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“Coup tells the story of Bolivia’s MAS party, the ousting of its popular
Indigenous president Evo Morales, and the following wave of abuses
committed by the authoritarian Áñez regime. The book is a vital
contribution to our understanding of how reactionary forces leveraged a
bogus claim of fraud to overthrow the elected president. It is essential
reading for those committed to democracy and social justice in the
Americas. Coup highlights the need to remain on alert in electoral times and
serves as a warning about the cunning preparation of coups d’état. Today’s
coups are more sophisticated than those of previous decades, but they are
equally ruthless and equally dangerous.” —MADRES DE LA PLAZA DE
MAYO–LINEA FUNDADORA, mothers of Argentina’s disappeared
“Future historians will look back at the reversal of Bolivia’s 2019 coup as
an event equal in importance to Fidel Castro’s defeat of the US-organized
invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Linda Farthing and Thomas Becker have
provided us with an indispensable analysis to the sources of the conflict and
how the forces of hope triumphed.” —GREG GRANDIN, Pulitzer Prize–
winning author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border
Wall in the Mind of America
“In the international media discourse that emerged in late 2019 after Evo
Morales was forced into exile and Jeanine Áñez declared herself president
of Bolivia, some voices remained conspicuously absent: those of the
Bolivians living through the turmoil. Farthing and Becker set out to
challenge this trend, crafting a narrative based on the testimony of dozens
of Bolivian activists, political figures, and intellectuals. Stitched together in
a compelling and lucid narrative, the insights of those on the ground—not
only about the brutal right-wing repression under Áñez but also about both
the advances and shortcomings of Morales’s time in power—provide the
clearest picture yet of what happened in Bolivia in 2019.” —DR. CHRISTY
THORNTON, assistant professor, Johns Hopkins University and former
executive director of the North American Congress on Latin America
(NACLA)
Published in 2021 by
Haymarket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
773-583-7884
www.haymarketbooks.org
[email protected]
ISBN: 978-1-64259-684-7
Distributed to the trade in the US through Consortium Book Sales and Distribution
(www.cbsd.com) and internationally through Ingram Publisher Services International
(www.ingramcontent.com).
This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and Wallace
Action Fund.
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases by organizations and institutions. Please
email [email protected] for more information.
For the brave families who lost loved ones during the 2019–2020
Bolivia conflicts and continue to fight for justice. La lucha sigue.
—Thomas
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
FOREWORD
The volume you have before you, Coup, tells the story of the ousting of
President Evo Morales in rich, nuanced detail. It does so by unravelling the
complex layers of injustice, exploitation, and racism that have cursed
Bolivia since the arrival of Spanish conquistadores in 1524. The narrative
in this book presents the immediate events leading to the coup, as well as
the structural forces at work in the demise of the Morales presidency. The
authors underscore the broader context of a deeply unequal hemisphere and
world. Understanding these structural forces, as well as the proximate
causes of the coup, is essential if one is to move beyond the simplistic and
inaccurate narratives that dominated most English-language explanations of
what happened in Bolivia in the last quarter of 2019. Indeed, the authors’
implicit contention throughout (and the value of their work) is that only by
understanding (at least superficially) five centuries of exploitive, racist rule
by an elite minority of European descent can one begin to appreciate the
intensity of the animosity of the traditional ruling classes towards Evo
Morales’s popular, multicultural, egalitarian project.
This animosity—as Farthing and Becker detail—animated the campaign
to drive Evo Morales, the MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo or Movement
for Socialism) party, and the Indigenous majority out of power. The
campaign, in turn, was facilitated by a well-prepared and disproven
narrative of widespread election fraud, knowingly (or unwittingly) parroted
by Western observers, most media sources, and powerful states. The
combination of ill-intentioned distortion with amplification and legitimation
that led to the seizure of power by an unknown, Evangelical Christian
zealot, Senator Jeanine Áñez, while particular in its details, followed an
increasingly common outline for twenty-first century attacks on democracy.
Whatever may be said of the Evo Morales and MAS period in government,
it must be observed that the nearly fourteen years of their rule stand in stark
contrast to almost five centuries of rule by the non-Indigenous minority. As
Farthing and Becker explain, for 480 years in nearly linear fashion, whether
under the Spanish crown or the post-independence governments, a small
minority of elites of European descent controlled Bolivia’s politics,
economy, and social structure. The election of Evo Morales in 2006
represented a radical departure from the status quo. While imperfect in
practice, Morales sought, at least in discourse, to transform Bolivia into a
popular democracy based on multiculturalism and social equality. When
one appreciates the transformational nature of the promise that Morales
represented, one also understands the intensity of the reaction against him
personally, against the MAS party and against the nation’s indigenous
majority.
The authors of this foreword—the former executive secretary and
former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—
have been close observers of Bolivia over these past two decades. Both of
us have visited Bolivia numerous times to document the human rights
conditions for reports, legal actions, press releases, and the like. We have
been able to observe a good part of what this book’s authors detail, from the
shortcomings of the Morales government to the unprecedented changes the
government brought to the country.
As executive secretary, Paolo Abrão was able to document the
massacres at Senkata and Sacaba, in loco, only days after the two ugliest
incidents of Áñez’s period of abusive rule. As director of both Harvard’s
and Stanford’s human rights clinics, James Cavallaro documented the
slaughter of indigenous protestors during the gas wars in 2003. The book
sets out in clear, concise text the visceral sense of injustice that we were
able to experience in our time in Bolivia.
For too long, human rights organizations have avoided “thorny” political
issues. When is the removal of a head of state “legal?” When does it
conform to international human rights standards? The guidelines and
parameters for answering these questions have not been sufficiently
developed, in part because leading human rights organizations have avoided
these debates. Instead, collectively, human rights organizations have
prioritized questions of procedure, allowing states themselves to decide on
the legitimacy of machinations that lead to changes in leadership. Recent
examples from the Americas abound. Was the reelection of Juan Orlando
Hernandez in Honduras in 2017 legitimate? (The answer from human rights
groups should have been, but was not, a resounding “No.”) And Dilma
Rousseff in Brazil? Was her impeachment and removal from office
legitimate? Did it conform to internal Brazilian standards? Was procedure
followed? If so, then would no further investigation be necessary? And
what about Evo’s demise in 2019? If Evo Morales stepped down and
Jeanine Añez assumed the presidency through procedures apparently
mandated by Bolivian law, would that be sufficient under international
standards? Should it matter that Evo Morales faced threats to himself and
his family, as did many other high-level MAS authorities? Should it matter
that the military—later rewarded with money and promotions by those who
ousted Morales—“invited” him to leave the country? That Evo offered to
hold new elections, faced with the (subsequently debunked) claim of
institutionalized fraud? Should it matter than Jeanine Añez was not the first,
nor the second, nor even the third in line to assume the presidency? Or that
a cabal of international officials and powerful opposition figures met, in
secret, to designate her to be president?
The so-called human rights community divided on these questions.
Those aligned with powerful Western governments went along with the
electoral fraud narrative promoted by the Organization of American States.
They were able to overlook threats to Morales and leading MAS figures,
intervention by the military, and queue-jumping the line of succession. The
greater good—as they viewed it—of removing Evo from power justified the
fictions on which the “legal” ouster narrative was based.
The story of the Bolivian coup is gripping. It is worth reading on its
own. But understanding the deeper narrative is absolutely vital if we are to
maintain democratic rule anywhere on the planet today. The 2019 coup in
Bolivia has become a blueprint for reactionary forces across the Americas
and the world: Authoritarian forces contend there has been or will be fraud
—a “steal” of an election. They mobilize supporters, through mass and
social media, to take matters into their own hands, to take to the streets or
the halls of power. Political, military, judicial, and other forces must choose
on which side to align. Democratic principles suffer terribly; polarization of
society into camps with parallel and utterly divergent realities ensues.
Sound familiar?
All these reasons gain greater weight in light of the revelations in mid-
2021 of efforts by states in the region to provide material support (weapons,
munitions, and other gear) that the interim Bolivian regime sought to use
against its own citizens. The Bolivian case revives the specter of illicit
cooperation by military and security forces in the Americas in the 1970s
and ’80s to suppress dissent against the authoritarian governments that
dominated the hemisphere. This cooperation, known as Operation Condor,
began in 1975 and led to widespread, systematic and severe violations of
fundamental rights—thousands of forced disappearances, summary
executions, and wholesale use of torture.
The development and strengthening of the institutions that protect
human rights in the Americas are deeply intertwined with the brutal history
of Operation Condor and of the coordinated efforts by security forces to
eliminate the possibility of refuge for those who dared to oppose
authoritarian rule in any of the collaborating countries. Driven by this ugly
history, transitions to democratic rule over the past four decades have
placed human rights—both domestically and in terms of foreign policy—
front and center.
The decision and action by several states in South America (and perhaps
beyond) to coordinate repressive efforts thus represent profound and
existential threats to human rights. These threats interrupted decades of
consistently professed opposition to state terror, authoritarianism, and
politically targeted human rights abuse. In this sense, the Bolivian case
echoes far beyond its borders. Placed before us are renewed challenges to
the core principle of international cooperation based on respect for human
rights.
Coup is essential reading for three reasons. First, because it is the most
thorough, accurate, and succinct narrative of the events leading up to and
following the overthrow of the government of Bolivian president Evo
Morales. Second, because it provides a deep and contextual understanding
of the factors—many spanning over decades and centuries—that led to the
clashes of social forces and social classes culminating in October and
November 2019. And, finally, because the means by which the coup was
effectuated—under the cloak of democratic discourse—provide essential
lessons about the nature of processes seeking to overturn egalitarian
movements in Latin America (and beyond) in the twenty-first century.
Paulo Abrão and James Cavallaro
PREFACE
When protestors carried the coffins down from El Alto after the November
2019 massacre in Senkata, I was interviewing women in La Paz’s main
square. By that point, the march had moved further along the road, and the
square was largely filled with women and children protestors who were
avoiding an inevitable confrontation with the cops a few blocks away. Local
vendors had gone back to hawking their wares. Without any warning, the
plaza was filled with tear gas: thick, blinding, choking clouds of the stuff,
the like of which I had never seen. We all raced to get away, and, in the
midst of the fleeing crowd, I didn’t spot the big hole in the pavement. Down
I went. Despite the gas and charging cops, the people around me—who
have mostly never experienced anything decent from people of my class
and skin color—pulled me out, dusted me off, made sure I had my camera
and my wits before we all raced off again. That solidarity—in this case,
action that saved me—is what has always made Bolivia feel like a home to
me.
That solidarity came very much to mind when Thomas Becker called
me in April 2020 to propose we write a book on Bolivia’s November 2019
coup. I was stuck in the United States because of COVID, and my plans and
life had turned upside-down like everyone else’s. The May 4th elections I
was returning to Bolivia to report on and to monitor with a delegation from
the National Lawyers Guild were well on their way to being postponed, and
it looked like we’d all be stuck wherever we landed for the foreseeable
future. After book #3, I had sworn I wouldn’t do another one, but rather
dedicate myself to journalism with hopes of leaving the political fray to one
side for a time. Instead I hoped to write about the marvels of Bolivia’s food
and travel possibilities, albeit within a socially and politically conscious
context.
But the trauma of the November 2019 coup—when I had reported
nonstop for six weeks, at times more terrified than I have ever been—was a
story I knew must be told. I had watched while my mostly male neighbors
explained that they were mounting street barricades in my upper-middle-
class La Paz area to keep the “hordes” (code for Indigenous peoples) at bay.
I had frantically packed a suitcase when the new minister of communication
threatened imprisonment for journalists she deemed subversive, a category I
knew I fit into. I was hurt and horrified when middle-class friends overnight
became former friends as they abandoned left politics and instead
prioritized “democratic” transitions above all other values, unable or
unwilling to recognize their historic class and race position in the conflict. I
had barely avoided weeping when I listened to the tragic tales told in a
packed bare brick church about what working-class and Indigenous
protestors had suffered during the massacre in Senkata. I had seen the
desperation when poor people tugged at my sleeve because no other
reporters were in sight. They were frantic to register their fears that the
racism that had eased during Evo Morales’s fourteen years was returning
full force. Usually a person not prone to tears, I had cried repeatedly during
that month and a half as I watched this beloved country torn apart by
racism, hatred, and intolerance.
That call from Thomas led me to realize that, especially with his help, I
was uniquely positioned to write a book in English about the coup and its
aftermath—with thirty-five years of living between the United States and
Bolivia, close to fifteen of those years in Bolivia, as well as three books on
the country under my belt. So with quarantine stretching out before me for
some unspecified amount of time, I took the plunge, working to tease out
the lessons from the MAS experience and Evo Morales’s ouster. They are
lessons that have resonance for those working for progressive social change
wherever you are in the world. I have long felt that in the north, and
particularly in the current world imperial power, the United States, we buy
too readily into tropes of northern superiority and remain shut off to the
lessons we can learn from the efforts and agency of peoples in the Global
South.
That is the story we seek to bring to life here: the ongoing struggles of
Bolivia’s working-class and Indigenous peoples to create a more just
society. It is a story that has deep roots that are both inspiring and hopeful.
Despite the setbacks, such as the one in November 2019, this small country
in the Andes is on a steady arc toward a more equitable society because of
the enormous efforts and sacrifice of much of its population. It is in the
spirit of that positive change that we offer this story in the hopes that it will
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