Ollantay Itzamná
Aymara Indians. Bolivia OI.
In the current Bolivian situation, we can see that on November 10 a civic-Christian-military coup d’état promoted by the U.S. government was consummated.
What else do you call the rupture of the constitutional order through civil-military insubordination that forced the democratically elected ruler into exile in Mexico? What do you call the unconstitutional self-proclamation and de facto exercise of power of Jeanine Añez, who was never elected to that office?
The consummated coup d’état established a violent regime that in a matter of a week massacred more than 30 indigenous people protesting against the coup, hundreds of wounded with bullets, and a legal-military persecution against everything that breathes life into a social leader. It closed, occupied and/or expelled all the media that reported the popular actions of resistance to the coup. Thus, the civic-military dictatorship was established in Bolivia.
Once the popular resistance in the streets was “stifled”, the de facto government of Jeanine Añez forced the Legislative body of the Plurinational State (with a parliamentary majority of the MAS) to annul the recent general elections (on October 20), demanded that it pass the law calling new elections (without Evo Morales or Álvaro García as candidates), and ordered them to speed up the selection of new members of the electoral tribunals to organize the next general elections in Bolivia.
Simultaneous to this action, the de facto government, with the Decree (Nº 4078) regarding the indigenous massacre in hand, forced the majority of the leaders of the country’s indigenous, peasant and workers’ movements “to dialogue,” and demanded that they lift the roadblocks. How much did this managerial subordination cost the de facto government? History will tell.
In a matter of hours it dismissed the main public and administrative officials of the public companies, and placed the relatives and friends of the main actors in the coup d’état, from private companies, in those positions. And they have already begun to spread the well-known neoliberal discourse: “public companies are inefficient, they are over-indebted, we must privatize them…”.
Before Evo Morales landed in Mexico in political exile, the well-known advisor to the US Embassy in Bolivia entered the Bolivian Government Palace as the main advisor to the self-proclaimed Añez, restoring diplomatic relations with the US and Israel. Where are the social movements that a decade ago pulled the gringo Embassy out of Bolivia?
And the powerful social movements that brought Evo Morales to power?
La Paz, Bolivia. OI.
For almost 14 years it was argued that the government of Bolivia was a government of social movements. Politically, Morales was the product of the social movements that in turn had their own political instrument: MAS-IPSP.
The indigenous and peasant movements, in alliance with other movements, not only brought to power (and maintained) the first indigenous President in Creole Latin America, but also undertook the “nationalizations” of the privatized natural assets, promoted and concretized the drafting and approval of the new Political Constitution of the Plurinational State.
What happened to that apotheosis of a plebeian power that even expelled the U.S. Embassy and the DEA from Bolivia? Were their leaders not state officials like Morales?
Did 14 years in power not alow them enough symbolic and material (economic) resources to organize-train-communicate-mobilize all of Bolivia? Why did Evo Morales and García Linera (ideologist of the Bolivian process of change) have to take refuge in the Chapare Province, Cochabamba, more isolated than it was 14 years ago?
Apparently, the powerful social movements of Bolivia (CSUTCB, Bartolinas, CONAMAQ, CIDOB, Interculturales, COB) almost 14 years in the exercise of power wasted them as socio-political entities.
The leadership cadres of the social movements were politically subsumed by the “political instrument” MAS-IPSP. And, this, in turn, became an electoral apparatus and a “job exchange” in non-electoral times. The political arm almost completely absorbed the social body (social movements), to the limit of immobilizing it.
Why the “loneliness” of Evo Morales at the time of the coup d’état?
Quechuas. Bolivia OI.
When the coup d’état took place, social movements no longer commanded the political instrument. Morales commanded the MAS. And the MAS, as a political organization, at the time of the coup, was almost completely demoralized/worn out by the denunciations of alleged fraud. In many departments, the structures of the social movements were displeased with the MAS leadership for the vertical appointments of candidates.
Added to this was the growing “communicational siege” suffered by Evo Morales in relation to the country’s convulsive/coup situation. His relatives/advisers not only prevented actors of the social movements from approaching him, but they “drew” a fictitious portrait about the Bolivian reality, making one believe that ” the presidency of Bolivia could not be shaken”.
This was the fertile social field that the coup plotters took advantage of to psychologically defeat the Morales government in the streets, in public entities, in the National Police, and finally in the Armed Forces.
That is why, when Morales gave his last press conference as President, he was practically alone, along with his Vice President, accompanied only by some social movement actors. The public officials (media class) who had sworn allegiance to him had already disappeared “before the Bible reached the Palace”.
What about the powerful state media and public companies?
Quechuas and Aymaras on the III anniversary of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. OI
Although before and during the coup d’état the coup plotters, through social networks and private media, installed in the Bolivian collective imaginary the correlate of “Evo Morales is a dictator, he is the enemy of social peace”. Once in power, they occupied the powerful state media built in 14 years by Morales (state TV channel, Red de Radios Patria Nueva, Cambio newspaper), and from there, together with the private corporate media “well paid with public savings”, they convinced the Bolivian audience that: “Morales is a narco-terrorist”, “MAS and social protests are criminal”.
In this way, Morales not only left powerful state media for the coup plotters to mock him and the social movements, but also left enough public money saved to finance the campaign. In addition, dozens of economically solvent public companies, created by Morales, have been distributed as spoils to the “relatives/friends” of the main coup plotters.
In this way, the powerful indigenous, peasant and workers’ social movements that only a decade ago pushed back the neoliberal system and placed one of their leaders as the first Indigenous President in Latin America under the slogan: “from resistance to power”. Now, with the violent extirpation that the usurper government inflicts on everything that resembles an emancipatory social movement, they apparently retreat to their territories under the slogan: “From power to community resistance”. “We will return and we will be millions”.
Translation by Internationalist 360º
