[News] Watch: Glenn Greenwald’s Exclusive Interview With Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Who Was Deposed in a Coup

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://theintercept.com/2019/12/16/evo-morales-interview-glenn-greenwald/

*/VIDEO IS ON LINE AT THE URL ABOVE/*


  Watch: Glenn Greenwald’s Exclusive Interview With Bolivia’s Evo
  Morales, Who Was Deposed in a Coup

Glenn Greenwald <https://theintercept.com/staff/glenn-greenwald/>- 
December 16 2019

_On November 10_, Evo Morales, who served as president of Bolivia for 13 
years and presided over extraordinary economic growth and a reduction of 
inequality praised even by his critics, announced that he was resigning 
the presidency under duress, with implicit threats from the Bolivian 
military. Morales later made clear that he viewed these events as a 
classic right-wing military coup of the kind that has plagued the 
continent for decades, explaining that he was removed from his position 
by force and then ultimately pressured by a police mutiny and military 
threats to flee his own country.

Morales went to Mexico, where he was granted political asylum, and has 
lived under heavy security in Mexico City ever since (earlier this week, 
he was granted refugee status in Argentina). On December 3, I sat with 
Morales in Mexico City for an hourlong interview that was wide-ranging 
in scope: not only about the events that led to his removal and exile 
from Bolivia, but also broader trends in regional and global politics, 
as well as the role played by the U.S. in Latin America.

We discussed who was behind this coup, what its motives are, the role 
played by both the U.S. and Brazil, the use of violence by the 
right-wing “interim” government against Indigenous protesters, the 
criticisms voiced against him for seeking a fourth term despite 
constitutional term limits, and how his removal by military force in 
favor of an unelected right-wing coup regime — led by the country’s 
right, white, Christian minority — reflects broader trends in Latin 
American politics and global political trends generally.

We also discussed the once-notorious but now forgotten extraordinary 
event in 2013, when Morales’s presidential plane was forced to land in 
Austria as he was traveling back to Bolivia from a state visit in 
Russia, on the pretext that the U.S. believed he had Edward Snowden on 
board and was taking him back to Bolivia for asylum. And Morales was 
particularly insightful on the role played by Bolivia’s deals with China 
to sell lithium, and its alliance with Russia, and why those 
relationships so infuriated the U.S.

I was not sure what to expect from this interview. After all, Morales 
had suffered a violent military coup that forced him from his country 
only weeks earlier, and I thought that — brimming with anger and 
resentment over recent events — he might be unwilling or unable to do 
much more than offer platitudes about the injustices, repression, and 
military violence in his country that forced him to flee.

But that expectation proved untrue. Morales was incredibly thoughtful, 
reflective, insightful, and analytical about virtually everything we 
discussed, not only about Bolivia but also regional and world politics. 
As someone who presided over a left-wing success story for 13 years in 
the U.S.’s backyard, he obviously has a unique and sophisticated 
perspective on a wide range of geopolitical events, and that wisdom 
shaped the interview. As a result, I regard this as one of the most 
informative and compelling interviews I’ve done. I hope you’ll watch the 
full 50-minute video as I believe it’s well worth your time, providing a 
sophisticated perspective rarely heard in the mainstream press.

______

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