In a press conference with international and local media in Mexico City, where he arrived the day before after being granted political asylum by the Mexican government, president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, reported that OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro ignored his calls. He described the OAS report as entirely political and that the OAS sided with sectors that organized the coup d’état.
“The OAS is not at the service of the Latin American peoples and even less of the social movements, it is at the service of the North American empire,” Morales said.
He assured that, “if the people ask for it,” he will return to the country to “pacify” it and that he would return to launch a “national dialogue” with the priority objective of “pacifying” the nation, while acknowledging that “it is going to be difficult to stop this confrontation”. Morales criticized the organization for recommending a repeat election, when, in his opinion, it should have called for a second round. “The OAS decided on a political option, not a legal or technical one”. He questioned the hemispheric bloc that “surprisingly” anticipated the publication of the preliminary report, which was expected Wednesday, but was published Sunday. Morales reported that he tried to contact the secretary general, Luis Almagro, directly to warn him that this would “lead to a massacre” in Bolivia.
On his departure from the Palacio Quemado, Morales explained that his government replaced “the program of the empire” with “the program of the people,” framing the “coup d’état” in “the ideological struggle”.
“My second crime, I am convinced, is that the groups that have economic power do not accept that we lift the most humble families out of poverty (…) and do not accept the nationalization of natural resources”.
Morales asked the Bolivian police and military not to stain themselves with the blood of the people and lamented that the coup was destroying the country.
Bullets have not stopped the marches or the insurrection of the people, insisted Morales, who left Bolivia to try to pacify the country; however, the social upheaval continues.
“I am an enemy of violence”, he added, stressing that “indigenous peoples come from the culture of life and in harmony with Mother Earth”.
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