I find the BBC is too willing to run with anything when it comes to breaking news. Longer lead time pieces using BBC reporters with better edited content they do great on, but they have proven over and over they will relay anything when it comes to breaking news, and that they do especially poor when using freelance reporters for breaking news.
Democratic governments and political parties, unions, student organizations, journalists, artists, teachers, intellectuals, opponents to the military juntas and left-wing sympathizers (including socialists, peronists, anarchists and communists)
Crazy they just green lighted the whole segment of the population who were fighting for their own destiny.
Democracy doesn't work in a US-dominant world. My country is nowhere near Africa yet there have been 7 coup attemps, 4 successful, most backed by US in her 100 year history[2]. The last one didn't succeed and the US is currently protecting the leader of the attempt, refusing to give him us back.
Arab leaders are likewise domestically widely regarded as sockpuppets of the USA. On the rare occasion a democratic election happens, the president suddenly dies, gets assasinated, or a coup d'état happens and gets hanged. Off the top of my head see [2] for an example.
This is not to say democracy would work in a Russia- or China- dominant world. It seems democracy only works for the nations who can sufficiently defend against infiltration by the NSA/foreign intelligence agency of the dominant power. And I don't think that's easy, or feasible at all. You can't expect an African nation of 10M population who gained independence 2 decades ago to have the skilled people to be able to conduct this sort of intelligence operations.
And of course, the US is the peacekeeper of the world, only bringing democracy and welfare to the poor nations held back by their authoritarian leaders and backward ideologies and religions. Long live Imperium Americana!
This would be true if there wasn't a huge list of coup attempts in developing countries backed by the U.S. dating back almost a hundred years up until today. It's not a conspiracy, the U.S. has engaged and continues to engage in political interventions world over when they deem it necessary.
Not a trope when its true and factual. Hell, ex-CIA directors have even admitted it in books and TV! Most Americans don't like hearing that their government can be one of the "bad guys".
Lately? HN is a forum derived from an American company and promoting Silicon Valley culture. Most of the points of view of everything (not only politics) are strongly skewed towards American culture and beliefs. I would find it surprising if it was different .
There'd probably be a fairly strong seeding effect though.
And HN is anything but a random sample people from a given country; to be part of the tech scene you kinda have to take an interest in what is happening in the US and it certainly pays to be pro-SV since historically they provided a lot of well paid jobs. That'd be a huge bias in opinion.
I think it's usually a bad idea to attribute any broad sentiment to HN as a whole, but if you wanted to make the point that it's a tech industry forum and thus shares (with many counterexamples!) tech industry biases, that's a much more grounded thing to say than that it's a "Silicon Valley" site.
I will say this, though, and it's a wild guess so take it as you will: the median opinion among American tech industry workers about the government of Bolivia is: not, in any way at all, ever once thinking or caring about the government of Bolivia.
I wouldn't be surprised either, seeing as Arce has gone off-script as if he's been bought and paid for. He wasn't really elected himself, he was elected as a proxy for Morales who had been overthrown and exiled by a coup. He's followed that up with a complete break with Morales.
What wouldn't surprise me even more is if this coup were staged to allow Arce the excuse to put the country into martial law before being voted out.
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Evo Morales’ party expels President Luis Arce and deepens political war in Bolivia
A significant part, perhaps. Latin America is very polarized. But apparently not the majority. Luiz Arce got the absolute majority of votes in the last election, which was organized precisely by the group that did the last coup and was against him and his political party.
Arce is the formal head of MAS, which is Morales' party. MAS won a fair election in 2020 after the "coup" in which Jeanine Anez assumed power after Morales fled the country along with the constitutional line of succession after widespread violent protests following an unprecedented 4th term election (which in turn followed his unprecedented 3rd term election, which in turn followed his unprecedented 2nd term election --- prior to Morales, successive terms were forbidden) that was broadly and, if you care what OAS says, officially deemed fraudulent. Anez, an unapologetic right-winger appointed by standard constitutional succession rules, promised elections, delivered them, and conceded power peacefully to her MAS successor, who almost immediately had her arrested and has imprisoned her ever since.
This isn't so much my take as that of the European Parliament and Human Rights Watch.
> Anez, an unapologetic right-winger appointed by standard constitutional succession rules,
What rules? She was not Evo Morales successor. The correct successors were being persecuted and had access denied to the government buildings. And during Anez illegitimate government, she used violence and the police to attack protesters and to persecute the opposition [1]. They tried to postpone the election, but they had no popular support and their coup was unsustainable.
Anez was another in a long line of Bolivian heads of state that terribly abused their power. If you're trying to position me to defend the right-wing elite of any country in South America, you're barking up the wrong tree. But Anez assumed the role of interim president after a constitutional crisis, promised prompt elections, and peacefully transferred power back to Morales party, which then immediately had her imprisoned.
That's a really generous reading of events. My reading was that Anez and her cohort orchestrated a successful coup, but couldn't hold power and were forced to concede and hold elections, in which the party which had been deposed in Anez's coup again won the majority vote
Again: the only reason Anez, who occupied the same spot in the Bolivian line of succession that Anthony Blinken does in ours, assumed power was that 3 of Morales supporters higher in the order than her resigned. That's an awfully elaborate coup design!
I wonder why they resigned... Just because they were being attacked, their houses burned, with family members being kidnapped, all while they were prevented from entering government buildings....
Linera left with Morales. The President of the House apparently left to Argentina. but Salvatierra didn't flee? Resigned of her own accord.
And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.
Anez is not good. I don't dispute MAS appears to be the better steward of Bolivia. But Morales had plenty of time to set up a constitutional succession and build a long-term movement (note that Morales and Arce hate each other, and there are rumors that the coup has more to do with that relationship than anything else). Instead, he tried to secure an unprecedented 4th term, after his unprecedented 3rd term, after his unprecedented 2nd term. Is it any wonder that there was chaos in 2019? If Morales had just annointed a successor, MAS would have won in a walk.
> Linera left with Morales. The President of the House apparently left to Argentina. but Salvatierra didn't flee? Resigned of her own accord.
Salvatierra explicitly tells in interviews that one of the reasons for her resignation was the threat of the coup violence. That in the moment of her resignation there were already outside her house a violent mob ready to attack if she did not resign. In a context where other MAS members already had their houses attacked, their relatives kidnapped and tortured.
> And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.
She tried to avoid the elections during pandemic, but was forced to retreat the proposal.And as I said, all recent soft coups in Latin America involve making elections some time later, just after ensuring that the overthrown group would not win (which failed in Bolivia because of MAS popular support).
Yes, Morales should have annointed a successor. But even his extra terms were more democratic than what the opposition did in response. And it is a little naive thinking that this would have prevented a coup or some other reaction if the parties that Morales defeated in the elections still were defeated by his successor.
What the opposition did in response was appoint, through the documented constitutional line of succession, an interim president who immediately called elections and peacefully transferred power to their opposition, which promptly imprisoned them. I understand pretty well the competing narratives about 2019, but it is very difficult for me to get past that basic fact pattern.
All recent coups in Latin America (and several coups outside) follows the exact same script: overthrown the government and say that is temporary and you will organize new elections. During this time, use propaganda, media, repression and sometimes new laws to weaken the overthrowned group so that they will lose the elections. Foreign countries that support the coup can just initially say that they are worried with the "crisis", but then will rapidly recognize the new elected government, avoiding the embarass of openly support an obvious dictatorship.
This same script is being used at least for 20 years now (I remember being used in Equador). But its last part failed in Bolivia.
> Later studies contradicted and criticized OAS conclusion.
They criticized the statistical analysis which was not actually the main evidence OAS gave. It's just what everyone focused on.
The main evidence was someone replaced the servers used to transcribe/verify tally sheets bypassing auditing and accessed the machines while they were counting and a they found changes in the minutes and the forgeries of poll officials' signatures.
Eh, there's a lot of criticism of the OAS report, and a lot of it is persuasive. It's hard to argue that Morales should have been allowed in the race in the first place, though.
it sounds like the kirchners' allies in bolivia are going through the kind of crisis we were headed for here in argentina before they lost power here in the election in november. not that we aren't still in a crisis, but we have two things going for us:
1. recognizing the wrongheadedness of the kirchners' policies, we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag, and his advocacy of freedom seems to be strictly limited to freedom of enterprise (not, for example, freedom of abortion, freedom to protest, or freedom to use public transit anonymously)
Peronism is weird and incomparable with other non-right wing movements. Argentina's modern history is largely defined by left-wing Peronists vs. right-wing Peronists.
Hence, you can't evaluate other countries governments based on whether they're aligned with the Kirchners or not, it says almost nothing other than they're not on the extreme right. You have to judge them on their own terms.
the policies that led to the bolivian crisis were the same policies the kirchnerists were applying in argentina; it was an ideological alliance, not one of convenience
no, nothing like this has ever happened before in recorded history. probably that's fortunate
i mean people have elected all kinds of madmen as heads of state, so that's not the unprecedented part. but i don't think any country has ever elected a minarchist as a head of state. two weeks ago he gave a speech at a cato forum here describing the state he now heads as by nature a violent and criminal organization. he may be right about that, but generally believing such things makes you unelectable
we are in uncharted waters. this is going to be exciting!
You're closer to the action than me and very probably much better informed, but the opinion I've formed from across the Southern Pacific is that Millei's 'minarchist' rhetoric is mostly theatre and that he's in fact very similar to the many leaders that have been put in place or helped into power in South America before by the (mostly external) financial interests who want to keep plundering and extracting its resources.
he gives every sign of sincerely believing it except for donating his salary (as he did when he was just a legislator)
certainly external financial interests are helping him a great deal, and there's been significant plundering historically, but it remains to be seen what happens with that. since perón, investing in non-portable assets in argentina has historically been a 'heads i win, tails you lose' deal with the government; your losses will be privatized, but your profits will be nationalized. so generally it's the argentine politicians doing the plundering, not barrick gold or the ypf investors
"Bolivia is among the world’s most politically turbulent nations, having had nearly 200 coups and revolutions since it won independence from Spain two centuries ago. Morales was ousted by the army as recently as 2019 after a disputed election."
Apparently a general, Juan José Zúñiga was removed as commander of the Bolivian army yesterday, and he responded with this. Makes it a bit understandable why they would want to get rid of him.
I’ve been trying to get a sense of how much of the military is actually behind this. Current reporting seems a bit confused. For example, I’ve seen multiple articles say that “2 tanks” are outside the government palace, but I’ve yet to see any photos or videos demonstrating that. All I’ve seen so far are a handful of images like in the article showing uniformed troops, and one video showing an armored vehicle ramming a building (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko.amp ). Best I can tell that is a Tiger armored vehicle. I’m wondering if this is a case of reporters calling any military vehicle a “tank” or if there are actual tanks (which for Bolivia would mean the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK-105_Kürassier or possibly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE-9_Cascavel depending on you definition of “tank”).
At some point hopefully someone with knowledge of Bolivian Army insignia will chime in and identify which units are participating in this coup.
US involvement in South America is arguably the leading cause of the current instabilities in the region. It is not the sole factor but in order to understand the geopolitics of the region must be taken into account. Knowledge of these US involvements are often not well known in my experience.
Consider for example the role of American legislation and consumption in the drug trade and the resulting immigration and criminal crises throughout the continents.
Bolivia has been independent since 1825 and has since then experienced over 190 coups. Nobody can whitewash US involvement in South and Central America in the 20th century, but the US is not the sole cause of Bolivian instability. Perhaps it makes more sense to blame colonialism, which set up the unstable rural/urban indigenous/white duality that has made the place so fragile.
I have no idea. I made a specific argument and was explicit about not immunizing the US for its absolutely wretched involvement with South and Central American politics.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
I'm repeating myself here, but this 2019 thing is a "coup" in which:
* The ousted President had just claimed a victory in an unprecedented and unconstitutional 4th term election, after a judicial decision overruled both the constitution and the results of a failed referendum to amend the constitution to allow Morales to remain in power.
* The claimed victory in that election was widely deemed fraudulent, including by OAS (if you care what OAS thinks).
* Morales fled the country along with much of the constitutional line of succession, leaving the 2nd Vice President of the Senate to assume the presidency in the standard line of succession.
* That new president, unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later --- despite COVID.
* Those elections restored MAS, the Morales party, to power, and the transfer of power occurred peacefully.
* The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since, in an action that has been pretty much universally condemned by the industrialized world.
Arce has abused his power, Anez has abused her power, Morales certainly abused his power, none of this is appears new, there are people on HN that are far more authoritative about Bolivian politics than I am, the US with respect to South America sucks ass, but I doubt very much that there is any simple story to tell about what's happening here.
> unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later
She had no choice as the alternative by that point was a total overthrow of most major institutions of government, in which chaos she and her allies would have fared even worse than they did.
> The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since
As they should have. She was responsible for many deaths.
"Unprecedented" is easy to explain: since the military junta was overthrown in 1982 and democracy established, no president prior to Morales had ever served two consecutive terms, following a policy set by the country's constitution.
Not only was Morales final term unprecedented and unconstitutional, but it followed an attempt by Morales to amend the constitution via referendum, which failed.
Bolivia has notoriously pliant judiciary; that judiciary was used not just by MAS but also by Anez and by Morales predecessors to suppress dissent. Human Rights Watch is one place to go for analysis of the problems of the Bolivian judiciary, which does not function like that of the US or European states.
I understand you you might not care what OAS thinks, but Morales did: he ordered the OAS audit and conceded its results.
Anez assumed power after 3 layers of the Morales constitutional line of succession, all MAS party members, resigned in protest, thus assuring that the MAS opposition would assume power. It was a spectacular own-goal for MAS, and despite it, Anez' Democratic Socialist party immediately handed power back to MAS after the election that they timely called.
I would be interested in sources from western countries that have defended the imprisonment of Anez. There must be some. Thanks in advance!
I have no expertise in Bolivian politics. I read things, just like everyone else does. My opinions about US involvement in South America was set by the Jesuits in high school, who made us watch Romero and read Eduardo Galeano.
But when I read things here referring to the 2019 coup, I'm going to point out that unlike most of the US-backed coups of the Cold War, there is another side to this story. You might read the European Parliament resolution condemning Anez' imprisonment for another formulation of the same point. That Anez handed power off, almost immediately, to MAS, which then imprisoned her, is pretty dispositive for me. But we don't have to agree.
There's a very common motte and bailey on this topic, motte = US supported coups materially, bailey = at some point the last decade, US diplomat went on the record with anodyne statement of support for winner of internal struggle.
It's insidious because it equates supporting a winner with interfering.
Morales is a poor example given the, uh, extrajudicial circumstances.
And remember that each coup "masterminded" by the USA has found more than willing accomplices in each country, every time. (And one could argue that in many cases, if the US didn't do it, the USSR would have - but I recognize with honesty that does not apply to 100% of the cases, Chile especially).
Maybe it is time for those countries to take a good hard look at themselves.
> each coup "masterminded" by the USA has found more than willing accomplices in each country
Really? You mean every time we've tried to overthrow a foreign government we've been able to find locals who were willing to give us a hand if they could personally benefit from the arrangement? That's amazing! What are the odds?
If in a country, one can easily find enough people in positions of authority ready to backstab the whole country, then "foreign interference" is only half the problem...
From a geopolitical perspective the single greatest reason for outside meddling in Bolivia today is control (indirect works fine) of the largest lithium reserves on the planet, currently being tussled over by both China and the USofA with some rumours of Saudi investment interests.
These things typically play out with layered shell companies, private mercanary contractors, and local bribes - Eric Prince (USofA) was recently taking Saudi pay to "secure" through bribes, corrupt judges, political allies, and occassional force traditional lands in Zambia for food security, his group is now providing security for Chinese transport of copper from there to Angola.
Such is the world we live.
It is a certainty that interested parties (corporations, governments) are seeking to control Bolivian lithium and equally certain that their tracks well be fairly well covered (but not for ever).
you’re asking people to prove a negative for reasons that are irrelevant and inconsequential, aside from your hardon for pointing out that the US coup’d some folks
Hey, a whole class of "political commentators" like Hasanabi have made whole careers off reframing every possible conversation around the braindead regurgitation of "America bad".
And internet echo chambers are so bad that it substitutes for thoughtful commentary.
America opens itself to that criticism by calling itself a good, moral leader. As if its constituents and allies need to believe that.
So some people are gullible and eventually feel lied to. But I think the US could operate more at face value and then the same things occur without the cognitive dissonance. It would probably be far easier to support too.
No, it's not, because this isn't a court of law. You're allowed to read between the lines here and use common sense. You don't need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Given the history of the US on matters such as this, it would be unusual if we weren't involved. That's really all that needs to be said.
On 8 November 2020, Luis Arce was sworn in as President of Bolivia alongside his Vice President David Choquehuanca.[103] In February 2021, the Arce government returned an amount of around $351 million to the IMF. This comprised a loan of $327 million taken out by the interim government in April 2020 and interest of around $24 million. The government said it returned the loan to protect Bolivia's economic sovereignty and because the conditions attached to the loan were unacceptable.[95]
This coup attempt is, without any doubt, a project of the US State Department and intelligence community. You don't need a smoking gun here, or put another way the smoking gun is our posture toward Latin America for the last 100+ years.
The notion that we are not involved somehow is totally ludicrous. That doesn't have to mean that Tony Blinken (or Joe Biden) personally signed off on this, but we are involved. To suppose otherwise is to be naive to the point of stupidity.
The United States is a victim of British imperialism and experienced a coup attempt back in January of 2021. Singling them out seems a little unfair when they’ve experienced similar struggles
What's necessary for who, exactly? Because some of those coups were for reasons like blocking land reform to ensure that the United Fruit Company can keep making money hand over fist in Guatemala.
What's necessary for the US to maintain its position at the top of the world order. The very article you linked states that the Guatemalan coups were initiated because of fears of communist influence.
Well, no, it states quite clearly that the actual driver was ensuring UFC profits and the "communism" fears were just the window dressing.
The UFC also began a public relations campaign to discredit the Guatemalan government, hiring Edward Bernays, who mounted a concerted misinformation campaign for several years which portrayed the company as the victim of a "communist" Guatemalan government.
> US has engaged in 64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change, some against proper democratically elected governments including the infamous 1953 Iranian coup d'état
This isn't true, the 1953 removal of Mosaddegh wasn't the removal of a democratically elected government. By the time of his removal, Mosaddegh has dissolved parliament, and started ruling directly by fiat, claiming that a fraudulent plebiscite gave him the ability to do so.
The Shah also had the constitutional authority to appoint and dismiss ministers including Mosaddegh at the time, which you can see if you read the constitution from the time or look at diplomatic cables from that time[1].
I haven't gone through the entire list, but if that's the main example that you're bringing up, I suspect many of the others are similarly being reported in a way that doesn't match reality (particularly when the occupation of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are on the list).
Ehhhh... yeah it's fun to beat up on the top dog, but statements like "US has engaged in 64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change" is a technique to convince people "USA are the debils" who aren't going to dig any further.
When you look at the details, i start to go "ehhh...".
The 1953 Iranian coup was against Mosaddegh, who had given himself "emergency powers" for another 12 months, was losing members of his coalition and was becoming more and more unpopular.
The CIA might be powerful, but it can't create crowds of hundreds of thousands of protestors out of thin air. Over 300 people were dead from riots leading up to the coup.
Whether the CIA or MI6 "helped" the coup, Mosaddegh was on his way out one way or another. It's not like Iran would have been a bastion of peaceful democratic bliss if the UK and US had just minded their own business.
If you look into the other "covert attempts at regime change", you realize it's pretty much the CIA aiding one particular group over another in a country that's on the brink of civil war.
It's not like the CIA is rolling into a stable democracy and just overthrowing countries.
One can claim the CIA never should have gotten involved, and sure, that's a reasonable position, but I'd also argue that the world is a community of nations, all with incentives/disincentives to have particular people in power in their peer nations. It's pretty natural that countries will try and influence that.
Cherry-picked example don't make a strong argument. When explaining the 1973 military coup on a democratically elected president in Chile, what makes you go, "ehhhh..."?
Again, if you dig into the details, the CIA involvement was minimal. They didn’t even think Pinochet was a viable coup leader.
Not to mention that Allende was far from democratic at the time. He had ignored the Supreme Court, the Senate voted to call his actions “unlawful” in a majority vote.
It was a crisis that would result in a coup whether or the CIA was there. Not to mention the CIA played no role in the actual coup itself. It may have involved itself with dissents, but Allende was leaving no matter what they did.
NB: the lazy pattern of linking to a brief microblog post rather than giving the payload text is one of my long-standing pet peeves. Particularly as such sites have a longstanding tendency to die (e.g., Google+, Ello, Imzy, Posterous, Blogger, ...)
And for those unable or unwilling to view The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, the payload is:
Elon Musk: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it."
Bolivia just stopped him from mining in their country. I'd say they dealt with it pretty well.
I was in Bolivia during the event. It was not a real "coup" and it was in general a pretty uneventful military vs government dispute. Locals were a bit upset that the media did so much fuss about something that was not a big deal.
110 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] threadIdo Vock, who has the BBC byline, is a freelance journalist not a BBC reporter. https://muckrack.com/ido-vock
Marcelo Rochabrun from the Bloomberg piece is Bloomberg's Lima Bureau Chief. https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWGVgQgsdOs/marcelo-rochab...
South America has a history of military dictatorship but after the pendulum swings enough to the other side people seem to lose their memory a bit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
Arab leaders are likewise domestically widely regarded as sockpuppets of the USA. On the rare occasion a democratic election happens, the president suddenly dies, gets assasinated, or a coup d'état happens and gets hanged. Off the top of my head see [2] for an example.
This is not to say democracy would work in a Russia- or China- dominant world. It seems democracy only works for the nations who can sufficiently defend against infiltration by the NSA/foreign intelligence agency of the dominant power. And I don't think that's easy, or feasible at all. You can't expect an African nation of 10M population who gained independence 2 decades ago to have the skilled people to be able to conduct this sort of intelligence operations.
And of course, the US is the peacekeeper of the world, only bringing democracy and welfare to the poor nations held back by their authoritarian leaders and backward ideologies and religions. Long live Imperium Americana!
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40745850
And HN is anything but a random sample people from a given country; to be part of the tech scene you kinda have to take an interest in what is happening in the US and it certainly pays to be pro-SV since historically they provided a lot of well paid jobs. That'd be a huge bias in opinion.
I will say this, though, and it's a wild guess so take it as you will: the median opinion among American tech industry workers about the government of Bolivia is: not, in any way at all, ever once thinking or caring about the government of Bolivia.
The unions declared an indefinite general strike
https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1806068831984783583
And as I write this it seems like they’re outnumbered in the plaza
https://x.com/KawsachunNews/status/1806083169726198113
What wouldn't surprise me even more is if this coup were staged to allow Arce the excuse to put the country into martial law before being voted out.
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Evo Morales’ party expels President Luis Arce and deepens political war in Bolivia
https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-05/evo-mora...
In Bolivia, an “Intense” Battle Between Arce and Morales
https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/in-bolivia-an-inte...
This isn't so much my take as that of the European Parliament and Human Rights Watch.
I do not care. Later studies contradicted and criticized OAS conclusion. OAS was a player in the 2019 coup:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-d...
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3621475
> Anez, an unapologetic right-winger appointed by standard constitutional succession rules,
What rules? She was not Evo Morales successor. The correct successors were being persecuted and had access denied to the government buildings. And during Anez illegitimate government, she used violence and the police to attack protesters and to persecute the opposition [1]. They tried to postpone the election, but they had no popular support and their coup was unsustainable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkata_and_Sacaba_massacres
And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.
Anez is not good. I don't dispute MAS appears to be the better steward of Bolivia. But Morales had plenty of time to set up a constitutional succession and build a long-term movement (note that Morales and Arce hate each other, and there are rumors that the coup has more to do with that relationship than anything else). Instead, he tried to secure an unprecedented 4th term, after his unprecedented 3rd term, after his unprecedented 2nd term. Is it any wonder that there was chaos in 2019? If Morales had just annointed a successor, MAS would have won in a walk.
Salvatierra explicitly tells in interviews that one of the reasons for her resignation was the threat of the coup violence. That in the moment of her resignation there were already outside her house a violent mob ready to attack if she did not resign. In a context where other MAS members already had their houses attacked, their relatives kidnapped and tortured.
> And, again: Anez called prompt elections and peacefully handed power back to MAS less than a year later. She had every opportunity to avoid that: the election took place during the start of the COVID pandemic.
She tried to avoid the elections during pandemic, but was forced to retreat the proposal.And as I said, all recent soft coups in Latin America involve making elections some time later, just after ensuring that the overthrown group would not win (which failed in Bolivia because of MAS popular support).
Yes, Morales should have annointed a successor. But even his extra terms were more democratic than what the opposition did in response. And it is a little naive thinking that this would have prevented a coup or some other reaction if the parties that Morales defeated in the elections still were defeated by his successor.
This same script is being used at least for 20 years now (I remember being used in Equador). But its last part failed in Bolivia.
They criticized the statistical analysis which was not actually the main evidence OAS gave. It's just what everyone focused on.
The main evidence was someone replaced the servers used to transcribe/verify tally sheets bypassing auditing and accessed the machines while they were counting and a they found changes in the minutes and the forgeries of poll officials' signatures.
1. recognizing the wrongheadedness of the kirchners' policies, we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag, and his advocacy of freedom seems to be strictly limited to freedom of enterprise (not, for example, freedom of abortion, freedom to protest, or freedom to use public transit anonymously)
2. we aren't a petro-state
Hence, you can't evaluate other countries governments based on whether they're aligned with the Kirchners or not, it says almost nothing other than they're not on the extreme right. You have to judge them on their own terms.
many such cases!
i mean people have elected all kinds of madmen as heads of state, so that's not the unprecedented part. but i don't think any country has ever elected a minarchist as a head of state. two weeks ago he gave a speech at a cato forum here describing the state he now heads as by nature a violent and criminal organization. he may be right about that, but generally believing such things makes you unelectable
we are in uncharted waters. this is going to be exciting!
certainly external financial interests are helping him a great deal, and there's been significant plundering historically, but it remains to be seen what happens with that. since perón, investing in non-portable assets in argentina has historically been a 'heads i win, tails you lose' deal with the government; your losses will be privatized, but your profits will be nationalized. so generally it's the argentine politicians doing the plundering, not barrick gold or the ypf investors
"Bolivia is among the world’s most politically turbulent nations, having had nearly 200 coups and revolutions since it won independence from Spain two centuries ago. Morales was ousted by the army as recently as 2019 after a disputed election."
At some point hopefully someone with knowledge of Bolivian Army insignia will chime in and identify which units are participating in this coup.
Consider for example the role of American legislation and consumption in the drug trade and the resulting immigration and criminal crises throughout the continents.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silenc...
* The ousted President had just claimed a victory in an unprecedented and unconstitutional 4th term election, after a judicial decision overruled both the constitution and the results of a failed referendum to amend the constitution to allow Morales to remain in power.
* The claimed victory in that election was widely deemed fraudulent, including by OAS (if you care what OAS thinks).
* Morales fled the country along with much of the constitutional line of succession, leaving the 2nd Vice President of the Senate to assume the presidency in the standard line of succession.
* That new president, unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later --- despite COVID.
* Those elections restored MAS, the Morales party, to power, and the transfer of power occurred peacefully.
* The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since, in an action that has been pretty much universally condemned by the industrialized world.
Arce has abused his power, Anez has abused her power, Morales certainly abused his power, none of this is appears new, there are people on HN that are far more authoritative about Bolivian politics than I am, the US with respect to South America sucks ass, but I doubt very much that there is any simple story to tell about what's happening here.
Not sure what you mean by that.
> unconstitutional
Not according to their Supreme Court.
> including by OAS (if you care what OAS thinks)
I don't. No one should.
> unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later
She had no choice as the alternative by that point was a total overthrow of most major institutions of government, in which chaos she and her allies would have fared even worse than they did.
> The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since
As they should have. She was responsible for many deaths.
> pretty much universally condemned
Not universally.
Not only was Morales final term unprecedented and unconstitutional, but it followed an attempt by Morales to amend the constitution via referendum, which failed.
Bolivia has notoriously pliant judiciary; that judiciary was used not just by MAS but also by Anez and by Morales predecessors to suppress dissent. Human Rights Watch is one place to go for analysis of the problems of the Bolivian judiciary, which does not function like that of the US or European states.
I understand you you might not care what OAS thinks, but Morales did: he ordered the OAS audit and conceded its results.
Anez assumed power after 3 layers of the Morales constitutional line of succession, all MAS party members, resigned in protest, thus assuring that the MAS opposition would assume power. It was a spectacular own-goal for MAS, and despite it, Anez' Democratic Socialist party immediately handed power back to MAS after the election that they timely called.
I would be interested in sources from western countries that have defended the imprisonment of Anez. There must be some. Thanks in advance!
I have no expertise in Bolivian politics. I read things, just like everyone else does. My opinions about US involvement in South America was set by the Jesuits in high school, who made us watch Romero and read Eduardo Galeano.
But when I read things here referring to the 2019 coup, I'm going to point out that unlike most of the US-backed coups of the Cold War, there is another side to this story. You might read the European Parliament resolution condemning Anez' imprisonment for another formulation of the same point. That Anez handed power off, almost immediately, to MAS, which then imprisoned her, is pretty dispositive for me. But we don't have to agree.
It's insidious because it equates supporting a winner with interfering.
Morales is a poor example given the, uh, extrajudicial circumstances.
And remember that each coup "masterminded" by the USA has found more than willing accomplices in each country, every time. (And one could argue that in many cases, if the US didn't do it, the USSR would have - but I recognize with honesty that does not apply to 100% of the cases, Chile especially).
Maybe it is time for those countries to take a good hard look at themselves.
Really? You mean every time we've tried to overthrow a foreign government we've been able to find locals who were willing to give us a hand if they could personally benefit from the arrangement? That's amazing! What are the odds?
These things typically play out with layered shell companies, private mercanary contractors, and local bribes - Eric Prince (USofA) was recently taking Saudi pay to "secure" through bribes, corrupt judges, political allies, and occassional force traditional lands in Zambia for food security, his group is now providing security for Chinese transport of copper from there to Angola.
Such is the world we live.
It is a certainty that interested parties (corporations, governments) are seeking to control Bolivian lithium and equally certain that their tracks well be fairly well covered (but not for ever).
On the resources; see:
https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/12/global-rush-lithiu...
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rapid-growth-of-bolivias-l...
And internet echo chambers are so bad that it substitutes for thoughtful commentary.
So some people are gullible and eventually feel lied to. But I think the US could operate more at face value and then the same things occur without the cognitive dissonance. It would probably be far easier to support too.
Given the history of the US on matters such as this, it would be unusual if we weren't involved. That's really all that needs to be said.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Government of Luis Arce: 2020 - present
On 8 November 2020, Luis Arce was sworn in as President of Bolivia alongside his Vice President David Choquehuanca.[103] In February 2021, the Arce government returned an amount of around $351 million to the IMF. This comprised a loan of $327 million taken out by the interim government in April 2020 and interest of around $24 million. The government said it returned the loan to protect Bolivia's economic sovereignty and because the conditions attached to the loan were unacceptable.[95]
The notion that we are not involved somehow is totally ludicrous. That doesn't have to mean that Tony Blinken (or Joe Biden) personally signed off on this, but we are involved. To suppose otherwise is to be naive to the point of stupidity.
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-china-ahead-in-race-for-bolivia...
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/uranium-one-expected-...
But it is a complex situation with indigenous people trying to block Lithium extraction altogether so make of it what you will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
The UFC also began a public relations campaign to discredit the Guatemalan government, hiring Edward Bernays, who mounted a concerted misinformation campaign for several years which portrayed the company as the victim of a "communist" Guatemalan government.
This isn't true, the 1953 removal of Mosaddegh wasn't the removal of a democratically elected government. By the time of his removal, Mosaddegh has dissolved parliament, and started ruling directly by fiat, claiming that a fraudulent plebiscite gave him the ability to do so.
The Shah also had the constitutional authority to appoint and dismiss ministers including Mosaddegh at the time, which you can see if you read the constitution from the time or look at diplomatic cables from that time[1].
I haven't gone through the entire list, but if that's the main example that you're bringing up, I suspect many of the others are similarly being reported in a way that doesn't match reality (particularly when the occupation of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are on the list).
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
When you look at the details, i start to go "ehhh...".
The 1953 Iranian coup was against Mosaddegh, who had given himself "emergency powers" for another 12 months, was losing members of his coalition and was becoming more and more unpopular.
The CIA might be powerful, but it can't create crowds of hundreds of thousands of protestors out of thin air. Over 300 people were dead from riots leading up to the coup.
Whether the CIA or MI6 "helped" the coup, Mosaddegh was on his way out one way or another. It's not like Iran would have been a bastion of peaceful democratic bliss if the UK and US had just minded their own business.
If you look into the other "covert attempts at regime change", you realize it's pretty much the CIA aiding one particular group over another in a country that's on the brink of civil war.
It's not like the CIA is rolling into a stable democracy and just overthrowing countries.
One can claim the CIA never should have gotten involved, and sure, that's a reasonable position, but I'd also argue that the world is a community of nations, all with incentives/disincentives to have particular people in power in their peer nations. It's pretty natural that countries will try and influence that.
Not to mention that Allende was far from democratic at the time. He had ignored the Supreme Court, the Senate voted to call his actions “unlawful” in a majority vote.
It was a crisis that would result in a coup whether or the CIA was there. Not to mention the CIA played no role in the actual coup itself. It may have involved itself with dissents, but Allende was leaving no matter what they did.
https://x.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752
And for those unable or unwilling to view The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, the payload is:
Archive link: <https://archive.is/JjyYL>https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1806090907084865627