[News] What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/14/what-the-coup-against-evo-morales-means-to-indigenous-people-like-me?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR0UkWu2F9ovT7en04Vty_dNCFbA3rcVptrQRx7JsS8XQ8Ps2F_uzOMLrLE


  What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me

Nick Estes - November 14, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evo Morales is more than Bolivia’s first indigenous president — he is 
our president, too. The rise of a humble Aymara coca farmer to the 
nation’s highest office in 2006 marked the arrival of indigenous people 
as vanguards of history. Within the social movements that brought him to 
power emerged indigenous visions of socialism and the values of 
Pachamama (the Andean Earth Mother). Evo represents five centuries of 
indigenous deprivation and struggle in the hemisphere.

A coup against Evo, therefore, is a coup against indigenous people.

Evo’s critics, from the anti-state left and right, are quick to point 
out his failures. But it was his victories that fomented this most 
recent violent backlash.

Evo and his party, the indigenous-led Movement for Socialism (MAS in 
Spanish), nationalized key industries and used bold social spending to 
shrink extreme poverty by more than half, lowering the country’s Gini 
coefficient, which measures income inequality, by a remarkable 19% 
<https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-index?tab=chart&time=1990..2015&country=BOL>. 
During Evo’s and MAS’s tenure, much of Bolivia’s indigenous-majority 
population has, for the first time in their lives, lived above poverty.

The achievements were more than economic. Bolivia 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/bolivia> made a great leap forward in 
indigenous rights.

Once at the margins of society, Indigenous languages and culture have 
been thoroughly incorporated into Bolivia’s plurinational model. The 
indigenous Andean concept of Bien Vivir, which promotes living in 
harmony with one another and the natural world, was written into the 
country’s constitution becoming a measure for institutional reform and 
social progress. The Wiphala, an indigenous multicolor flag, became a 
national flag next to the tricolor, and 36 indigenous languages became 
official national languages alongside Spanish.

Evo’s indigenous socialism has become the standard bearer for the 
international indigenous community. The esteemed Maori jurist, Moana 
Jackson, once referred to Bolivia’s 2009 constitution as the “nearest 
thing in the world to a constitution that has come from an Indigenous 
kaupapa (a communal vision).”

The indigenous-socialist project accomplished what neoliberalism has 
repeatedly failed to do: redistribute wealth to society’s poorest 
sectors and uplift those most marginalized. Under Evo and MAS 
leadership, Bolivia liberated itself as a resource colony. Before the 
coup, Evo attempted to nationalize its large lithium reserves, an 
element necessary for electric cars. Since the coup, Tesla’s stocks have 
skyrocketed. Bolivia rebuked imperialist states like the United States 
and Canada by taking the path of resource nationalism to redistribute 
profits across society.

This was Evo’s crime.

“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and anti-imperialist,” Evo said 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5NFmND8syU> after being coerced into 
resigning this week.

His replacement, Jeanine Añez Chávez, agreed. “I dream of a Bolivia free 
of satanic indigenous rites,” the opposition senator tweeted in 2013, 
“the city is not for the Indians who should stay in the highlands or the 
Chaco!!!” After Evo’s departure, Chavez declared herself interim 
president while holding up a large bible, though she failed to get the 
required quorum in the senate to do so.

Next to her stood Luis Fernando Camacho, a member of the Christian 
far-right. After Evo’s resignation, Camacho stormed the presidential 
palace, a flag in one hand and a bible in the other. “The bible is 
returning to the government palace,” a pastor said on a video while 
standing next to Camacho. “Pachamama will never return. Today Christ is 
returning to the Government Palace. Bolivia is for Christ.”

In places where the opposition is strongest, Wiphala flags, symbols of 
indigenous pride, were lowered and burned. Police officers cut the flags 
from their uniforms. What were symbolic acts quickly escalated into 
street-level violence.

MAS members’ houses were burned. Evo’s home was ransacked 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/americas/bolivia-evo-morales.html>. 
Masked armed men began rounding up suspected MAS supporters and 
indigenous people in the streets, loading them into the back of trucks. 
A handful of protesters have been killed. The same social movements that 
ushered Evo and MAS into power have taken to the streets to defend the 
gains of their indigenous revolution.

Amidst the chaos, anti-indigenous race-hatred has gripped the country 
since Evo’s October 20 re-election. While left critics continue to rail 
against Evo, paradoxically blaming him for the coup that overthrew him, 
no evidence has emerged of election fraud. The Organization of American 
States cited “irregularities” without yet providing documentation. A 
report 
<http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/no-evidence-that-bolivian-election-results-were-affected-by-irregularities-or-fraud-statistical-analysis-shows> 
by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, however, found no 
irregularities and no fraud.

To appease critics, Evo even agreed to re-elections but was forced to 
resign under orders from the military and escalating rightwing violence. 
No one resigns with a gun pointed to their head. Clearly, it was a coup.

Fearing assassination, Evo fled to Mexico where he was granted asylum 
and greeted by a cheering crowd.

The future of Bolivia is currently marching in the streets, the millions 
of people who voted for Evo in the last elections, the 47% whose voices 
and votes were stolen by the violent return of the old, colonial oligarchy.

Other critics still contend that Evo’s 13-year tenure was too long. They 
mention Evo losing a referendum to amend constitution but failing to 
note the Supreme Court ruling that allowed him legally to run for 
another term. For our indigenous president, after five centuries of 
colonization, 13 years was not long enough.

“We will come back,” Evo recently assured supporters, quoting the 
18th-century indigenous resistance leader, “and we will be millions as 
Tupac (Katari) said.”

  *

    Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an
    Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the
    University of New Mexico. In 2014, he co-founded The Red Nation
    <https://therednation.org/>, an Indigenous resistance organization.
    He is the author of the book Our History Is the Future: Standing
    Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of
    Indigenous Resistance
    <https://www.versobooks.com/books/2953-our-history-is-the-future>
    (Verso, 2019)



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