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Thread: Turmoil in Bolivia

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Facts Now Reveal How OAS Lied About Bolivian ‘Election Irregularities’

    By 21wire
    November 21, 2019
    Opinion: The OAS lied to the public about the Bolivian election, and covered-up the subsequent military coup. Facts show there was nothing suspicious about the re-election of President Evo Morales.

    According to data compiled in the report below, but also from the recent study available at CEPR, there was no election fraud in Bolivia, which means that the ouster of President Evo Morales was indeed a coup d’etat…


    Mark Weisbrot Market Watch

    What is the difference between an outright lie — stating something as a fact while knowing that it is false — and a deliberate material representation that accomplishes the same end? Here is an example that really pushes the boundary between the two, to the point where the distinction practically vanishes.

    And the consequences are quite serious; this misrepresentation (or lie) has already played a major role in a military coup in Bolivia last week. This military coup overthrew the government of President Evo Morales before his current term was finished — a term to which nobody disputes that he was democratically elected in 2014.

    More violent repression and even a civil war could follow.

    OAS mission
    The Organization of American States (OAS) sent an Electoral Observation Mission to Bolivia, entrusted with monitoring the Oct. 20 national election there. The day after the election, before all the votes were even counted, the mission put out a press release announcing its “deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results…”

    Here is what the OAS was referring to: there is an unofficial “quick count” of the voting results that involves contractors who upload results at intervals, as the tally sheets are available. At 7:40 p.m. on election day, they had reported about 84% of the votes and then stopped reporting for 23 hours (more on that below).

    When they resumed reporting results at 95% of votes counted, Morales’s lead had increased from 7.9% before the interruption to just over 10%.

    This margin was important because in order to win without a second-round runoff, a candidate needs either an absolute majority, or at least 40% and a 10-point margin over the second-place finisher. This margin — which grew to 10.6% when all the votes were counted in the official count — re-elected Morales without a second round.

    Morales’s lead grew steadily
    Now, if you had any experience with elections or maybe even arithmetic, what is the first thing you would want to know about the votes that came in after the interruption? You might ask, were people in those areas any different from people in the average precinct in the first 84%?

    And was the change in Morales’s margin sudden, or was it a gradual trend that continued as more vote tally sheets were reported?

    You might even want to ask these questions before expressing “deep concern and surprise” about what happened, especially in a politically very polarized situation that was already turning violent.


    This graph shows that the lead held by President Evo Morales (light blue dots) and by his party in parliamentary elections (dark blue dots) rose at a steady rate for most of the vote counting. There was no sudden surge at the end to put him over the 10% threshold.

    A look at that data shows that the change in Morales’s lead was actually gradual and continuous, and started rising many hours before the break in reporting of the quick count. You can see that in a graph of the results.

    It’s geography
    Why did it happen? The answer is simple and not that uncommon: the people in later-reporting areas were more pro-MAS (Morales’s party, the Movement Toward Socialism) than those in areas that reported earlier. Hence the gradual and continuous rise in Morales’s lead, in which the votes after the interruption put him over the top.

    The OAS has published two press releases, one preliminary report, and one preliminary audit on the election. How many of these contained the disparagement of the election results implied by the “deep concern and surprise” quoted above? Three. How many contained anything about the difference between the percentage of MAS/Morales voters in areas with later returns versus earlier? Zero.

    As it turns out, the interruption in the quick count was not a sign of foul play either.

    Quick count has no legal status
    The quick count is separate from the official count, and has no legal status to determine the results. It’s never been intended or promised to be a complete count; in prior elections it did not even near 84%.

    It’s just a quick series of snapshots, done by contractors, to provide early results before the official count is done. It makes sense that the electoral authorities might not want two sets of voting results, which are inherently different, coming out at the same time in a violently polarized political situation.

    For those who like numbers better than graphs: Morales’s margin after the first 84% of votes was 7.9%, as noted. If we look at the remaining 16% of precincts, and we ask, what is Morales’s pre-interruption margin in the areas where these later-reporting precincts were located? That margin is about 22%. Again, a simple explanation of how his margin increased as it did with later returns.

    For a more powerful statistical analysis, we can project the remaining (and thus total) vote count on the basis of the first 84% reported. And — no surprise here — Morales’s projected final margin based on the first 84% of votes turns out to be slightly more than 10%.

    It is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that this OAS mission, or those above them in the OAS Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation, felt “deep concern and surprise” and yet were too incompetent to even look at this data.

    Three lies
    That is why I would say that they lied at least three times: in the first press release, the preliminary report, and the preliminary audit. And that is why I would regard with great skepticism the allegations presented in their preliminary audit, and further publications — unless these can be verified by independent investigators from publicly available data.

    And the OAS isn’t all that independent at the moment, with the Trump administration actively promoting this military coup, and Washington having more right-wing allies in the OAS than they did just a few years ago.

    Not to mention that the U.S. supplies 60% of its budget. But the OAS has horribly abused its mandate in election monitoring before, helping to reverse election results as the U.S. and its allies wanted: most destructively, in 2000 in Haiti; and also in the same country in 2011.

    More evidence: in the last three weeks, the OAS has refused to answer questions from journalists, on the record, about their statements or reports since the election.

    Maybe they are afraid that a curious reporter would ask questions like these: Is there a difference between the political preferences of people who live in later-reporting areas as compared to earlier ones? Doesn’t this explain how Morales’s lead rose to more than 10% as votes from more pro-Morales areas came in? Did you even look at this question?

    Since I am an economist, I believe in incentives: I am offering a $500 reward for the first journalist who can get a substantive answer to these questions from an OAS official, on the record. Even if turns out to be a lie.
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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    They’re Killing Us Like Dogs: A Massacre in Bolivia and a Plea for Help

    “The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing.” – A Bolivian mother


    by Medea Benjamin

    Mintpressnews.com
    November 19, 2019


    I am writing from Bolivia just days after witnessing the November 19 military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto, and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession on November 21 to commemorate the dead. These are examples, unfortunately, of the modus operandi of the de facto government that seized control in a coup that forced Evo Morales out of power.

    The coup has spawned massive protests, with blockades set up around the country as part of a national strike calling for the resignation of this new government. One well-organized blockade is in El Alto, where residents set up barriers surrounding the Senkata gas plant, stopping tankers from leaving the plant and cutting off La Paz’s main source of gasoline.

    Determined to break the blockade, the government sent in helicopters, tanks and heavily armed soldiers in the evening of November 18. The next day, mayhem broke out when the soldiers began teargassing residents, then shooting into the crowd.

    I arrived just after the shooting. The furious residents took me to local clinics where the wounded were taken. I saw the doctors and nurses desperately trying to save lives, carrying out emergency surgeries in difficult conditions with a shortage of medical equipment.

    I saw five dead bodies and dozens of people with bullet wounds. Some had just been walking to work when they were struck by bullets. A grieving mother whose son was shot cried out between sobs: “They’re killing us like dogs.” In the end, there were 8 confirmed dead.

    The next day, a local church became an improvised morgue, with the dead bodies–some still dripping blood–lined up in pews and doctors performing autopsies. Hundreds gathered outside to console the families and contribute money for coffins and funerals. They mourned the dead and cursed the government for the attack and the local press for refusing to tell the truth about what happened.

    The local news coverage about Senkata was almost as startling as the lack of medical supplies. The de facto government has threatened journalists with sedition should they spread “disinformation” by covering protests, so many don’t even show up. Those who do often spread disinformation.

    The main TV station reported three deaths and blamed the violence on the protesters, giving airtime to the new Defense Minister Fernando Lopez who made the absurd claim that soldiers did not fire “a single bullet” and that “terrorist groups” had tried to use dynamite to break into the gasoline plant.


    Gloria Quispe mourns next to the body of her brother Antonio, killed by security forces, in El Alto, Bolivia, Nov. 20, 2019. Natacha Pisarenko | AP

    It’s little wonder that many Bolivians have no idea what is happening. I have interviewed and spoken to dozens of people on both sides of the political divide. Many of those who support the de facto government justify the repression as a way to restore stability. They refuse to call President Evo Morales’ ouster a coup and claim there was fraud in the October 20 election that sparked the conflict.

    These claims of fraud, which were prompted by a report by the Organization of American States, have been debunked by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

    Morales, the first indigenous president in a country with an indigenous majority, was forced to flee to Mexico after he, his family and party leaders received death threats and attacks–including the burning of his sister’s house. Regardless of the criticisms, people may have of Evo Morales, especially his decision to seek a fourth term, it is undeniable that he oversaw a growing economy that decreased poverty and inequality.

    He also brought relative stability to a country with a history of coups and upheavals. Perhaps most importantly, Morales was a symbol that the country’s indigenous majority could no longer be ignored.

    The de facto government has defaced indigenous symbols and insisted on the supremacy of Christianity and the Bible over indigenous traditions that the self-declared president, Jeanine Añez, has characterized as “satanic.” This surge in racism has not been lost on the indigenous protesters, who demand respect for their culture and traditions.

    Jeanine Añez, who was the third highest-ranking member of the Bolivian Senate, swore herself in as president after Morales’ resignation, despite not having a necessary quorum in the legislature to approve her as president.

    The people in front of her in the line of succession – all of whom belong to Morales’ MAS party – resigned under duress. One of those is Victor Borda, president of the lower house of congress, who stepped down after his home was set on fire and his brother was taken hostage.

    Upon taking power, Áñez’s government threatened to arrest MAS legislators, accusing them of “subversion and sedition”, despite the fact that this party holds a majority in both chambers of congress.

    The de facto government then received international condemnation after issuing a decree granting immunity to the military in its efforts to re-establish order and stability. This decree has been described as a “license to kill” and “carte blanche” to repress, and it has been strongly criticized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

    The result of this decree has been death, repression and massive violations of human rights. In the week and a half since the coup, 32 people have died in protests, with more than 700 wounded. This conflict is spiraling out of control and I fear it will only get worse.

    Rumors abound on social media of military and police units refusing the de facto government’s orders to repress. It is not hyperbole to suggest that this could result in a civil war. That’s why so many Bolivians are desperately calling for international help. “The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing,” cried a mother whose son had just been shot in Senkata. “Please, tell the international community to come here and stop this.”

    I have been calling for Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former president of Chile, to join me on the ground in Bolivia. Her office is sending a technical mission to Bolivia, but the situation requires a prominent figure.

    Restorative justice is needed for the victims of violence and dialogue is needed to defuse tensions so Bolivians can restore their democracy. Ms. Bachelet is highly respected in the region; her presence could help save lives and bring peace to Bolivia.


    Feature photo | Mourners carry the coffins that contain the remains of people killed by security forces in El Alto, outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia, Nov. 21, 2019. Natacha Pisarenko | AP

    Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of CODEPINK, a women-led peace and human rights grassroots organization. She has been reporting from Bolivia since November 14.


    Full article

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Evidence Talks: US Government Propelled Coup in Bolivia

    By W.T. Whitney Jr. Global Research
    November 25, 2019


    A coup on November 10 removed the socialist government of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The U.S. government made preparations and orchestrated the final stages of the coup. It was in charge. In power for almost 14 years, Morales and Vice President Álvaro García Linera had won elections taking place on October 20. The two leaders would each have been serving a fourth term in office.
    Evidence of the U.S. crime appears below. It’s about money, U.S. influence within the Bolivian military, and U.S. control of the Organization of American States (OAS):
    1. For many years the Santa Cruz Civic Committee and its proto-fascist Youth Union received funding from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy. According to analyst Eva Golinger some years ago, the USAID provided $84 million to Bolivian opposition groups.

    U.S. Embassy officials conspired with and paid the “civic committees” of Bolivia’s four eastern departments. Representing the European- descended elite of Bolivia’s wealthiest region, these groups promoted racist assaults. They concocted a separatist movement and tried to assassinate Morales. In response, the Bolivian government expelled the U.S. ambassador, Drug Enforcement Agency, and U. S. Agency for International Development.



    2. Bolivian armed forces commander in chief Williams Kaliman Romero on November 10 “suggested” that Morales resign. That was the coup de grace. Within three days, Kaliman himself resigned and moved to the United States. Sullkata M. Quilla of the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis explains that Kaliman and other military chiefs each had received $1 million and that top police officers received $500,000 apiece. U.S. Chargee d’affaires Bruce Williamson allegedly arranged for monetary transactions that took place in Argentina’s Jujuy Province under the auspices of Governor Geraldo Morales. The story first appeared on the website www.Tvmundus.com.ar.

    3. Money flowed freely prior to Morales’s departure. Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations Sacha Llorenti – a Morales supporter – reported that, “loyal members of [Morales’s] security team showed him messages in which people were offering them $50,000 if they would hand him over.”

    4. According to the respected Argentinean journalist Stella Cattaloni, Ivanka Trump arrived in Jujuy on September 4-5 ostensibly to honor a small group of women entrepreneurs. Some “2,500 federal agents” and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan accompanied her. At the same time, Governor Gerardo Morales was informed that the United States would be delivering $400 million supposedly to pay for improvements to a big highway in Argentina. Cattaloni suggests that a freight train running through Jujuy en route to Santa Cruz, the center of anti- Morales plotting in Bolivia, was transporting military equipment to opposition groups.

    There’s media speculation as to how Governor Morales may have facilitated the transfer of U.S. money to Luis Camacho, leader of the coup and head of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee. He may have done so in Santa Cruz, where he visited on September 4, or in Jujuy Province where Camacho may have showed up later that day or the next.

    5. According to analyst Jeb Sprague:
    “At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while [General] Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington.”
    For decades, Latin American military personnel have received training and indoctrination at that U.S. Army school now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

    Sprague notes also that the top commanders of police that mutinied had received training at the Washington-based Latin American police exchange program known by its initials in Spanish as APALA.

    6. The OAS played a crucial role in the coup. Votes were being tallied on October 20 when the OAS, having audited preliminary results, announced that they showed irregularities. The U.S. government echoed the findings and street protests intensified. On October 24 the Supreme Electoral Tribunal declared first-round victories for Morales and García Linare. Protests mounted. The government, under stress, requested another OAS audit.

    The OAS made its conclusions public on November 10, earlier than expected:
    The OAS couldn’t “validate the results of this election [and called for] “another electoral process [and] new electoral authorities.”
    This was the tipping point. Morales convoked another election but shortly thereafter General Kaliman forced him to resign.

    The OAS findings were false. Walter Mebane and colleagues at the University of Michigan, having examined voting statistics, indicated that fraudulent votes in the election were not decisive for the result. The Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research performed its own detailed study and reached the same conclusion.

    The OAS served as U.S. handmaiden. Headquartered in Washington, the organization took shape under U.S. auspices in 1948 with the assigned task of protecting Latin America and the Caribbean from Communism. More recently the OAS, under Secretary General Luis Almagro’s guidance, has spearheaded U.S. efforts to expel President Nicolas Maduro’s progressive Venezuelan government.

    Paradoxically, Almagro in May 2019 gave Morales the go-ahead for a fourth presidential term. That was despite a referendum having been defeated that would have allowed the extra term. Almago’s intention may have been to lull Morales into cooperating with OAS overview of the election results.

    7. Other signs of U.S. coup preparations are these:
    • Prior to the October 20 elections President Morales charged that U.S. Embassy officials bribed rural residents to reject him at the polls. They traveled, for example, to the Yungas region on October 16 with pay-offs to disaffected coca farmers.
    • According to Bolpress.com, the National Military Coordinator (Coordinadora Nacional Militar), an organization of reserve military officers, received and distributed money sent from the United States to create social crisis prior to October 20. The United States also used embassies in Bolivia and the evangelical church as facades to hide its activities. Mariane Scott and Rolf A. Olson, U.S. Embassy officials in La Paz, met with counterparts in the embassies of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina to coordinate destabilization efforts and to deliver U.S. financing to opposition forces inside Bolivia.
    • Weapons shipments from the United States arrived at the Chilean port of Iquique on their way to the National Military Coordinator group inside Bolivia.
    • The State Department allocated $100,000 to enable a company called “CLS Strategies” to mount a disinformation campaign through social media.
    • The CIA station in La Paz assumed control of Bolivia’s Whatsapp network in order to leak false information. More than 68,000 fake anti-Morales tweets were released.
    • In mid-October “political consultant” George Eli Birnbaun arrived in Santa Cruz from Washington with a team of military and civilian personnel. Their job was to support the U.S. – preferred presidential candidacy of Oscar Ortiz and to destabilize the country politically after the elections. They provided support for Santa Cruz Civic Committee’s youth organization – specialists in violence – and supervised the U.S. – financed “Standing Rivers” NGO, engaged in spreading disinformation.
    • Sixteen audio recordings of the plotters’ pre-election conversations were leaked and showed up on the internet. Several of the voices mentioned contacts with the U.S. Embassy and with U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Robert Menendez, and Marco Rubio. Sprague reports that four of the ex-military plotters on the calls had attended the School of the Americas.
    This presentation focuses entirely on the evidence. In a criminal investigation, evidence is central to determining guilt or innocence. Considerations of motive and context are of lesser importance, and we don’t deal with them here. But when and where they are attended to, they would logically fall into categories that include the following:
    1. A socialist experiment was showing signs of success and capitalists of the world were facing the threat of a good example.

    2. A people once held hostage by colonial powers was able to claim sovereign independence and in that regard had endeavored to retain much of the wealth provided through natural resources, lithium in particular.

    3. Throughout its existence the Morales government, headed by an indigenous president, was up against anti-indigenous prejudice, racist in origin, and social-class divisions.

    4. All the while, that government was the target of hostility, plotting, and episodic violence at the hands of the entitled classes.
    So the evidence is clear. It points to a controlling U.S. hand in this coup d’état. The U.S. government bears heavy responsibility. There were Bolivian instigators, of course, but the U.S. plotters fall within the range of our own political processes. That’s why our accusing finger points at them.

    In this instance, the U.S. government, as is its custom, disregarded international law, morality, respect for human life, and common decency. To stifle popular resistance the U.S. government evidently will stop at nothing, other than force in the hands of the people. What kind of force remains to be seen.

    *
    Related:
    Last edited by Hervé; 27th November 2019 at 16:33.
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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    I find it very interesting that Mexican president AMLO is also indigenous and accepted Morales in Mexico, and now we hear Trump talking about labeling narco cartels as terrorists and have that guy from the LeBranon family pushing hard on this. Maybe what follows is a self-invitation into Mexico from the US government, to deal with the new terrorist groups

    How odd really, you know what i mean and i find it disturbing and so full of hypocrisy
    Tired

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Bolivian TV operator shuts down RT Spanish broadcasts

    https://www.rt.com/news/474513-rt-sp...taken-off-air/

    Quote RT Spanish broadcasts in Bolivia will be terminated starting next week, the country’ leading private TV operator has announced without a prior notice or clear explanation, citing only orders from its administration.
    Cotas, a non-governmental operator and the leader in the Bolivian paid television market, sent a notice to RT on Wednesday that the Spanish service would be taken off air on December 2.

    “This is a decision taken by the company’s administration, which tasked us with shutting down the channel’s broadcast,” said the statement, without going into any other details.
    Tired

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    The Bolivian army destitutes 700 soldiers because they reject racism against their own people

    http://www.rtve.es/noticias/20140425...deCQnuYTeFOGpc

    English translation
    https://translate.google.com/transla...deCQnuYTeFOGpc
    Tired

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Quote Posted by Mashika (here)
    Bolivian TV operator shuts down RT Spanish broadcasts
    Oh of course. Russia is a Christian nation. The Italian game that these Spaniards worship, is not. They have been rejecting moderate Byzantine humanism for over a thousand years. I have no clue what makes them so successful as to be able to wage "the Seventh Crusade in Bolivia" in 2019...who supports this??

    Again I feel a need to mention that when moving, my new next door neighbor will be School of the Americas. They have bought an ordinary house and occupied much land and train with .50 cal and cannons and if you did not know it was there, you can't tell, there is no sign like Prop. U. S. D. o. D., no marker, nothing. On the one hand it makes me furious as I consider them bandits who have stolen our funds to do this, and, secondly, it is for real, a whole heap of training to do things to "a South American country". Just waiting for opportunity.

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Lithium has been found in Mexico, how truly odd due to recent events in Bolivia, which now we know are related to Lithium right from the beginning

    https://aristeguinoticias.com/0512/m...-sonora-video/

    English translation
    https://translate.google.com/transla...onora-video%2F

    Just recently Trump decided to label Mexican drug cartels as terrorists, and now a sudden discovery of Lithium on Mexico makes the news

    You see articles like this one
    https://www.vox.com/2019/11/27/20985...illy-terrorist
    Quote Members of the National Guard patrol the Sonora mountain range, where nine members of the LeBaron community were killed on Monday in the municipality of Bavispe, Sonora state, Mexico, on November 8, 2019.
    Then this guy asking Trump to intervene in that exact same state "Sonora"
    "Cousin of Mexican cartel victims calls for help from Trump, says family was not caught in crossfire"
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/cousin...resident-trump
    Quote Daniel Lebaron, a cousin of Rhonita Maria Miller, says his family would not leave their home in Sonora, Mexico, after a deadly cartel attack earlier this week killed nine of his family members — including Miller.

    Quote We have the fortune, after Chile and Bolivia, of having Lithium deposits
    Said the Sonora governor

    LOL
    Last edited by Mashika; 6th December 2019 at 09:27.
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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Bolivia’s New Gov’t Targets Foreigners With “Anti-Terror” Death Squads

    The new move creating an unaccountable armed security force directly aimed at foreign terror will do little to quash fears that Bolivia is heading down the road to a totalitarian dictatorship.

    by Alan Macleod
    December 06th, 2019

    Bolivia’s new Interior Minister Arturo Murillo has unveiled a new battalion of heavily militarized, black-clad “anti-terror” police aimed at neutralizing what the government claims are foreign groups “threatening” the South American country.

    “This anti-terrorist group has a mission of dismantling absolutely all the terrorist cells that are threatening our homeland,” Murillo said, at an official ceremony launching the force. The Interior Minister posed for photos in front of the masked and heavily armed force.

    Murillo justified the new creation based on a “grand conspiracy against all of the Americas” he claimed to have uncovered, asserting that the Venezuelan government had colluded with ousted Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera to flood the continent with narco-terrorists and drug runners.

    He went on to claim that Venezuelan politicians Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello “have financed all the terror we have seen in recent times” in Bolivia, referencing the massacres that claimed over thirty lives since the right-wing coup of November 10. Police Chief Rodolfo Montero claimed that the unit is designed to “dismantle the foreign groups who were trained and guided to sow terror among the citizenry.”

    Deposed president Evo Morales hit back at the new Interior Minister, stating that, “the coup plotters who seized power in Bolivia are now inventing incredible stories in order to blame others for the state terror they are imposing on others,” noting that the only terrorism in the country is their “blood and fire” attack on the Bolivian people.

    Murillo has filed a case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, against Morales, attempting to convict him of crimes against humanity. Morales faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

    While the new government has portrayed the battalion as a counter-terror unit, there are well-founded fears that the force will actually be targeted at foreign journalists and human rights activists that might present a different picture of the country to the outside world than the one the government wants. Murillo recently directly threatened a newly arrived human rights delegation from Argentina. “We recommend these foreigners who are arriving…to be careful,” he said, “We are looking at you. We are following you,” warning them that there will be “zero tolerance” for any “terrorism” or “sedition” they enact. He added that “At the first false move that they make, trying to commit terrorism and sedition, they will have to deal with the police.”

    The human rights group responded, “While the de facto government accuses us of being terrorists, we have started what we came to do, take testimony of the different human rights violations that the Bolivian people are enduring.” Murillo was true to his word: the police subsequently detained 14 members of the delegation.

    The irony is that it is precisely the new Bolivian coup government and the death squads Murillo controls that have been responsible for grave human rights violations across the country, including two massacres near the cities of Cochabamba and La Paz. Last month the military demanded newly elected president Evo Morales step down, handpicking Senator Jeanine Añez as president, in an action most mainstream media refused to label a “coup.” The move was hailed by the Trump administration but condemned by many of the Democratic Party’s left-wing, including Senator Bernie Sanders. Añez immediately exonerated all security forces of past and future crimes during what she called the “re-establishment of order”, widely understood as granting them a license to kill with impunity. Morales was forced into exile and Murillo began “hunting down” elected pro-Morales officials like the “animals” they were, in his own words.

    The new government has also attacked the press, forcing critical international media, like TeleSUR and RT en Español off the air. Meanwhile, an Al-Jazeera anchor was tear-gassed in the face live on air by a member of the security forces. Other journalists have simply been detained and disappeared.

    Throughout all this, the Organization of American States and the media have whitewashed events, claiming Morales’ election was fraudulent and supporting the new “interim transitional government.” More than 100 economists, statisticians and academics signed a letter Monday, confirming that, after careful analysis, the results of the October election Morales won were completely legitimate. They claim that the “OAS has to answer for its role” in supporting the coup, contributing to the human rights violations and state terror sweeping the country.

    The new move creating an unaccountable armed security force directly aimed at foreign terror will do little to quash fears that Bolivia is heading down the road to a totalitarian dictatorship with no freedom of expression.

    MintPress News has been extensively covering the situation in Bolivia. For more, click here.

    Feature photo | Armed police stand near the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia on Sunday, Nov. 10, 2019. Juan Karita | AP

    Alan MacLeod is a MintPress Staff Writer as well as an academic and writer for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting was published in April.

    Republish our stories! MintPress News is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.
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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Bolivia: Some 70K fake anti-Morales Twitter IDs created
    Death toll since Anez assumed interim presidency stands at 24

    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/bo...reated/1649627

    How a Mass Bot Network is Pushing the Coup in Bolivia
    New research found that, of the 17,427 accounts studied using anti-Morales hashtag #BoliviaNoHayGolpe, almost a third were created on November 11, the day of the coup.

    Quote But on social media, it was a different story. Twitter was full of tweets in both English and Spanish using the #BoliviaNoHayGolpe hashtag, the English translation being “there is no coup in Bolivia.” New research from First Draft News, a non-profit outlet specializing in highlighting and fighting misinformation, found that, of the 17,427 accounts using the anti-Morales hashtag, almost a third were created on November 11, the day of the coup.
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-ma...olivia/263122/


    No surprise that most of this didn't make the news anywhere in the US and allied countries news channels, it was buried right from the beginning
    Tired

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    This video shows the utter chaos and suffering in Bolivia because of Covid-19, very much out of control there.

    Warning: Parts of the video are a little hard to watch.


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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Bolivians are fighting to have Chlorine Dioxide legalised (MMS). Andreas Kalker has been testing it out in Equador with excellent results. I cannot find his short video showing this as it must have been taken down as much as it was put up on the internet. This video however explains how and why it works and the results of taking it. He also mentions Bolivia.


    Thankfully CD is being sold all over Bolivia. There appears to be no other help if this news clip is a true reflection of the present state of the country. Thank you for sharing this Bill.

    Trisher
    Last edited by Trisher; 7th August 2020 at 19:25.

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Elections come soon in Bolivia, the party not supported by the US has won, by the preliminary counts and research so far. This has been suppressed from public view, and a "delay" has been forced so the results are not announced in any way

    Due to this, the army has been deployed across the country to prevent any manifestations, while the US media explains that "there will be a delay in showing the results"

    News from Mexico alternative (not government controlled media) here:


    The results have been delayed until next week, but why?

    The army is preventing people from inspecting the packages, no pictures of the counts are allowed, no pictures of anything, people are not allowed to inspect in anyway the results.

    The people of Bolivia are being silenced

    Observers from Europe and other Latin American countries are being rejected and denied access to do their work

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    Bolivia – The people won, against all the odds, the people still won

    By Chris Faure for the Saker Blog
    October 19, 2020 15 Comments

    Bolivia went to the polls yesterday for the first election since the coup d’état in November 2019, that removed Evo Morales from the leadership and from the country and put the country under a western backed right wing coup government. This coup was carried out for lithium, as Morales was developing the Lithium sector and had made agreements to start the long road to manufacturing batteries and electric vehicles. Elon Musk was accused of having had a hand in the coup (Lithium prices rose sharply a day or so before) and his comment was: “We will coup whoever we want. Get used to it!

    So for the past year, the notable members of Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), and IPSP, the party of Evo Morales, were in some cases massacred, persecuted and beaten. This did not stop them and they demanded elections. Having united into one Bloc, having inherited the gentle style of Morales and under new young, educated and committed leaders, they are now more powerful than ever before. The intervention from the usual suspects could not break through, despite a self-appointed president, despite the persecution, despite US intervention, the MAS is back and even more powerful. This is what a true majority of the people looks like.

    Last night’s exit polls show that Bolivia’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) won the presidency in the 1st round with 52.4% of the vote. This is an even higher score than when Evo Morales won in 2019. According to exit polls data, 31.5% people voted for Carlos Mesa.

    Formal results will be announced on Wednesday, but it is clear that MAS won decisively. They also had put in place their own vote counting system that is iron clad. There were sporadic incidents of violence, the election observers were threatened and one of them was detained and Bolivians woke up on election morning with La Paz having been militarized by army and police to an almost ridiculous level. None of this scared off the MAS.

    The Añez/Murillo/Mesa coup could take place a year ago because Evo Morales could not hold onto the loyalty of his military – they were open to bribery. The amazing thing that I saw following the election, is the clear move from military figures toward MAS. Perhaps the bribe money ran out, or they found that the promises by the coup government were only promises or perhaps they saw the wholesale looting of their country as soon as the coup goverment took over.

    An hour ago, Evo Morales, who continued leading the growth of MAS from outside, had this to say:
    Translation:
    Sisters and brothers: the will of the people has prevailed. There has been a resounding victory for the MAS-IPSP. Our political movement will have the majority in both chambers. We have returned millions, now we are going to return dignity and freedom to the people.
    The next few days are crucial.


    The new President, Luis Arce Catacora (Lucho Arce), described this win as
    “We have regained our souls.”
    Luis Arce served the Morales government as Minister of Economy.

    The new leadership needs to consolidate, the votes need to be counted formally and correctly and the patriotic elements within the police & military must be consolidated, to ensure the US/Murillo don’t launch a second coup against the majority of Bolivians.

    Ollie Vargas who continually stayed on the matter and on point with excellent reporting over the past year
    May it be that little Bolivia have shown us the path of what it looks like when The People Unite and Win.

    A message was sent:
    “Marco Rubio, come collect your puppets in Bolivia. They won’t make it out alive if they try rig the election now.”

    Update : The sitting and de facto (self-elected) president Jeanine Añez Chaves just announced the following :
    “We still don’t have official results, but from the information I have, Mr. Arce and Mr.Choquehuanca have won the election.”

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...16957878620165



    https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...18935564226562



    https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...20183222910977

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    https://twitter.com/telesurenglish/s...49077450543104



    https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/...=socialnetwork

    Bolivian Judge Rejects Freedom Action for Governor Santa Cruz

    On Thursday, La Paz First Anti-Corruption Sentencing Court rejected the release action filed by Santa Cruz Governor Luis Fernando Camacho, who remains in pretrial detention at the Chonchocoro maximum security prison.

    RELATED:
    76 Bolivians Are Prosecuted for Acts of Vandalism in Santa Cruz
    While the hearing was held virtually, the outskirts of the prison remained surrounded by social organizations which held a vigil to demand "30 years in prison" for the far-right politician.

    Camacho's defense lawyers requested that his client be taken every 20 days to a medical center to receive treatment for alleged illnesses, among which they mentioned hypogammaglobulinemia and Churg-Strauss syndrome.

    In response to this request, the Court ordered authorities to allow Camacho to have access to what is necessary to guarantee his health and to attend a medical center in case of emergency.

    As a result of a court order issued in Oct. 2022, Camacho was arrested in Santa Cruz on Dec. 28 and transferred to La Paz, where a judge ordered his preventive detention for four months.

    Currently, this far-right politician is being investigated for crimes related to acts of terrorism in the "Coup I" case, which refers to the coup d'état against Evo Morales in 2019.

    In the department of Santa Cruz, his imprisonment sparked protests in which paramilitary organizations have vandalized and burned state offices. His supporters called for a national day of protests for January 10.
    "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."
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    https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/st...29346786811905



    https://twitter.com/KaterMikeschMex/...04380561903616



    ¤=[Post Update]=¤

    https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...92231850450963

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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    https://twitter.com/anthropolitburo/...75846514106373



    ¤=[Post Update]=¤

    https://twitter.com/UrbanNathalia/st...20904211746816



    ¤=[Post Update]=¤

    https://twitter.com/theinformantofc/...24291209068546



    ¤=[Post Update]=¤

    https://orinocotribune.com/spanish-f...ile-venezuela/

    Spanish Far-Right Vox Deputy Expelled from Bolivia for Interference in Camacho Case (+Chile & Venezuela)

    This Wednesday, January 4, the Spanish deputy of the Vox party, Víctor González, was expelled from Bolivia for three years, accused of “disturbing public order and inciting confrontation between citizens by committing acts of interference” and breaking into police stations in the department of Santa Cruz, as reported by the Bolivian government.

    Bolivian vice minister for foreign affairs, Freddy Mamani, stated that González and his Chilean colleague, Luis Fernando Sánchez, made “politics in Bolivia” by “interfering in internal affairs” through questioning the judicial process followed against governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, for his responsibility in the 2019 coup d’état against Evo Morales.

    “They did a political job of generating violence in the country,” Mamani said, during a press conference reported by the state agency ABI. “González and Sánchez accompanied the president of the Pro Santa Cruz Committee, Rómulo Calvo, during an attack against a Police Departmental Command unit on Monday.”

    The far-right parliamentarians had alleged that they were in the country as “observers” to “gather information on alleged human rights violations.” González stated on Wednesday that he was notified of his mandated departure from the country when he had already boarded the plane that was to take him out of Bolivia.

    “Already sitting inside the plane, two agents have very correctly informed me that I am expelled from Bolivia,” the far-right provocateur wrote on his social media accounts. “Cuba, Nicaragua, and now Bolivia are the countries that deny me entry. If it helps [President] Luis Arce to have mercy on Luis Fernando Camacho, he is welcome.”

    Along with the message, he shared the expulsion notification stating that he has three days to appeal the decision, after which he will be expelled from the country. The measure will be in force for three years.

    ”The General Directorate of Migration resolves the compulsory departure for three years from Bolivian territory of Mr. Víctor González, a Spanish national, for committing acts that disturb public order and for issuing discrediting political propaganda against public order institutions and the national Government, through statements made to the press,” reads part of the document, as published by the website of the newspaper Página Siete.

    Venezuela supports Bolivian authorities
    Venezuelan minister for foreign affairs, Carlos Faría, expressed his appreciation for and satisfaction with the performance of Bolivian laws in favor of the people and against the coup.

    “We know the practices of fascist groups because we live them at various junctures,” wrote the Venezuelan top diplomat. “We know who promotes and finances them. That is why we are satisfied with the actions in accordance with the law of the Bolivian people and their institutions against the coup.”

    The governor of Santa Cruz in Bolivia, Luis Fernando Camacho, was recently arrested and transferred to the Chonchocoro prison for four months of preventive detention due to his responsibility in the coup d’état against Evo Morales in 2019 that led to the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez.

    This Wednesday, a Federal Court in the US also issued a sentence for the crimes of bribery and money laundering against former minister of government, Arturo Murillo, who was an accomplice in the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez and the overthrow of Evo Morales.
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    Default Re: Turmoil in Bolivia

    https://twitter.com/dleonjaime/statu...54343166304258




    https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/07/...cy-in-bolivia/

    ‘We will coup whoever we want’: Elon Musk and the overthrow of democracy in Bolivia

    What role did billionaire Elon Musk and his thirst for lithium play in the coup in Bolivia? Vijay Prashad and Alejandro Bejarano discuss.

    On July 24, 2020, Tesla’s Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second US “government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people.” Someone responded to Musk soon after, “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Musk then wrote: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

    Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales’ term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivia’s far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

    At that time, the “evidence” of fraud was offered by the far right and by a “preliminary report” by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgment by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

    Lithium Coup

    Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who saw—after centuries of oppression—remarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivia’s wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the US embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

    Musk’s admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithium deposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report “Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South America’s Lithium.” Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

    Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, “we get our lithium from Australia”; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

    Suspension of Democracy

    After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine Áñez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

    Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS)—the party of Morales—began in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven US senators published a statement that said, “We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia.” “Without a change in course by the interim government,” the senators wrote, “we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.”

    There’s no need to worry about that, since the government of Áñez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, Áñez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica (CELAG) says that Áñez will get a mere 13.3 percent, far behind the Movement for Socialism’s Luis Arce (41.9 percent) and the center right’s Carlos Mesa (26.8 percent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

    Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, “We face persecution, we face surveillance… we are facing a very difficult campaign.” But, he said, “we are sure that we will win these elections.” If elections are permitted.

    The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of this—and of the attack by this government on the MAS—65.2 percent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of Áñez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales’ MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 percent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

    CoronaShock and Bolivia

    The government of Áñez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

    Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the “offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most.” Longaric said, “If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible.” No such ventilators came.

    Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the Áñez government—Marcelo Navajas—was arrested for this scandal.

    Morales

    Evo Morales read Musk’s tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: “Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: ‘We will coup whoever we want.’ Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!”

    The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of Áñez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. “They are killing my brothers and sisters,” Morales said at a press conference. “This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do.” It is the toxic character of the government of Áñez, backed fully by the US government and Elon Musk.

    Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

    ¤=[Post Update]=¤

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    https://twitter.com/WiphalasW/status...26720228118529

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