We Must Call a Coup a Coup

Monday 6 January 2020, by Martín Mosquera

In November, the Bolivian military forced Evo Morales to step down: the classic definition of a coup. Despite the evidence, some commentators — even on the Left — have failed to identify it for what it was: an elite plot to oust a progressive president whose program of reforms had transformed the lives of many of the country’s most excluded people.

The overthrow of Evo Morales’s progressive government in Bolivia in November was a traditional coup d’etat. It was stoked by right-wing elite, and has now been consolidated by a proto-fascist leadership. Coup leaders celebrated their victory by burning Whipalas in the streets — a flag representing indigenous nationalities — and boasted of having defeated communism.

Accounts of what has happened in the aftermath of the coup are, to say the least, disturbing. Assassinations, disappearances, torture, mass rape (including of children), persecutions, and the burning of houses have all been reported amongst Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) supporters. There has been a shocking outpouring of revanchist, racist barbarism.

Though one might expect unanimous repudiation of the coup by all democrats, this hasn’t been the case. In Bolivia and internationally, many progressives — especially intellectuals — have refused to repudiate the coup; some have even gone so far as to back the mobilizations against Morales. For these commentators, what has occurred in Bolivia is not a coup, but a popular rebellion against fraud and an increasingly authoritarian left-wing government. While this is obviously an implausible analysis, the influence these intellectuals carry means that they cannot be ignored completely.

More:
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6348