shown by the energy and mining sector, as well as Tesla, towards being able to control Bolivia’s lithium, is something that should not be overlooked, and may all point to the fact that the coup was indeed influenced by a desire to control Bolivia’s lithium.
Ultimately, the use of the coronavirus by the Bolivian coup regime’s actions show it is no movement borne out of democratic struggle against an authoritarian, but a far-right, neoliberal, anti-Indigenous dictatorship imposed upon the Bolivian people through a violent coup orchestrated by the United States and the Bolivian far-right in order to control the country’s lithium supply. Mainstream media justified the coup through trumped-up charges of electoral fraud, and now the coup regime commits true electoral fraud through strong arming Bolivia’s electoral council and postponing elections.
Lithium-dependent companies like Tesla celebrate the coup’s effect on lithium prices and supply. In response to the efforts of the coup government to seek international support for their attempts to subvert democracy in Bolivia, Canadians must resist any attempts by the Canadian and American governments to prop up the coup regime, and stand in solidarity with the indigenous activists and trade unionists fighting for the restoration of democracy and indigenous self-determination in Bolivia.
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