How Canada, the US, and OAS allied to overthrow Morales
Posted on July 23rd, 2020
World News
On Nov. 29, 2017, Indigenous socialist president Evo Morales won a legal challenge to modify the Bolivian constitution, to allow Morales to run for a fourth term as the Bolivian president.
Two years later, on Oct. 25, 2019, the winner of Bolivia’s presidential election was announced. Evo Morales won 47 per cent of the vote, while the main US-backed candidate, Carlos Mesa, won 36 per cent of the vote. Morales narrowly cleared the 10-point margin of victory required to avoid a second-round runoff election, and it seemed as if Morales was set to serve his fourth term in office.
However, the OAS would have a key role in ensuring this did not happen. The OAS, described as the U.S Ministry of the Colonies” by former Cuban president Fidel Castro, is supposed to represent the 35 countries in the Western Hemisphere in defence of peace, equality and national sovereignty.” However, the organization has a long history of openly backing the United States’ imperialist agenda.
In particular, during the US-led 2019 coup attempt against Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro, false claims of election fraud were utilised to try to push the US puppet” Juan Guaido into power. The (leader), Luis Almagro praised the protests repeatedly, and allowed Canada to set up the Lima Group, an alliance of countries wishing to overthrow the Venezuelan government, without any punishment.
The OAS electoral mission to Bolivia soon claimed that they had found evidence of election fraud in Morales’ victory. Based on the claims of the electoral mission, Canada called for a run-off election to occur. On Oct. 31, the OAS began an audit of the Bolivian election.
The Canadian and United States government ignored a Nov. 8 report from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, a US-based think tank, who did a statistical analysis of Bolivia’s publicly available voting data which found no evidence of irregularities or fraud.
Meanwhile, Canada refused to condemn the vicious attacks committed by opposition forces against Morales supporters and leftist politicians, led by Luis Camacho.
On Nov. 10, the Bolivian election audit report was released by the OAS, in which they claimed that:
In the four factors reviewed (technology, chain of custody, integrity of the tally sheets, and statistical projections), irregularities were detected, ranging from very serious to indicative of something wrong.”
The audit team [could not] validate the results of this election and therefore recommends another electoral process.” They argued that Any future process should be overseen by new electoral authorities to ensure the conduct of credible elections.”
On the very day, Canada, declared its support for the electoral audit, stating that It is clear that the will of the Bolivian people and the democratic process were not respected.” A day later, Morales resigned the presidency after pressure was mounted by military chief, Gen. Williams Kaliman, calling for him to immediately quit and permit the restoration of peace and stability.”
In a press release, Morales said:
I decided to resign from my position so that Carlos Mesa and Luis Camacho stop abusing and harming thousands of brothers … I have the obligation to seek peace and it hurts a lot that we face Bolivians, for this reason, so I will send my letter of resignation to the Plurinational Assembly of Bolivia.
Under severe pressure, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, the president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra of the MAS party, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies all resigned. As a result, the line of succession to the Bolivian presidency was broken.
On Nov. 12, a Bolivian senator, Jeanine Áñez, declared herself the interim president of Bolivia in Congress, vowing to promptly hold new elections. Aljazeera reported that this was done despite a lack of a quorum to appoint her in a legislative session that was boycotted by legislators from former President Evo Morales‘ left-wing party.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo applauded the interim president in a statement on Nov. 13, saying that the U.S. looks forward to working with the OAS to stage free and fair elections” by the end of 2019.
Two days later, Canada announced its support for Áñez, and laughably called for a democratic elections as soon as possible”.
Bolivia in shambles without Morales, as elections are delayed until September 2020
In January 2020, a now-deleted racist tweet from interim president” Áñez was caught, in which she reportedly wrote: I want a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals. The city is not for the indigenous. They should go to the mountains or plains.” Áñez also called Morales a poor Indian” in another tweet.
Canadian mining companies have swiftly exploited the coup government’s pro-business stance to resume lithium mining projects, after Morales nationalized South American Silver Corp. lithium mining operation in 2012.
A first-of-its kind deal was struck that month between Bolivia’s state mining company Comibol and Vancouver-based explorer New Pacific Metals, which allowed the company to begin mining for lithium and showed that Bolivia is open to foreign investment,” according to NPM’s President, Gordon Neal.
Nadia Cruz, Bolivia’s ombudsman, said that charges of sedition” and terrorism” are being brought for simply disagreeing with or questioning the Áñez administration.
Michael Shifter, the president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue said, There is unwillingness on the level of the Trump administration to hold Áñez to account, so she has a lot of room to do what she wants, including what seems to be the carrying out of vendettas.” Journalists have been arrested and intimidated, while Indigenous activists have been severely repressed.
The promise of quick elections proved to be a lie, two months after the coup, that the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which was filled with Anez allies, and purged of former officials, determined the presidential election would occur on May 3. However, the Bolivian electoral court used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover to delay the elections until September 6. Now that Luis Camacho is urging the OAS to interfere in Bolivia’s elections yet again, the stage may be set for a second coup against a Movement for Socialism party’s presidential candidate within the last year.
Even the narrative of flawed elections has fallen apart, as the New York Times and others have reported that the there was no election fraud, in the 2019 election that delivered Morales his fourth term as Bolivia’s president.
Just as in the US-backed coup against Evo Morales and the 2004 US-led coup against Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Canada is almost certain to play a key role in the destruction of Bolivian democracy, staying true to its imperialist foreign policy.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world. He is a second-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election. Read other articles by Aidan.
This article was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2020 at 10:29am and is filed under Bolivia, Canada, Democracy, Elections, Evo Morales, Imperialism, Mining, Racism.
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How Canada, the US, and OAS allied to overthrow Morales
On Nov. 29, 2017, Indigenous socialist president Evo Morales won a legal challenge to modify the Bolivian constitution, to allow Morales to run for a fourth term as the Bolivian president.
Two years later, on Oct. 25, 2019, the winner of Bolivia’s presidential election was announced. Evo Morales won 47 per cent of the vote, while the main US-backed candidate, Carlos Mesa, won 36 per cent of the vote. Morales narrowly cleared the 10-point margin of victory required to avoid a second-round runoff election, and it seemed as if Morales was set to serve his fourth term in office.
However, the OAS would have a key role in ensuring this did not happen. The OAS, described as the U.S Ministry of the Colonies” by former Cuban president Fidel Castro, is supposed to represent the 35 countries in the Western Hemisphere in defence of peace, equality and national sovereignty.” However, the organization has a long history of openly backing the United States’ imperialist agenda.
In particular, during the US-led 2019 coup attempt against Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro, false claims of election fraud were utilised to try to push the US puppet” Juan Guaido into power. The (leader), Luis Almagro praised the protests repeatedly, and allowed Canada to set up the Lima Group, an alliance of countries wishing to overthrow the Venezuelan government, without any punishment.
The OAS electoral mission to Bolivia soon claimed that they had found evidence of election fraud in Morales’ victory. Based on the claims of the electoral mission, Canada called for a run-off election to occur. On Oct. 31, the OAS began an audit of the Bolivian election.
The Canadian and United States government ignored a Nov. 8 report from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, a US-based think tank, who did a statistical analysis of Bolivia’s publicly available voting data which found no evidence of irregularities or fraud.
Meanwhile, Canada refused to condemn the vicious attacks committed by opposition forces against Morales supporters and leftist politicians, led by Luis Camacho.
On Nov. 10, the Bolivian election audit report was released by the OAS, in which they claimed that:
In the four factors reviewed (technology, chain of custody, integrity of the tally sheets, and statistical projections), irregularities were detected, ranging from very serious to indicative of something wrong.”
The audit team [could not] validate the results of this election and therefore recommends another electoral process.” They argued that Any future process should be overseen by new electoral authorities to ensure the conduct of credible elections.”
On the very day, Canada, declared its support for the electoral audit, stating that It is clear that the will of the Bolivian people and the democratic process were not respected.” A day later, Morales resigned the presidency after pressure was mounted by military chief, Gen. Williams Kaliman, calling for him to immediately quit and permit the restoration of peace and stability.”
In a press release, Morales said:
I decided to resign from my position so that Carlos Mesa and Luis Camacho stop abusing and harming thousands of brothers … I have the obligation to seek peace and it hurts a lot that we face Bolivians, for this reason, so I will send my letter of resignation to the Plurinational Assembly of Bolivia.
Under severe pressure, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, the president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra of the MAS party, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies all resigned. As a result, the line of succession to the Bolivian presidency was broken.
On Nov. 12, a Bolivian senator, Jeanine Áñez, declared herself the interim president of Bolivia in Congress, vowing to promptly hold new elections. Aljazeera reported that this was done despite a lack of a quorum to appoint her in a legislative session that was boycotted by legislators from former President Evo Morales‘ left-wing party.”
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo applauded the interim president in a statement on Nov. 13, saying that the U.S. looks forward to working with the OAS to stage free and fair elections” by the end of 2019.
Two days later, Canada announced its support for Áñez, and laughably called for a democratic elections as soon as possible”.
Bolivia in shambles without Morales, as elections are delayed until September 2020
In January 2020, a now-deleted racist tweet from interim president” Áñez was caught, in which she reportedly wrote: I want a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals. The city is not for the indigenous. They should go to the mountains or plains.” Áñez also called Morales a poor Indian” in another tweet.
Canadian mining companies have swiftly exploited the coup government’s pro-business stance to resume lithium mining projects, after Morales nationalized South American Silver Corp. lithium mining operation in 2012.
A first-of-its kind deal was struck that month between Bolivia’s state mining company Comibol and Vancouver-based explorer New Pacific Metals, which allowed the company to begin mining for lithium and showed that Bolivia is open to foreign investment,” according to NPM’s President, Gordon Neal.
Nadia Cruz, Bolivia’s ombudsman, said that charges of sedition” and terrorism” are being brought for simply disagreeing with or questioning the Áñez administration.
Michael Shifter, the president of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue said, There is unwillingness on the level of the Trump administration to hold Áñez to account, so she has a lot of room to do what she wants, including what seems to be the carrying out of vendettas.” Journalists have been arrested and intimidated, while Indigenous activists have been severely repressed.
The promise of quick elections proved to be a lie, two months after the coup, that the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which was filled with Anez allies, and purged of former officials, determined the presidential election would occur on May 3. However, the Bolivian electoral court used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover to delay the elections until September 6. Now that Luis Camacho is urging the OAS to interfere in Bolivia’s elections yet again, the stage may be set for a second coup against a Movement for Socialism party’s presidential candidate within the last year.
Even the narrative of flawed elections has fallen apart, as the New York Times and others have reported that the there was no election fraud, in the 2019 election that delivered Morales his fourth term as Bolivia’s president.
Just as in the US-backed coup against Evo Morales and the 2004 US-led coup against Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Canada is almost certain to play a key role in the destruction of Bolivian democracy, staying true to its imperialist foreign policy.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news site founded in 2019. He has written about Canadian imperialism, federal politics, and left-wing resistance to colonialism across the world. He is a second-year Bachelor of Journalism student at Ryerson University, who was the Head of Communications and Community Engagement for Etobicoke North NDP Candidate Naiima Farah in the 2019 Federal Election. Read other articles by Aidan.
This article was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2020 at 10:29am and is filed under Bolivia, Canada, Democracy, Elections, Evo Morales, Imperialism, Mining, Racism.
July 24th, 2020 at 9:53 am
I really don’t have the time to read this and my heart goes to Morales who was ousted illegally by the usual international bandits and his only fault is that he is a simple Simon, unsophisticated elected by the people born in a country that has the biggest deposit of Cadmium that is in demand for batteries for the up and coming electric cars.
We have a lesson here where we must not dress like clowns and run to temples and Kovils showing our primitive ways where we will be open to abuse and exploitation by the international clique.
They the usual crooks will install a crooked puppet to syphon the wealth to prop up their currencies.SL is strategically placed,pehaps has oil in the Mannar basin that is very attractive to the usual pirates.
We should have maintained the erect colonial culture left in 1948 that would be difficult for outsiders to interfere. Singapore is an good example and so was HK.but the latter is unfortunate for various reasons. We must learn to eat on the same tables as our enemies and friends that makes the usual vultures to fool us and cheat us.