South American Politics thread - Page 46

On November 12 2019 10:56 Nebuchad wrote:...
What do you think of the quality of his post? Does it serve any purpose?

On November 12 2019 11:03 Aquanim wrote:

I could wish he didn't punch you back.

On November 12 2019 11:02 Nebuchad wrote:
What about his last post where he accuses me of being mad and PMing other people? Any sense of the quality here?

When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward.

With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”

“Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”

Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist ideology.

Since Morales entered office in 2006, the UJC has campaigned to separate from a country its members believed had been overtaken by a Satanic Indigenous mass.

Following the forced departure of Morales, coup leaders arrested the president and vice president of the government’s electoral body, and forced the organization’s other officials to resign. Camacho’s followers proceeded to burn Wiphala flags that symbolized the country’s Indigenous population and the plurinational vision of Morales.

On November 12 2019 10:38 des wrote:

Military action is being taken to suppress those who are protesting against the coup. Democracy at its finest!

On November 12 2019 16:46 meiji_emperor wrote:
Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and multi-millionaire – with foreign support



What this coup allowed was racist religious fundamentalists to expand their power in Bolivia. Hardly a win for democracy. Indigenous people of Bolivia should be prepared for civil war but they will have a hard fight as the military is siding with the likes of Camacho. Still, the resistance of the people in Donbass shows that ordinary people can stand against attacks from a state's military.

On November 12 2019 18:19 Mo_tx wrote:



Supporters of Morales have been marching down the capital chanting “Guerra si!”. Shops, government buildings and houses of politicians on both sides have been sacked or burnt down. https://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2019/11/11/terror-impotencia-policial-una-jornada-de-convulsion-237112.html

The intervention of the army is not that surprising, and has been requested by the police who is completely overwhelmed. The situation is extremely violent and volatile. It is difficult to know exactly what happened in the last two days (i.e. what exactly was the role of the army in Evo’s resignation) and how the transition process is going to look like. However we should be careful not to misrepresent the situation with simplistic narratives such as “the left vs militaristic rights”.

The debate over whether or not Morales’s ouster constitutes a coup is revealing. Those who deny that there has been a coup – Trump, Bolsonaro and mainstream press – express the predictable and longstanding animosity of the powerful towards leftist governments that challenge the status quo and offer the powerless hope for an alternative. For those in this camp, Morales’s fall is fully (or largely) legitimate and something to be welcomed as the return of democracy, regardless of how it occurred. The denunciation of Morales’s ouster as a coup – the position of leading leftist figures in Latin America, the US and UK – reveals an equally longstanding, and, yes, predictable concern with military intervention in the political process, particularly when this is hitched to the type of oligarchic rightwing revanchist racism now on display in Bolivia.

But the Bolivian conflict is not black and white. What we need at this moment is not a simplistic condemnation or uncritical defense of Morales and the Mas. We need to recognize the multiplicity of forces, including popular movements, which challenged Morales in recent weeks (and often for much longer).

We also need to recognize that, right now, it is not popular movements that have taken charge in Bolivia, but a Bible-thumping racist right that has burned the wiphala, promised that “Pachamama will never return to the [presidential] palace” and chillingly called on the military and police to “pacify” Bolivia’s streets. The sad result of this is chaos and violence by state security forces and at least some Mas supporters. At the end of the day the most important question may not be whether or not this was a coup, but what comes next? The picture so far is decidedly grim.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/morales-bolivia-military-coup?fbclid=IwAR1j52kVB5hGQtOHJnZ39fvA828nyWsZUswN5_YkkR42Fc9_lTF_f5xNZ_8

Hospital director Guadalberto Lara said that most of the dead in Sacaba, in the centre of the country, as well as some of the dozens more who were injured, had bullet wounds. Witnesses said police opened fire on protesters, who were calling for the return of Morales from exile in Mexico.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Lara said, calling it the worst violence he’s seen in his 30-year career.

Hours before the OAS press statement, and even longer before the votes were counted, Senator Marco Rubio stated falsely, “In #Bolivia all credible indications are Evo Morales failed to secure necessary margin to avoid second round in Presidential election.” He also alleged, without evidence, that there was “some concern he will tamper with the results or process to avoid this.” Trump administration officials followed with similar statements.

The potentially violence-promoting claims of the OAS, which echo those of Rubio and the Trump administration, have driven much of the media’s coverage, and serve as an anchor for those who want to discredit the election.

For those who bothered to look at the data (the 34,000 tally sheets, signed by observers, are on the Web), it was clear that the increase in the share of Morales’s votes in later returns was simply a result of geography. In other words, Morales’s support is much stronger among rural and poorer populations, whose votes came in later. Such a geographically driven change in vote margins is not that uncommon in elections—as anyone who has watched election returns on television in the United States knows. And this change wasn’t even that big of a shift.

“We want to be a democratic tool of inclusion and unity,” said the 52-year-old religious conservative, sitting at a table bearing a huge open Bible and crucifix.

But the transitional cabinet initially sworn into office on Wednesday night did not include a single indigenous person, in a country where at least 40% of the population belongs to one of 36 indigenous groups.

Áñez herself has drawn criticism after racist remarks against indigenous people were unearthed in tweets attributed to her from 2013.

“This is definitely an anti-indigenous government,” said María Galindo, founder of the Mujer Creando feminist movement. “It’s not just racism but also the issue of the plurinational state,” she said.

But Galindo, a fierce critic of Morales, was most worried by the power vacuum the leftwing icon left behind. “The right has filled the gigantic void in a chilling and dangerous way,” she said.

“Especially for me because I’m an anti-fascist fighter in this country, I’m openly lesbian and I could be targeted, threatened and murdered in this country,” she added.

On November 17 2019 07:39 JimmiC wrote:
Gotcha, just a bunch of assumptions and loose connections.

It is hard to take it too seriously when the referendum failed and than even with the irregularities Morales popularity fell what 20% from his last election? The center left party made such gains that he had to cheat to win, the right wing party was doing terribly.

Lets not forget that before this "western backed coup" the people were rioting in the streets because of the election fraud and Morales tried to quell it with force the police and military just were not willing to follow his orders.

At this point the best thing for Bolivia is a new election which the interim has said will happen right away. And they should have tons of oversight to make sure that unlike the last one this one is legitimate.

On November 17 2019 08:55 JimmiC wrote:
See this is where you are confused, he was up by 7% before the pause and magically 11% after. And it was over the center left party.

And no I dont trust thats why I said proper oversight.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-latin-america-50119655

On November 17 2019 08:55 JimmiC wrote:
See this is where you are confused, he was up by 7% before the pause and magically 11% after. And it was over the center left party.

And no I dont trust thats why I said proper oversight.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-latin-america-50119655