[News] How Human Rights Watch Whitewashed a Right-Wing Massacre in Bolivia
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Nov 21 16:12:18 EST 2019
https://www.mintpressnews.com/human-rights-watch-right-wing-massacre-bolivia/262887/
_How Human Rights Watch Whitewashed a Right-Wing Massacre in Bolivia_
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/human-rights-watch-right-wing-massacre-bolivia/262887/>
While some may be surprised by its response to the Bolivia crisis,
Human Rights Watch’s support for a U.S.-backed right-wing coup is no
aberration.
By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News - November 20, 2019
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/human-rights-watch-right-wing-massacre-bolivia/262887/>
Bolivia is in turmoil after President Evo Morales was deposed in
aU.S.-supported coup d’état on November 10
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/bolivia-latest-successful-us-backed-coup-latin-america/262773/>.
The new coup government forced Morales into exile, arrested left-wing
politicians and journalists, and then pre-exonerated security services
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/media-silent-bolivia-massacre-indigenous-protesters/262858/>
of all crimes committed during the “re-establishment of order,”
effectively giving soldiers a license to kill all resistance to the
military junta’s rule.
Dozens have been killed. Indigenous protesters were massacred in the
city of Cochabamba and the small town of Senkata.
Horrifying massacre today in post-coup Bolivia: The military junta
just killed at least 8 protesters in the community of Senkata
The area is surrounded by military and
policepic.twitter.com/j35bGwAN5c <https://t.co/j35bGwAN5c>
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) November 20, 2019
<https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1196945935403814912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
In confusing and alarming situations such as these, millions of people
around the world look to international human rights organizations for
leadership and guidance.
However, far from standing up for the oppressed, Human Rights Watch
<https://thegrayzone.com/tag/human-rights-watch/> (HRW) has effectively
endorsed the events. In its official communiqué
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/12/bolivia-prioritize-rights-wake-morales-resignation>,
HRW refrained from using the word coup, insisting Morales “resigned.”
HRW Americas director José Miguel Vivanco claimed President Morales
stepped down “after weeks of civil unrest and violent clashes,” and did
not even mention opposition violence against his party
<https://www.salon.com/2019/11/19/who-is-behind-the-right-wing-bolivian-botnet/>
or the role of the military in demanding, at gunpoint, that he resign.
Therefore, Morales mysteriously “traveled to Mexico,” in the
organization’s words, rather than fleeing there to escape arrest. HRW
tacitly endorsed the coup government, advising it to “prioritize rights.”
Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth went further,
presenting the elected head of state fleeing the country at gunpoint as
a refreshing step forward for democracy.
Roth wrote that <https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1196318814599884801>
Morales was “the casualty of a counter-revolution aimed at defending
democracy… against electoral fraud and his own illegal candidacy,”
claiming that Morales had ordered the army to shoot protesters.
Bolivia's Evo Morales was "the casualty of a counter-revolution
aimed at defending democracy..against electoral fraud & his own
illegal candidacy. The army w/drew its support because it was not
prepared to fire on people in order to sustain him in power."
https://t.co/jeVnGta0Kk
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) November 18, 2019
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1196318814599884801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
Roth also described the coup approvingly as an “uprising
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1196133917247655939>” and a
“transitional moment
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1194415776205352961>” for Bolivia,
while presenting President Morales as an out-of-touch “strongman
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1196133917247655939>.”
The most important thing now in this transitional moment for Bolivia
is ensuring that authorities reestablish the rule of law and protect
fundamental rights, including to protest peacefully and to vote in
transparent, competitive, and fair elections.
https://t.co/ayWcCKdedS pic.twitter.com/WdxFmxEuhw
<https://t.co/WdxFmxEuhw>
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) November 13, 2019
<https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1194415776205352961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
New self-declared President Jeanine Añez, whose party received just 4
percent of the vote share in the October elections, has already expelled
hundreds of Cuban doctors, broken off ties with Venezuela, and pulled
Bolivia out of multiple international and intercontinental organizations
and treaties.
Añez describes
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1194606470119202817> the
indigenous majority of Bolivians as “satanic” and insists they should
not be allowed to live in cities, instead, being sent to the desert or
the sparsely populated highlands.
Añez also declared
<https://www.france24.com/en/20191113-jeanine-anez-stand-in-president-vowing-to-pacify-bolivia>
that she is “committed to taking all measures necessary to pacify” the
population.
"I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous practices. The city
is not for the Indian: they should go to the highlands or the
desert" – new US-backed self-declared President of Bolivia Jeanine
Añez. pic.twitter.com/fD7jpnYJHX <https://t.co/fD7jpnYJHX>
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) November 13, 2019
<https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1194606470119202817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
Human Rights Watch described
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/19/bolivia-interim-government-adopts-abusive-measures>
the law giving Bolivian security forces complete impunity to kill
dissenters as a “problematic decree,” as if Añez had used racially
insensitive language, rather than ordering a massacre.
In its statement
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/11/19/bolivia-interim-government-adopts-abusive-measures>,
HRW noted that “nine people died and 122 were wounded” during the
Cochabamba demonstration, leaving its readers completely in the dark
about who died and who was responsible for the killing.
A long history of ‘human rights’ double standards
Human Rights Watch was originally established in 1978 as Helsinki Watch,
an American organization dedicated to exposing the crimes of socialist
Eastern Bloc countries and monitoring their compliance with the Helsinki
Accords.
Since its establishment, HRW has consistently been criticized for acting
as a de facto vehicle for U.S. foreign policy, employing former U.S.
government officials in key positions, and displaying bias
<https://nacla.org/article/hypocrisy-human-rights-watch> against leftist
governments unfriendly to the United States.
A 2008 report on human rights violations in Venezuela authored by Jose
Vivanco, for example, was immediately panned
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4051> by hundreds of academics
and Latin American scholars, who said the “grossly flawed” document “did
not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality,
accuracy, or credibility.”
Indeed, Vivanco openly stated his biases, revealing that he wrote the
report “because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is
not a model for anyone.”
In contrast, Human Rights Watch was relatively silent
<https://thegrayzone.com/2017/12/11/human-rights-watch-honduras-venezuela-kenneth-roth/>
on the Honduran coup d’état that deposed leftist President Manuel
Zelaya, and the repression that came after, effectively carrying water
for U.S.-backed regime change.
As writer Keane Bhatt, who now works as Bernie Sanders’ communications
director, argued in 2013
<https://nacla.org/article/hypocrisy-human-rights-watch>, “Human Rights
Watch’s deep ties to U.S. corporate and state sectors should disqualify
the institution from any public pretense of independence.”
Likewise, Amnesty International’s image as a defender of human rights
hides a dark past of being effectively a front organization for Western
governments.
As MintPress News revealed earlier this year
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/amnesty-international-troubling-collaboration-with-uk-us-intelligence/253939/>,
a co-founder of the organization, Peter Benenson, was an avowed
anti-communist with deep ties to the British Foreign and Colonial
Offices, propping up the apartheid regime of South Africa at the UK
government’s request.
Another Amnesty International co-founder, Luis Kutner, was an FBI asset
who was linked to the U.S. government’s assassination of Black Panther
leader Fred Hampton. Kutner went on to form
<https://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/21/archives/friends-of-fbi-in-a-fund-appeal-gets-excellent-response-to-wide.html>
an organization called “Friends of the FBI”, dedicated to countering and
combating criticism of the bureau.
While some may be surprised by Human Rights Watch’s response to the
Bolivia crisis, the organization’s applause for the U.S.-backed
right-wing coup against a democratically elected socialist head of state
is not an aberration or a mistake.
HRW is performing its duty in reinforcing U.S. hegemony by condemning
any leftist challengers in America’s “backyard.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/This article was first published at Mintpress News
<https://www.mintpressnews.com/human-rights-watch-right-wing-massacre-bolivia/262887/>./
Alan MacLeod is an academic and journalist. He is a staff writer at
Mintpress News and a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
(FAIR <https://fair.org/author/alan-macleod/>). He is the author of /Bad
News From Venezuela/
<https://www.amazon.com/Bad-News-Venezuela-misreporting-Communication/dp/1138489239/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1524768350&sr=8-6&keywords=alan+macleod>/:
Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting/.
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