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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="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">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</a></font><br>
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<h1 class="reader-title">What the coup against Evo Morales means
to indigenous people like me<br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Nick Estes - November 14,
2019<br>
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<p><span><span>E</span></span>vo 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.</p>
<p>A coup against Evo, therefore, is a coup against
indigenous people.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-index?tab=chart&time=1990..2015&country=BOL"
data-link-name="in body link">19%</a>. 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.</p>
<p>The achievements were more than economic. <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/bolivia"
data-link-name="auto-linked-tag"
data-component="auto-linked-tag">Bolivia</a> made a
great leap forward in indigenous rights.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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).”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This was Evo’s crime.</p>
<p>“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and
anti-imperialist,” Evo <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5NFmND8syU"
data-link-name="in body link">said</a> after being
coerced into resigning this week.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>MAS members’ houses were burned. Evo’s home was <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/americas/bolivia-evo-morales.html"
data-link-name="in body link">ransacked</a>. 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/no-evidence-that-bolivian-election-results-were-affected-by-irregularities-or-fraud-statistical-analysis-shows"
data-link-name="in body link">report</a> by the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, however, found no
irregularities and no fraud.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Fearing assassination, Evo fled to Mexico where he was
granted asylum and greeted by a cheering crowd.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“We will come back,” Evo recently assured supporters,
quoting the 18th-century indigenous resistance leader,
“and we will be millions as Tupac (Katari) said.”</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>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 <a
href="https://therednation.org/"
data-link-name="in body link">The Red Nation</a>,
an Indigenous resistance organization. He is the
author of the book <a
href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2953-our-history-is-the-future"
data-link-name="in body link">Our History Is the
Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access
Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous
Resistance</a> (Verso, 2019)</p>
</li>
</ul>
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