[News] Media Silent as Bolivia's Coup Gov't Massacres Indigenous Protesters

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-silent-bolivia-massacre-indigenous-protesters/262858/?fbclid=IwAR2tT88CRUAMADzqnQ-cEw6lYgHp5f-qjUILaTR2FzEcEYg1ylgvTXTYRfA 



  Media Silent as Bolivia's Coup Gov't Massacres Indigenous Protesters

by Alan Macleod - November 18th, 2019
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Despite having been in power for only one week, the new Bolivian coup 
government of Jeanine Añez has already turned the powers of repression 
onto the population, using live rounds on demonstrators protesting the 
forceful removal of President Evo Morales from power on November 10. 
Morales has sought asylum in Mexico.

The death toll,according to 
<https://www.defensoria.gob.bo/contenido/muertos-en-los-conflictos>Bolivia’s 
national ombudsman, has risen to 23, with more than one thousand people 
arrested. That figure includes the victims of the Cochabamba massacre, 
where soldiers and police killed nine indigenous protesters Friday.

The full scope of the armed forces has been unleashed on demonstrators, 
with security forces using live ammunition, tanks and even attack 
helicopters to destroy resistance to the coup. Much of Bolivia’s 
security state, including many of the leaders of the coup 
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/13/bolivian-coup-plotters-school-of-the-americas-fbi-police-programs/>, 
were trained by the FBI and by the notorious School of the Americas in 
Fort Benning, GA, a U.S. Army installation where many of the most brutal 
death squads and torturers in Latin American history cut their teeth. 
Those skills are now on show in Cochabamba. “Death squads unleashed in 
Bolivia: the coup regime has granted immunity to soldiers who shoot 
protesters. In just days they’ve shot hundreds of people,” announced 
<https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1196172097216757761>Green Party 
Presidential candidate Jill Stein via Twitter.

Images and video of the deadly events immediately began circulating on 
social media. The scenes of panicked protesters fleeing gunshots or 
desperately checking dead or dying bodies shocked many: “We’re watching 
the rounding up and killing of indigenous people in Bolivia in real time 
by right wing forces supported by the US. This should be a top 
story,”said 
<https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1195486697095610368>journalist 
Rania Khalek. But the massacre is largely being downplayed in the 
mainstream press, whooverwhelmingly supported 
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/bolivia-latest-successful-us-backed-coup-latin-america/262773/>former 
President Morales’ ouster, framing events not as a coup, but as Morales 
“resigning 
<https://fair.org/home/the-bolivian-coup-is-not-a-coup-because-us-wanted-it-to-happen/>” 
from office. When reported on at all, the events are often 
euphemistically referred to as a “clash 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/clashes-break-out-in-bolivia-challenging-interim-government/2019/11/15/50f232fa-080a-11ea-ae28-7d1898012861_story.html>” 
between Morales supporters and government forces, removing all agency 
and culpability from their headlines. To date, no mainstream Western 
outlet has used the word “massacre” or similar, in headlines to describe 
the events.

Likewise, the crescendo of violence has elicited a muted response from 
the professional human rights industry. Indeed, as hundreds of 
casualties were being taken to hospital, Human Rights Watch Director Ken 
Roth all but came out to support the coup, declaring 
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1196318814599884801>that Añez’s coup 
was actually “defending democracy” against the “electoral fraud” of 
Morales. Both Human Rights Watch 
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/12/bolivia-prioritize-rights-wake-morales-resignation>and 
Amnesty International 
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr18/1405/2019/en/>refused to 
condemn the coup or the repression in their statements on the violence.

Hospitals across the country have been inundated with hundreds of people 
injured during the crackdown, a problem made worse by the fact that the 
new government hasattacked, detained or deported 
<https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1196209891263864832>hundreds 
of Cuban medical personnel who constitute the backbone of Bolivia’s 
public health services.


    A License to Kill for Bolivia’s Security Services

Añez ominouslyannounced that 
<https://www.france24.com/en/20191113-jeanine-anez-stand-in-president-vowing-to-pacify-bolivia>she 
is committed to “taking all measures necessary” to “pacify the country.” 
This included an official order pre-exonerating all security services 
from any crimes committed during the “re-establishment of order,” 
effectively giving the army and the police a license to kill anyone who 
resists the new government.

Añez, a fundamentalist Christian, first arrived at the Presidential 
Palace in La Paz November 12 brandishing an oversized, leather-bound 
Bible,shouting 
<https://twitter.com/CNNArgentina/status/1194399284210348033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1194399284210348033&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmorningstaronline.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fw%2Fchristian-supremacist-anoints-herself-interim-president-of-bolivia>at 
reporters “the Bible is returning” to Bolivia. She has previously 
declared the country’s indigenous population (who make up, bymost 
<http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/bolivia-population/>counts 
<https://www.indexmundi.com/bolivia/demographics_profile.html>, almost 
90% of the population) as “satanic 
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1194606470119202817>” and 
claimed that they should not be allowed to live in Bolivia’s cities, 
only in the desert or highlands.

Morales was the country’s first indigenous ruler since the Spanish 
invasion five centuries previously. Security forces loyal to Añez 
publiclyremoved and burned 
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1194025642041458688>the 
indigenous Wiphala flag patches from their uniforms, a symbolic gesture 
showing their commitment to the re-establishment of a white supremacist 
state.

Añez’s party, the Democrat Social Movement, won 4% of the vote in the 
October elections, making it the fourth-largest party in the country. In 
comparison, Morales received 47%. Nevertheless, the United States 
government has lent its full support to Añez, the White House 
“applauding 
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-regarding-resignation-bolivian-president-evo-morales/>” 
the military overthrow. Likewise, media has presented her positively as 
a “women’s activist 
<https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/womens-activist-jeanine-anez-takes-the-reins-in-bolivia/news-story/1a19c22fed8cc62aac5e43384fd447c3?nk=ec7a348e8699940049373156f24d5a78-1573657023>” 
“setting a conservative, religious tone 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/world/americas/bolivia-anez-morales.html>”.

Her colleagues in government share similar far-right backgrounds. Coup 
leader Luis Fernando Camacho is part of aNeo-Nazi paramilitary group 
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/>that 
wears the Iron Cross and other fascist regalia and practices the Roman 
(Sieg Heil) salute.


    A War on the Media

However, Bolivia’s indigenous population is not the only target of 
police and military repression; multiple journalists covering the 
protests have also been shot. Meanwhile, /Al-Jazeera/correspondent 
Teresa Bo wastear-gassed in the face 
<https://twitter.com/malonebarry/status/1195513931881680901>live on air 
at point-blank range by riot police, as she stood alone, away from the 
protests, talking to camera. The new government forced Bolivia TV off 
the air, while one TeleSUR journalist in Boliviafound 
<https://twitter.com/camilateleSUR/status/1195004148049207300>that 
virtually every channel was dedicated to Añez. Her new Communications 
Minister, Roxanna Lizárrageannounced 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/world/americas/bolivia-anez-morales.html>that 
she intends to persecute journalists involved in what she called 
“sedition”, adding that she already has compiled a list of “troublesome 
members of the media.”

Organized resistance, from indigenous groups, trade unions and Morales’ 
Movement to Socialism party appears to be growing. However, the new 
government has made it absolutely clear that it intends to stay in power 
by any means necessary. The following few days will decide what 
direction Bolivia will take.


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