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<h1 class="gmail-po-hr-cn__title">Evo Morales Tells <cite>Jacobin</cite>: We’re Still Fighting the Multinationals Who Drove the Coup</h1>
<div class="gmail-po-hr-cn__contributors">
<dl class="gmail-po-hr-cn__authors"><dt class="gmail-po-hr-cn__byline"><a class="gmail-po-hr-cn__author-link" href="https://jacobinmag.com/author/evo-morales"><font size="1">https://jacobinmag.com/2020/10/evo-morales-interview-bolivia-mas-election</font></a>
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<p class="gmail-po-hr-cn__dek">Ousted Bolivian president Evo Morales tells <cite>Jacobin</cite>
about his experience of last November’s military coup — and why his MAS
party is poised to win this month’s presidential elections.</p>
<img alt="" class="gmail-po-hr-im__image" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/07095930/1280px-Evo_morales_2_year_bolivia_Joel_Alvarez.jpg" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="452" height="301">
<p class="gmail-po-hr-im__description">Evo Morales in 2008. Photo: Joel Alvarez / Wikimedia Commons</p>
<div class="gmail-po__container"><div class="gmail-po__main gmail-prt-y"><div class="gmail-po-cn gmail-wp gmail-po-wi" id="gmail-post-content">
<dl class="gmail-po-cn__contributors"><dt class="gmail-po-cn__label">Interview by</dt><dd class="gmail-po-cn__name">Denis Rogatyuk</dd><dd class="gmail-po-cn__name">Bruno Sommer Catalan</dd></dl>
<p>Evo Morales’s fate after last November’s
military coup in Bolivia follows the same dark pattern as that of many
left-wing, progressive, and anti-imperialist leaders in the region.
Parallels have been drawn with the coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende
in September 1973, the attempted military uprising against Hugo Chávez
in Venezuela in April 2002, and the Ecuadorian police’s bid to oust
Rafael Correa in September 2010.</p>
<p>With Morales now in exile in Argentina, he has also been compared to
that country’s leader Juan Domingo Perón after the September 1955
takeover by an ultraconservative faction of the army. The military
dictatorship implemented a total ban on the Peronista movement, yet the
exiled Perón continued to bear enormous influence due to the base he had
built through the decade of radical social change and independent
foreign policy he pursued under his presidency<em>. </em>Though his name
was banned, the Peronist movement remained active, and after its
candidate Héctor Cámpora’s March 1973 election victory, Perón was
finally allowed to return.</p>
<p>Today, Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism (MAS) find
themselves in a rather similar situation. The period since the military
coup in November has been marked by repression, massacres of dozens of
trade unionists and indigenous activists, and attempts to ban MAS from
standing in the presidential election currently slated for October 18.
This is combined with an ongoing campaign of media manipulation and fake
news designed to smear fourteen years of socialist government.</p>
<p>Despite this, MAS remains Bolivia’s strongest political force, with the latest polls indicating that its <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/luis-arce-interview-bolivia-morales-coup">Luis Arce Catacora</a> and <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/bolivia-elections-david-choquehuanca-mas-morales">David Choquehuanca</a> should <a href="https://www.celag.org/encuesta-bolivia-octubre-2020/">win the election in the first round</a>
with 44.4 percent of the vote — thus achieving the necessary 10 percent
margin over second-place candidate Carlos Mesa, also loser of the
October 2019 elections. Yet a free and fair contest is seen as
increasingly unlikely, given the <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/09/oas-evo-morales-bolivia-coup-fraud-cepr">continual interference from the Organization of American States</a> (OAS) and its secretary, Luis Almagro.</p>
<p>Ahead of the planned vote, <em>Jacobin</em>’s Denis Rogatyuk and
Bruno Sommer sat down with ousted president Morales to discuss his
record as a trade unionist and as head of state, his experience of the
coup, and what MAS can do if and when it returns to government.</p>
<hr class="gmail-po-cn__rule gmail-po-wi__rule">
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Bruno Sommer Catalan">BSC</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>During the Cochabamba Water
War of 1999–2000 — a mass revolt against water privatization — you were
a union leader resisting the neoliberal government of Jorge “Tuto”
Quiroga. How can you compare the struggle of those years with the
current resistance in the Cochabamba tropics?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>It is worth mentioning the
group of young peasant and indigenous leaders, active since the end of
the 1980s and early 1990s [of which I was part]. We asked ourselves —
how long are we going to be ruled from above or from outside? How long
would plans and policies keep coming from the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank? And when are Bolivians going to govern
ourselves?</p>
<p>Bolivia always has had forms of social power, union power, communal
power from below. But when we asked how we could nationalize our natural
resources and basic services, on the basis of this communal or social
power, we could not do so.</p>
<p>So, it was important to promote a political instrument, yes, on the
basis of the peasant movement of the tropics, but above all from
Quechuas, Aymaras, the more than thirty indigenous nationalities. We
proposed a political instrument of liberation, of the people, for the
people, and with a program of the people.</p>
<p>At this point, we had to break with the capitalist system. In this
system, the social movements are called “terrorists,” and trade unions
aren’t meant to be involved in politics. But we said we have political
rights and we cannot just be trade unionists only concerned with labor
demands. If we want deep transformations, it is important also to
produce deep transformations in the state structures. To a certain
extent, we had problems with the workers, who insisted on their “trade
union independence” and nonpolitical stance.</p>
<p>Then, the governments of Hugo Banzer [1997–2001] and Tuto Quiroga
[2001–2002] came along. They privatized Bolivia’s electricity and
telecommunications networks, while our natural resources such as gas
were handed over to transnational companies. Several times, I went to
negotiate with the national leaders of the COB [Bolivian Workers’
Center, the main trade union federation], as well as the peasant
confederations, and in the different negotiations with neoliberal
governments, we always put the subject of nationalization on the table.
Our argument was that when the gas was underground, it belonged to
Bolivians, but when it came above ground, it was no longer Bolivian. The
unconstitutional contracts that were signed said — literally — that the
owner acquires the property right at the wellhead. And who is the
owner? The transnational company.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Denis Rogatyuk">DR</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>In the 2002 presidential
elections, you were defeated by Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada, after a
campaign of falsehoods, fear, and intimidation against you and MAS.
Today we are seeing something similar. What lessons for the present do
you draw from this experience?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>In 1997, it was proposed to
me that I should be the candidate for the presidency, and I was subject
to a lot of defamation by the Sánchez de Lozada government. They said
of me, “How can a drug dealer, a murderer be president?” Then, I
declined the candidacy. But in 2002, there was a consensus for me to
run.</p>
<p>I doubted that I could get a good vote: one international paper said
that the MAS could get 8 percent, and all the polls said 3 or 4 percent.
Sánchez de Lozada allied himself with the Bolivia Libre (Free Bolivia)
Movement, which before, in 1989, had grouped together sections of the
Left, the social democrats; this party was based on NGOs and used to
receive money from Europe in particular.</p>
<p>The US ambassador, José Manuel Roche, said, “Evo Morales is an Andean
Bin Laden and the coca growers are the Taliban — so don’t vote for
him.” The anti-imperialist people of Bolivia reacted against this — “Why
does the US ambassador accuse Evo Morales of being the Andean Bin
Laden?” President Tuto Quiroga had to stay silent; though today he says
that there is interference in Bolivia by Argentina and other countries. I
said that Ambassador Roche was my best campaign manager for having made
those comments. And the result for MAS was 20 percent.</p>
<p>I want to be honest: till that moment, I was not so sure that I could
ever be president, but from that point, I thought I could be — and now
we really had to prepare ourselves. With a group of professionals, we
began to develop a very serious and responsible program for the state,
for the Bolivian people.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Bruno Sommer Catalan">BSC</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>The Gas Wars — a popular
revolt against the privatization of hydrocarbons in 2003–2005 — were a
real turning point, both for Bolivia and for yourself. It was then that
we saw the power of the social organizations, mainly in the city of El
Alto. How do you compare that historical moment with today — and what
role do you think such movements will play in the process of restoring
popular sovereignty?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>With these struggles, we
could win some demands but no structural changes. When I got to the
Chapare, in the Cochabamba tropics, [the indigenous peasant front]
proposed major changes in the negotiations [over hydrocarbon]. The
neoliberal governments’ representatives responded, saying: “No, you are
doing politics,” “Politics for you is a crime, a sin,” and “The politics
of the peasant in the tropics is ax and machete” — or, in the Altiplano
region, the pick and shovel.</p>
<p>Then came the Gas War, a fight concentrated in the city of El Alto.
What was the underlying problem? Apart from the question of
nationalization, we could not understand why our governments wanted to
install an LNG [liquefied natural gas] plant in Chilean territory — not
state-owned facilities but private ones — and from there send gas to
California. We were lacking in gas, and they were sending it to the
United States — but why not first supply Bolivians?</p>
<p>The fight for nationalization was deepening, and there, the people of
El Alto were more than ever united, in a single neighborhood council.
Now they tell me that it has two, even three neighborhood councils, a
weakness in my opinion. But the most combative and the strongest are not
only patriotic but anti-imperialist neighborhood councils, based on the
Aymara brotherhood.</p>
<p>We are convinced that we are going to overcome all these problems
with the people’s struggle, with the struggle of the people of El Alto.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Denis Rogatyuk">DR</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>You managed to nationalize
the country’s natural resources and create a stable and constantly
growing economy. What do you recommend as key policies to solve the
current economic crisis in Bolivia created by the coup government?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>First, an important fact,
of which people should be informed. At the moment we nationalized it in
2005, the [annual] income from oil was barely 3 billion bolivianos.
After we nationalized, by January 22, 2019, on the anniversary day of
the Plurinational State, we were left with 38 billion bolivianos of oil
rent. [In 2005] they left us a GDP of 9.5 billion dollars. By January
last year, we left it at 42 billion dollars — imagine the importance of
this change.</p>
<p>Bolivia was the bottom country in South America for economic growth,
but out of the fourteen years that I was president, for six of them
Bolivia was first-placed. When I went to international forums, summits,
or to some inauguration, these presidents would ask me: “Evo, this year
how much economic growth will there be?” I told them 4 or 5 percent, and
they asked me what I had done to achieve this. And I answered: “We must
nationalize our natural resources, and basic services must be a human
right.”</p>
<p>The privatizations are back again now. The Supreme Decree 4272
[imposed by Jeanine Áñez’s regime] of June 24 this year, proposed a
return to the past, reducing the state to “dwarf” size, as the
International Monetary Fund wants. The state is not going to invest in
public companies, and it will contribute less to the expansion of the
productive apparatus for the benefit of the Bolivian people. The idea of
this supreme decree is to return to the state functioning only as a
regulator and not as an investor in national projects.</p>
<p>The IMF’s recipes are all there in this Supreme Decree: privatizing
electricity, telecommunications, health, and education. The
privatization of education has already begun, because this year they did
not set aside a budget for the creation of new schools. On September
14, they began privatizing energy in Cochabamba; the attorney appointed
by Áñez resigned, because that privatization decree was
unconstitutional. Basic services are a human right and cannot be a
private business, health cannot be a commodity, and education is so
important for the emancipation of the people. So, the people rise up in
rejection of this.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Bolivia currently has two pandemics: the pandemic that
kills us with the virus — and paralyzes production through the
quarantine — but also a government that paralyzes all public works and
submits them to capitalist policies.</p>
<p>Our task is to defend the nationalizations and deepen
industrialization. That is the goal we must achieve, so we can continue
with economic growth. But first we have to recover democracy and take
back our country.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Bruno Sommer Catalan">BSC</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>Now we see our indigenous
brothers again being persecuted by this racist regime, led by Áñez and
her paramilitaries. What do you think the next MAS government should do
to help eradicate racism in Bolivia once and for all?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>It seems that in Bolivia we
are returning to the times of the Inquisition. The racist right has
used the Bible to make others hate. They use the Bible to steal, to
kill, and to commit genocide. They use the Bible to discriminate, to
burn Wiphalas [indigenous flags], to kick the downtrodden and indigenous
women. It was racist groups with money that inserted that mentality.</p>
<p>Last December, Republican senator Richard Black acknowledged that the
coup had been planned in the United States, taking advantage of this
opportunity [opened up by the racist right in Bolivia]. I was surprised
by what the owner of Tesla [Elon Musk] said on July 24: he confessed to
having taken part in the coup.</p>
<p>So, the coup was directed against us and for [control over] our
natural resources, for lithium. We had decided to industrialize lithium,
and started on our international reserves. [Commercialization] deals
had been signed with Europe, with China. As part of the patriotic agenda
marking the bicentenary of our independence, we had planned to build
forty-one plants, more than fifteen for potassium chloride, lithium
carbonate, lithium hydroxide, three for lithium batteries, and other
plants for inputs but also for by-products. But I said, the United
States does not enter here — and that was our crime.</p>
<p>The coup was also directed against our economic model. We
demonstrated an economic model that did without the IMF, but that had
growth and the reduction of poverty and inequalities. And then came the
coup.</p>
<p>So, I think that we are going to have to look for mechanisms to bring
Bolivians together, because we cannot have such confrontation. It is
very regrettable that there are paramilitaries, armed groups.</p>
<p>Our Movement to Socialism is a political instrument for the
sovereignty of the peoples, and this political movement for liberation
is not only historic, unprecedented, but unique worldwide. For in
colonial times our indigenous people were threatened with extermination —
not just racism and discrimination, but extermination. In some Latin
American countries, there is no longer an indigenous movement, but our
ancestors, such as in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Mexico,
fought hard. After five hundred years of popular indigenous resistance,
in 1992, we said: “From the resistance to the seizure of power.” And in
Bolivia, we kept that promise.</p>
<p>When we began to demonstrate that when we govern ourselves there’s a
lot of hope for Bolivia, a coup came along. That is our reality, and so
we must seek to end this racism. We should be united, respecting our
differences of an ideological and programmatic nature. But that demands
politics without violence.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Denis Rogatyuk">DR</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>When you were president,
you took Bolivia onto the international stage and joined the fight for a
multipolar world. Unfortunately, we are seeing that many of these
advances have been reversed due to the actions of the coup regime. In
your view, what would be the best way to restore Bolivia’s place on the
international stage in future?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>When I was a trade union
leader, I participated in some meetings of heads of state, in Vienna for
example, on the fight against drug trafficking. With the help of NGOs
that had consultative status, I could participate and listen closely to
what my government said in those international forums.</p>
<p>“I associate myself with the proposals of the United States,” “I
support the proposals of the United States,” it was just that. Bolivia
never had a patriotic policy, a Bolivian proposal. When we arrived [in
power], our proposals focused on the defense of Mother Earth and basic
services. We brought a proposal to the United Nations that water should
be a fundamental right for all human beings and not a private business:
everyone backed this proposal, and only the United States and Israel
abstained.</p>
<p>I could comment on much of international politics along these same
lines. I laughed at the (video-link) intervention of Bolivia’s de facto
president in the United Nations attacking Argentina, accusing the
Argentine president of interference. What right does <em>she</em> have
to talk about foreign interference! But thinking above all of Latin
America, in the times of Chávez, Lula, and Kirchner — different times to
now — we promoted important continental integration processes such as
UNASUR and CELAC. Barack Obama began the process of destroying UNASUR,
CELAC, using the Pacific Alliance [alliance of right-wing governments].</p>
<p>The current US president has organized the Lima Group to confront
Venezuela. Faced with that, we need greater unity and deep thinking in
the Puebla Group and other sectors of ALBA-TCP [Bolivarian Alliance for
the Americas]. But we are not alone. I have great hope that our peoples,
our social movements, are going to win back democracy.</p>
<p>We would like a plurinational America, because we are so diverse. How
good it would be for Europe, for other continents, to recognize that
diversity, for that diversity to be recognized by constitutions, by
international organizations. We in Bolivia are so diverse — cultural
diversity is the wealth of our identity, of our dignity. And based on
our diversity, we fight for freedom, for equality — that is the profound
struggle we are waging.</p>
<p>However, at this moment, we have really turned back to the past. What
the neoliberal right-wing governments do is just to say whatever the
United States is saying. That policy from the nineteenth century that
states, “America for the Americans” — the Monroe Doctrine — has to end.</p>
<p>The United States and capitalism think that they are sent by God to
dominate the world, that the only sovereignty is for the United States.
So, when a people liberate themselves, then come military bases,
military intervention, and coups.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Bruno Sommer Catalan">BSC</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>What has exile been like
for you? What are your feelings about the military that betrayed you,
and what will MAS do once it returns to power to ensure that the army is
loyal to Bolivia?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>I did not want to leave
Bolivia. I saw it as a question of “homeland or death.” But a group of
assembly members, national leaders, some ministers, told me that first,
“to save the process of change we have to save Evo’s life.” I was
surprised by that and not so convinced it’s true.</p>
<p>Second, on November 10, before my resignation, after the police
mutiny of the previous two days, the social movements were calling on
Bolivians to take back the Plaza Murillo [in La Paz], and in the press, I
heard that the Armed Forces were demanding my resignation. Following
that, some leader of the COB union was also calling on me to resign.
What did I think, at that moment? That if I had not resigned, the next
day, with such heightened tension, a massacre would happen. To avoid the
massacre, I chose to resign, because we are defenders of life.</p>
<p>Up till that moment, there had been so many conflicts, like the
opposition strikes in Potosí and Santa Cruz in late August and
September. We avoided deaths. Some asked me to militarize things and
declare a state of siege, but I refused. I had so many meetings with the
military and police commanders, and I told them that bullets are to be
used to defend Bolivian territory, not against the people.</p>
<p>Imagine: Evo president, massacres, deaths. How would that have turned out?</p>
<p>Even when I arrived in Chimoré on Sunday afternoon, November 10, I
said, “Now I’m going into the jungle.” At that moment, I thought that if
I didn’t resign, there would be a massacre in La Paz the next day. The
police and military were going to shoot my brothers and sisters who
wanted to recover the Palacio Quemado [governmental palace], Plaza
Bolivia, and the city’s main square.</p>
<p>They were going to blame me. I resigned so that there would be no
deaths or massacre under my administration — for we are defenders of
life, of peace, but with social justice. As a parenthesis, I’ll say the
fight for peace is a fight against capitalism — if there were peace with
social justice, there would be no capitalism, it would be defeated. So,
on November 11, I left Bolivia.</p>
<p>That day, South American territory was under US control. They did not
let the plane that came from Mexico to pick me up enter Bolivia’s air
space. There were three, four presidents, communicating all day long on
how to get me out. But for the [post-coup] regime, there were two
acceptable outcomes: Evo dead, or Evo in the United States. When I was
still in El Alto, the military itself commented that they had to send me
to the United States; others compared this to the [1973] coup in Chile.</p>
<p>During my trade union and political struggle, I have been jailed,
prosecuted, and confined in Bolivia. But I hadn’t sought asylum before.
So now that I’m a refugee, I have completed the full résumé of an
anti-imperialist, of a leftist who doesn’t give up. These are the
consequences [of what such a person does].</p>
<p>The heritage of the indigenous movement is its anti-colonialism and
anti-imperialism. In colonial times, they dismembered Túpac Katari, and
now in the times of the Republic, they want to “dismember” us, shoot
down our political movement, ban the MAS, ban Evo. That is what the
United States plans. The United States said, “The MAS must not return to
government, or Evo to Bolivia.” But I am sure that one day we will
return, in our millions, and restore freedom to the Bolivian people.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Denis Rogatyuk">DR</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>If you could go back in
time, what would you improve about your governance of Bolivia? And,
looking to the future, what do you expect from MAS now — and what role
would you like to undertake?</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__round">
<abbr class="gmail-po-wr__commenter" title="Evo Morales">EM</abbr>
<div class="gmail-po-wr__comment"><p>First, forming new leaders
itself requires a lot of leadership — so, sharing my experience of
trade-union struggle but also of electoral struggle and administration.
Politics is a science of service, of effort, commitment, sacrifice for
the majority, for the humble. Obviously, politics is a fight among
various interests. And what distinguishes us is that we fight for common
interests, collective interests, in favor of poor people. Our fight is
not to concentrate capital in a few hands, but to redistribute wealth,
to ensure a certain equality, social justice, peace with equality, with
dignity, with social justice. When we return — and we must return,
sooner or later — I really want to share that experience, share a small
part of all this struggle.</p>
<p>When I first came to the Chapare to live — indeed, to survive, after
my father’s death — suddenly they asked me to be a union leader. I did
not want to do this, but there was confidence in me, and so I left my
agricultural work. I got into the union leadership, and I was tortured,
prosecuted, confined, threatened so many times. Since 1989, I have been
put on trial for so many accusations, defamations, that have no argument
behind them or basis in fact.</p>
<p>I did not come to the Chapare to be a leader and much less to become
president. But my school was the trade union struggle, the social
struggle, the communal struggle, not like those who say: “I come from
the communist, or socialist, youth.” In living my life, I asked myself
how come Evo got to the presidency without an academic education. I
answered that I could do so because of our truth and honesty. This
government tried to blame me for corruption — but couldn’t do it. After
so many defamations against me . . . what is the point of this one?</p>
<p>We are sure that we will win the presidency many more times in the future.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div></div></div>
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