"It's Now or Never": Bolivian Elite Destroying the Country

By: Edu Montesanti

To the Bolivian upper classes, President Evo Morales has to resign even if forced by extreme violence, or through a civil war.

"It's now or never!", said a family in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, gathered close to Christ the Redeemer statue where thousands of demonstrators and road blockers stay seven days of the week, night and day. 

Violence, Our Daily Bread

That statement was in response to this reporter's observance, that circumstances in Bolivia were getting out of control leading to a civil war. Answering that, the family laughed and did not hesitate in declaring: "We want things to get out of control. This is the only way to overthrow this president, once and for all."

For almost 20 days, the South American country is economically stopped, as opposition groups are blocking roads and preventing trade, in the last case with exceptions some short times for markets.

However, if one walks by The Ramada, commercial center in downtown Santa Cruz de la Sierra, sees almost every trade with open doors, an act of disobedience to the rebel leaders of the national strike. This author has talked to some local merchants. 

"Nobody in this area supports the strike," said to this author a woman merchant. "In the city, generally, not everybody opposes the President, on the contrary, I could say people are divided," added the old woman, who owns a large store in The Ramada.

The owner's daughter added: "Nobody did for Bolivia what President Evo Morales has done. He has granted several rights to workers, as no president did before. This is one thing that angers the elite."

Everybody has been afraid to publicly speak, given the uncertainty and virulence in the essence of the current protests that take the nation. Recently, in this area, a woman spoke out against the strike saying people want and need to work as there is no money nor food anymore. She was beaten and obliged to kneel and ask demonstrators for forgiveness.

In regions like Cochabamba, Potosi, and La Paz, the situation is more tense, with frequent clashes between pro-government and opponent groups, and several wounded. In Cochabamba, a 20-year old man was killed last Wednesday, a victim of severe head injury, skull base fracture and brain death due to confrontations, which grow more and more. The civil war is fastly advancing in Bolivia.

Fury without Rationality

The following has been a rule in Bolivia, before the last presidential election: the opposition spills their hate against the local government, especially against President Evo Morales but when confronted with some official data, internationally recognized in favor of the first indigenous president of the nation, criticism change its direction. 

What had seen strong condemnations against the "situation of the country", quickly changed to "a future dictator if many years in power." So they start to explain their political theories about more than two or three mandates in the Presidency. And so, they create their conjectures. 

Angela Merkel has been the German Prime-Minister since 2005, as her country has a solid democracy not questioned in Bolivia nor nowhere around the world. What determines a strong democracy in a country, is the solidity of its institutions. 

Last Monday evening, the biggest demonstration against President Evo Morales since the elections on Oct. 20, took place in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

"We will siege every government institution including tax collectors ones, and national borders, so the government won't collect one cent. Evo is going to be a president without a State!", said in the demonstration Luis Fernando Camacho, the leader of the current national strike based out in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

Camacho's biography and ancestry, outlined below in this report, is another serious indication that what is advancing in Bolivia is a Color Revolution, idealized by the American Gene Sharp to overthrow governments all over the world, not aligned to the Washington regime.

President Evo Morales has challenged the opposition to give evidence of fraud to the Organization of American States (OAE), which has been auditing the Bolivia election. So far, nobody presented any piece of evidence of fraud regarding the last presidential election; the opposition claim, since OAS arrival to audit the elections, they do not want any audit nor a runoff anymore, but Morales' resignation and new elections.

This reporter has checked people lost in their observances, as emotions overflowed. One of the features of a Color Revolution. It has been this way in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Brazil, and other countries lately.

There are other features in these protests is in Bolivia, clearly pointing to a Color Revolution. 

Paying for Demonstrators 

There have been witnesses that road blockers have gotten 200 bolivianos (US$29) per day. A woman confirmed that information to this author, who says she has met a road blocker who has spoken to her about it. 

Camacho has recognized that he paid 1,200 bolivianos (US$174) to a Cruceñista Youth Union member to burn the Electoral Tribunal in Santa Cruz de la Sierra on Oct. 23.

The businessman also speaks out when telling he funds all kinds of demonstrations against the current government, "and always did [before the elections]," which included the attacks against several official party's head offices across Santa Cruz de la Sierra, on Sept.12.

U.S.-Backed Groups

Recent revelations point to a U.S.-backed plan of shaking the nation. The Radio Education Network of Bolivia (Erbol) has released 16 audios, which uncover talks between U.S. officials, Bolivian opponents, and former military.

In a three-part plan outlined by U.S. officials, former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (2002-2003) is mentioned. Lozada had Carlos Mesa (the principal opponent of Morales in the last election) as his vice-president and currently lives in the U.S.

 U.S. senators Bob Menendez, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio are some of the American officials mentioned in the audios, linked to the Bolivian opposition planning a coup against President Evo Morales.

Officials of the State Department accredited in the country, such as Mariane Scott and Rolf A. Olson, have been meeting with high level diplomatic officials from Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay, in order that they organize and plan destabilization actions against the Bolivian government, as well as delivering the U.S. funds to the Bolivian opposition.

(...) Parallel, in the month of July a private meeting between the opponents Jaime Antonio Alarcón Daza, Iván Arias and other members of the civic committees was carried out, in which it was agreed to acquire “machines for fast vote-counting” for the coming presidential elections, for the sake of manipulating public opinion on the electoral results.

"These machines would altogether have a cost of US$300,000. The U.S. Embassy and the representation of the European Union in the country would contribute to financing the purchase, which they would provide through the Jubileo Foundation and the Evangelical Church. With that specific aim, they have already managed to gather more of US$800,000, from which the payment to the people participating in the fast count of votes would also come out."

An attack against the Cuban Embassy in Bolivia has also been planned.

All the audios, which include the three-part plan to achieve a regime change in Bolivia, can be read here.

Touching Emotion through the Mainstream Media of Propaganda 

Demonstrations in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, according to the Bolivian mainstream media, have been held "at the feet of Christ" strongly touching people's emotions, especially the people's faith. In Bolivia's biggest city, demonstrators are used to gathering, as mentioned above, around Christ the Redeemer statue.

So the virulent and anti-democratic demonstrations which are shaking the South American country, leaving many people without food, have an aspect of sacrosanct manifestations by the media - who is against them, is against God and in favor of the Devil. Or something like that.

Religious leaders have used people like puppets for so long in Bolivia. Which of course requires using imagination. It has been so very strong, that this reporter had predicted exactly what is going on these days in Bolivia, months ago. 

Speaking out loud and clear, to the fundamental participation of religious leaders who have dedicated most of their time to spread lies, discrimination, and hate among the Bolivian people, with clear aims. They are mute now, before too much violence in the country.  

Such misuse of people's emotions is not only a Color Revolution feature these days, but was a pillar to the ascension of Germany's Nazism in the 1930s.

In these dark and too tense days in Bolivia, the mainstream media of propaganda is playing a fundamental role in the demonstration’s favor. It has been a bombardment by what can be denominated a war media. No investigation, no impartiality, only propaganda.

Fighting the Wrong Enemy

Oct. 31 evening, when the situation aggravated in Bolivia, this reporter checked one of the main crossroads in the highly tense Santa Cruz de la Sierra, blocked 24 hours per day by demonstrators. 

That day in the city, a policeman had been severely beaten by opponent civilians to the Morales administration. One day before, two men had been killed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra outskirts (Pravda reported).

When this investigation crossed the blocking, under the surveillance of its controllers, a so very loudly radio was saying: "We are reporting multitudinous demonstrations taking place right now in Potosi! Multitudinous demonstrations taking place right now in Cochabamba!  Multitudinous demonstrations taking place right now in Santa Cruz de la Sierra!  Multitudinous demonstrations taking place right now in La Paz!".

Suddenly, in a much more touching way, the narrator said: "In La Paz, the multitude shout, 'No more Cubans, get out Cubans! No more Russians, get out, Russians! No more Chineses, get out Chineses!". A saying started to be spread in Santa Cruz, that "Vladimir Putin has already sent his men to kill everybody in Bolivia." 

So the popular claim in Bolivia changed from recounting the votes to a runoff, no matter the results of the election; another election; Evo Morales' resignation; combating the "big enemies" of the nation, the nightmare of the Bolivian elites, Cubans, Russians, and Chinese. 

Needless to address the absurdities of these remarks. Not to mention the absence of the U.S. in the memory of that same elite given the military coups Uncle Sam has perpetrated against democracies in the region - including Bolivia -, and the plunder of the natural resources of the Bolivian nation (before Evo Morales years in the Presidency).

Luis Fernando Camacho is based-out in Santa Cruz, and most of his public appearances against the Bolivian president, are in his native city. An entrepreneur, he is the president of Committee Pro-Santa Cruz, devoted to advocating justice and progress to Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 

The billionaire has not been voted president of the Committee by the "cruceño" (original from Santa Cruz de la Sierra) people, but by the committee summit. It is widely said in the city that the tycoon won the presidency of the organization through millionaire bribes. Which coincides with the Bolivian too corrupted reality.

Camacho's committee has a long history of spreading racism, discrimination, hate, and violence in Bolivia. In 2008, the organization took part in the violent attempt of separate Santa Cruz de la Sierra from Bolivia. At the time, in response to a false denouncement by the Committee Pro-Santa Cruz against the Morales administration, International Federation for Human Rights seriously rebuked the organization now presided by Camacho, for attacking indigenous people, State institutions, and speech and acts for secessionism (read Open Letter). 

Camacho is 40 years old; he and his family are part of Grupo Empresarial de Inversiones Nacional Vida S.A., a synergy insurance company, His father, José Luis Camacho Miserendino, founded Sergas, a gas company which, in 1989, had contracts with the neoliberal state linked to insurance companies and pension funds. 

Sergas owes 20 million de bolivianos (US$2,890,173) to the Bolivian State for tax evasion, when the company supplied gas to Santa Cruz de la Sierra city. So what is at stake is possibly debt forgiveness if a neoliberal government takes again the power in the South American country. It is said and makes sense that if Carlos Mesa takes the power, substituting Evo Morales in a coup or a resignation, the once Lozada's vice-president will immediately forgive Sergas debt with the State. 

Camacho's committee acts close to Cruceñista Youth Union, widely known for fascist sayings and doings - also for having led the violent and failed project of separating Santa Cruz de la Sierra from Bolivia, in 2007. 

Last Wednesday, Jorge Fernando Quiroga Ramírez, alias Tuto Quiroga, landed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra to meet and support Camacho. Quiroga was vice-president of Hugo Banzer (1971-78, 1997-2001), a bloody dictator pro-Washington regime.

Most recently and closest to Bolivia, Brazil in the world scenario of Color Revolution overthrew President Dilma Rousseff in 2016, to give place to Michel Temer who paved the way for fascist Jair Bolsonaro. Since the coup against Dilma Rousseff, the mainstream media, the upper classes, and the political opposition has said that once the first woman president in Brazil's history was toppled, the South American country would find its way back to democracy and economic growth. 

Needless to address the Brazilian situation since then. Just worthy to mention: those Brazilian segments do not care about corruption anymore, nor have been seen in that too loud strong state of hysteria for economic growth as in 2016. 

If the planned coup succeeds in Bolivia, this country will surely have the same fate as Brazil, economically and politically saying.

A Long Process Based on Misinformation and Hate

"I hate Evo Morales!" said in July last year in a talk to this reporter, a Santa Cruz de la Sierra-bases out hairdresser woman - without any political justification to that deep sentiment. A white professional at 40 years of age, only hates. She openly hates the first indigenous president in Bolivia's history.

Cochabamba's Lawmaker Norma Pierola has been prosecuted for racism for not greeting President Evo Morales in an official activity, late last year. Norma alleged that Morales does not respect women as a president, without any justification for that. On the contrary, the Morales administration is well-known including among critics for granting rights for women, the LGBT community, and indigenous people.

At that time, Santa Cruz de la Sierra Governor Ruben Costas called indigenous people "dumb and stupid," so rekindling the fire of deep racism that used to shame Bolivia in the years previous to Evo Morales.

This video shows strong acts of racism and discrimination Evo Morales is suffering since took power in 2006, and strong violence against innocent and unarmed indigenous people and peasants, "a damn race." Shocking images taped especially in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, before Evo Morales in the Presidency, who has, with the Congress mostly composed of its partisans, passed bills that severely punish acts of discrimination.

But the deep hate has been kept inside hearts, even growing in many people's sentiments through the years. It has been strongly realized by talking to people, who do not tolerate a "red skin," a peasant, or a different accent. Or even an Evo voter.

"If Camacho gets his aims, this atmosphere of discrimination, racism, hate, and deep violence will be back to Bolivia, as he is allied to Ruben Costas," said to this journalist a Bolivian from La Paz, who has been living in Santa Cruz for several years.

Among many non-sense lies spread in Bolivia, both by the opposition and religious leaders (the latter have played a fundamental role in discrimination and diffusion of slanders campaign), could be highlighted that "Evo had an airplane arrested in the U.S. years ago, loaded with cocaine." 

Personally talking to Catholic leaders of Knights Templar in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, this reporter asked them, well aware that was a lie: "So why did Evo was not arrested in the U.S., then?". The ridiculous answer was, "he has immunity as president of Bolivia [in U.S. ground!]." 

Another spread lie is that Evo Morales owns the air company Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) - a state company created in 2007 a year after Evo took power.

"I have been surprised that they [religious leaders] first pray and then they hate, what is that?" Evo asked last week. “They pray [then] kick poor people,” the president of Bolivia denounced, well-aware that such a segment is behind the dirty war of hate and lies across the country.

Social Confusion

Leaving the demonstration "at the feet of Christ" last Monday, this reporter talked to some people. A couple's reaction to some of this journalist's observations is a hallmark of the current state of mind among the opposition voters in Bolivia. 

After explaining the reasons why the young guys were requiring Evo Morales to be overthrown, this report presented some little data about Bolivia's economy in recent years, comparing to the years previous to the current president.

The couple then repeated a posture commonly seen by this author when talking to people by the streets of Santa Cruz de la Sierra: they firstly withered to later change the subject. The problem was not the economy, but a president being many years in power. Which is at least arguable, as pointed out above.

Another strong feature of these protests in Bolivia, a hallmark of Color Revolutions, is the spread of lies among people which is previous to the current mess: the scenario of social confusion based on an inversion of facts has been advancing long ago in the South American country.

Last Tuesday, this reporter got a WhatsApp message from a lawyer based out in La Paz, who works in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, too. "This is the beginning of strong social movements in Bolivia. (...) So starts a social movement, first the group manifests, later elaborate the ideology," he said. Which is an absurd, and another Color Revolution strong feature, as social movements' process is the inverse: they first have a direction, then they organize themselves, and fight for their ideals. Any movement or group without an ideal is artificial.

Fighting for something without a clear path to be pursued is ridiculous, leading nations victims of Color Revolutions, unavoidable to chaos, generally to fascist politics, a worse situation the respective nations used to live before such artificial movements. 

There is no project by the opposition. They want the justice system, controlled by the current government, it is true, to be under their control again, not to reform it. And they aim to collapse every Morales administration gains.

Uncle Sam's Sharp, Cruel Claws

In 2014, Jacob Ostreicher, a Jewish businessman funded by local drug trafficking and the CIA disguised as a diplomatic mission to destabilize Bolivia, illegally, and protected by the CIA, left the South American country not to be arrested. Who provided Ostreicher's escape was "diplomat" Larry Lamont Memmott, a CIA agent operating in Bolivia.

Who is behind protests in Bolivia are dark powers, the stingy, destructive Bolivian elite that in the two centuries before Evo Morales, used to sell local natural resources to get in return Empire's crumbs - the U.S. deep State who is, once again, using the old puppet Bolivian elite as its tool for geostrategic and economic purposes. 

All this seems impossible to be argued with many people in Bolivia right now. Their minds have been confused by the daily mainstream media's bombardment and religious leaders. 

The current chaos, with the local economy stuck for almost 20 days, has no forecast to finish. Who is destroying Bolivia is not surely Cuba, nor Russia, nor China. But in the deeply troubled Bolivia these days, Joseph Goebbels's teachings reigns:  "A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth." 

Lie, something the most terrorist Empire in history is an expert in spreading. And in the destruction of nations, another thing that, for so long, Latin America disgracefully knows very well. 

It's Bolivia turn, again...

Bolivia in Crosshairs of US Counter-revolution

By: teleSUR / Cindy Forster

In essence, Morales resigned to halt a campaign of terror. Paramilitary violence is being practiced by the right-wing and it has escalated.

Bolivia’s president Evo Morales Ayma has just resigned. Hours earlier, surrounded by leaders of the grassroots mass organizations that serve as a sort of “people’s cabinet,” he had called for new elections and a renovated Supreme Electoral Tribunal to oversee that process. These are political decisions since according to the Constitution he won the elections of October 20. 

In essence, Morales resigned to halt a campaign of terror. Paramilitary violence is being practiced by the right-wing and it has escalated. For weeks, those who look Indigenous have been attacked, with several deaths. More recently, a spate of attacks against MAS politicians and journalists has sought to drive fear into the majority of poor and rural Bolivians who deeply identify with the changes brought by 13 years of progressive rule under the guidance of Evo Morales.

Yesterday, Bolivian social movements in La Paz, the center of government, answered the calls of the right-wing for president Morales to resign with their own ultimatum: That the leaders of the right depart the city of La Paz within 48 hours and leave its inhabitants in peace. They announced that in the face of police mutinies, the social movements would form a civil police force to protect the constitution and its elected representatives. In a tradition of struggle that is hundreds of years old, they announced they would encircle La Paz, however, they would do so peacefully.The governing party, Movement toward Socialism (MAS), also made a political decision to ask the Organization of American States (OAS) to conduct a recount before the results were known, and the OAS has just made public preliminary results saying that there were serious problems, however, Evo Morales may well have won the elections. Nevertheless, they advised that new elections be held.

The president’s logic is clear: “Bolivia is living moments of conflict with the risk of grave confrontations among Bolivians. As president, my principal mission is to protect life, preserve the peace, social justice, economic stability, and the unity of the Bolivian family.”

The situation is dire and as always, the devil’s in the details that the right-wing press does not divulge. An anatomy of recent events reveals critical factors silenced by the mass media. These factors will unfold in the coming weeks and months in correlation with the international response.

How the coup plan has unfolded

On the evening of election day in Bolivia as votes were being counted, the rightwing candidate Carlos de Mesa realized that Evo Morales was quite possibly winning in the first round. De Mesa took that moment as the opening volley in the planned coup to topple MAS, the Movement toward Socialism led by Evo Morales Ayma. De Mesa abrogated the role of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and declared himself in a run-off election with Morales, the Indigenous president who has led most Bolivians from conditions of nineteenth-century servitude to an era of dignity and national sovereignty.

De Mesa's arrogance is breathtaking. It also mirrors his faith in his funders and handlers, the old elites and the Trump administration. The usual players in the Republican right wish to boycott an Evo Morales administration in Bolivia, and U.S. operatives, in addition to those in the embassy, have been wandering around the countryside to create rightwing foci of resistance. Evidence of the coup-plotting that took place in the United States may be found at https://postcuba.org/embajada-de-eeuu-en-la-paz-su-accionar-encubierto-e...

While the United Nations twice urged all political leaders in Bolivia to avoid violent acts and “follow the legal norms,” the United States is claiming to do the same but in fact promoting a campaign to escalate tensions and delegitimize the elections. It is a pattern that reaches back to the origins of the Movement toward Socialism. Washington gives refuge to the bloodiest of the exiles from the 2003 “Gas War,” among them Carlos Sanchez Berzain, the Defense Minister of ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (or Goni for short) who killed 67 during the 2003 peaceful protests. They fled the country protected by the US embassy and are reportedly deeply involved in coup plans at present. Sanchez Berzain is leading anti-Evo protests on the turf of right-wing Senator Marco Rubio, of ultra-right fame, in Miami.

Almost one million votes out of about 7.3 million in total had not been counted when de Mesa told the world that massive fraud had occurred, an allegation he has been unable to prove. The uncounted votes on the night the polls closed were overwhelmingly from the countryside and also the exterior, including immigrant workers. Among them were almost 100,000 Bolivians in Argentina of whom 82% voted for MAS. The defeated candidate Carlos De Mesa was coached by the United States on creating a large urban base that is fed astonishing lies, delivered via Facebook and WhatsApp.  De Mesa was Goni’s vice president in the early 2000s and became president when Goni fled the wrath of the people he massacred. Moreover, de Mesa has said all along that he would not recognize any outcome except his own victory, the same stance as his political ally Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, another president close to Washington.

De Mesa knows he has never been a favorite of Campesinos nor of immigrant workers living abroad. He also realized that he would keep losing votes to a far-right evangelical candidate. Hence, de Mesa and his sponsors wanted the tabulation of votes brought to a dead halt while he still stood less than 10 percentage points distant from Evo's lead. A 10% point lead is the cut-off point for winning in the first round if the candidate has gained at least 40% of the vote.

Reflect for a moment on de Mesa’s strategy: its absurdity, its illegality, and its novelty in the arsenal of U.S. coup strategies that have ranged in this century from kidnappings (in Haiti and Honduras) to parliamentary coups built on a scaffolding of lies (in Paraguay and Brazil). The resounding victory of MAS in the vote of October 20 includes the presidency, almost 85% of all Bolivian municipalities, and a majority in both the Senate and the chamber of deputies.

Right-wing militants unleashed violence that night, long before the rural Acts representing one-seventh of the electorate had arrived at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. As in the past, these votes have won the contest in Evo’s favor. 

Some 100 youth were paid by de Mesa and his associates to wreak havoc, according to government intelligence and confessions of youth transporting explosives who were arrested at the airport, and also the deathbed confession to the family of a young man recruited to create street chaos. He was preparing an explosive projectile that misfired and destroyed his head. His family knew he was earning good money but had not known how. Bolivia’s Indigenous cardinal Toribio Ticona, a man who shined shoes and worked in the mines before he became a priest, charged de Mesa with responsibility for the mayhem he has directed.

Local electoral tribunals were trashed and set on fire, forcing a person to leap out of the second-story of a burning building, while others fled the blows of the rightwing coalition. At the same time, representatives of all the parties, including de Mesa’s, had people inside the tribunals verifying the vote count. It was an odd way to stop electoral fraud. In several zones of the city of La Paz, right-wing attacks against election officials achieved the theft of their packages of votes being delivered from the countryside, and one of the packages was burned. In the more well-heeled sections of La Paz, thousands of right-wing demonstrators took the streets, humiliating women in Indigenous dress and police who were protecting government buildings. 

The not-so-new paramilitaries

Those who attack with violence run the gamut of opposition movements over recent years, among them a group of dissident coca growers tied to narcotrafficking; a sector of miners abandoned to their own devices in the 1980s when mass layoffs imposed by the government shook the country, and these particular miners made common cause with the mining oligarchy; a sector of La Paz teachers that has always resisted MAS from a position at the far left of the political spectrum; and a sector of doctors and medical students that has been on strike who are opposed to the progressive expansion of free health care to cover all citizens. Various right-wing civic committees such as that of the city of Potosi announced far in advance that they would boycott elections. The youth of the city of Santa Cruz organized in “shock brigades” have been trying to kill people they call Indigenous since the start of the MAS era. Often, their violence takes place in the context of secession efforts by lowland elites.

Lowland Santa Cruz is a proudly mestizo and white heartland of agro-industry whose elite attempted to break the Movement toward Socialism with the guidance of the U.S. ambassador in 2008, adopting the symbols of the crusades. The hyper-racist president of the Santa Cruz civic committee has emerged as a power comparable to de Mesa. His name is Luis Fernando Camacho and in the tradition of those elites he represents, Camacho positions himself as the voice of white superiority inspired by “my Christ the Redeemer.” He looks like he has just arrived from the golf course, he is alleged to have taken part in the Panama Papers tax-dodge scandal, and his methods are fascist. Supported by the arch-conservative politicians of Santa Cruz, he is coordinating paramilitary attacks.

UJC is part of a hemispheric network of right-wing paramilitary forces and has received ample support from its international allies.  Appearing to be well-fed youth if we are to judge by their physique, they fight with bare torsos and have a fondness for liquor, even according to their leader Fernando Camacho who harangued them, “We cannot disrespect our Christ by continually drinking and listening to music.” When they don shirts, they are black shirts.In 2008, the Union of Santa Cruz Youth (UJC by its initials in Spanish) gained international attention as fascists by reason of their symbols, their language and their actions, as the fighting arm of elites who tried to secede from the Plurinational State of Bolivia led by Evo Morales. “Brother Evo,” as he is known to his peers, belongs to a people known for their courage, the Aymara of the high Andean plain. Like many, his family migrated in the neoliberal crisis of the last century, and from harvesting potatoes and herding llamas, they turned to growing coca in the subtropical stretches bordering the Amazon that gave rise to one of Latin America’s most battle-tested labor movements. The middle-class UJC youth abhor everything Morales represents, and in those early years, the president was not able to travel to Santa Cruz due to their death threats. 

Alongside that tight-knit group built on a kind of white-settler pride, the political right has been recruiting young criminals nationwide with the lure of drugs and money. For those who are university youth, often their presence is less costly: Their professors make their grades contingent on their participation. The La Paz public university is the operational center for warehousing of arms and explosives and lodging youth trained in paramilitary techniques, recalling events in Nicaragua in 2018. They enjoy the protection of the Rector, Waldo Albarracin, who controls the autonomous space of that institution. 

After winning, Evo’s observations about the opposition became much more direct: “Where did they come from? The come from the dictatorships …(and) they passed the government back and forth between them from 1985 to 2003.” He asked, “Where did (Samuel) Doria Medina come from: From (implementing) the privatizations. Tuto (Jorge) Quiroga? (From being vice president to the dictator) Banzer.”

Fernando Camacho for his part oversaw the burnings of homes and vehicles, beatings and provocations, and warned at a rally that his method of punishing traitors was the same as that of the infamous Colombian narcotrafficker Pablo Escobar, charged with 5,500 killings. Camacho added that the discovery of traitors would be followed by jail sentences rather than murder. Curiously, at just about that juncture, Carlos de Mesa changed his stance from that of favoring an OAS recount of the votes, now taking place, to being categorically against that recount (de Mesa’s actions are detailed below).

In his latest tactic, Camacho gave an ultimatum to resign to leftist and Indigenous president Evo Morales Ayma, who just won the elections by 47.08 percent as opposed to 36.51 percent garnered by the right. Camacho reportedly plans to guide the lowland region of Santa Cruz into secession from Bolivia, and then win the civil war that he hopes to incite.

The targets of right-wing wrath

As is true anywhere, the majority of the people in the sprawling city of Santa Cruz are poor, mainly migrants from the Indigenous nations of the Amazon and Chaco or the Aymara and Quechua nations of the high Andes. One-third of Santa Cruz has always voted for the political project of MAS –the same proportion as that of the left in many other countries– and in Santa Cruz the number of MAS votes is rising. When the poor were brutalized and sent to the hospital, a crowd gathered outside the hospital shouting, “Camacho, assassin!” and “We don’t want any strike, we want to work.”

Working-class residents of La Paz expressed their fear of the impending violence when de Mesa challenged the vote count on October 20. Said one woman, “They hate us” –she is Indigenous– “and everything we have won, they want to destroy. Carlos de Mesa killed us with Goni, and they want to return to that time.”

Since the right is trying to shut down the country, they attack vendors and storekeepers who resist the call for a general strike and they have brought to a halt the city of Santa Cruz. There, youths enter working-class neighborhoods known to be bastions of MAS, armed with bats, sticks and explosives. Now they are using homemade bazookas and sticks with nails embedded. Their racist epithets are constant. They destroy local MAS campaign headquarters and the offices of Campesino groups. One hundred UJC youth tried to lynch journalists. 

Rightwing students in Sucre, who shut down the constitutional assembly in that city years ago and badly bloodied Indigenous Campesinos, this October set the electoral tribunal on fire. Others attacked the president’s home in Cochabamba. In the lowland, tropical department of Pando, at 2 am long after the tribunal declared a victory for MAS, 150 motorcyclists from the right-wing forces attacked the home of the governor who was forced to flee to safety with his small children and his wife. 

After days of right-wing attacks, in the city of Montero in Santa Cruz, people of the age of the parents of the youths started clearing the debris and removing the blockades. UJC leaders got word, and transported armed youths to the scene. Their leader said, “If it’s bullets they want, I’ll give them bullets.” In cold blood, two of the MAS supporters were then killed, Marcelo Terrazas and Mario Salvatierra. One of the accused killers was dressed in full camouflage gear with all but his eyes covered by a black bandana, in other words, he was dressed like a paramilitary. The alleged killers and a number of their accomplices have been arrested.Cabinet ministers are receiving threatening phone messages and social media calls are being made to target their homes, with vandalism committed against the property of growing a number of them. Said the Minister of Government Carlos Romero whose children are receiving threats from the opposition: “I am right here if you need to threaten someone, but don’t threaten my children.”

The lies of the losing candidate

De Mesa is notorious for his lies, one of the most infamous being his promise of justice, made when Goni fled, for those killed and injured in 2003. Unconscionably, the turmoil he unleashed in recent weeks had the public support of none other than the Organization of American States (OAS). They seemed to be joined at the hip with Carlos de Mesa. The OAS was at that point demanding a second round of elections, in violation of Bolivia’s constitution. They called for a special meeting on Bolivia at their headquarters in Washington, with an ominous representation of less than admirable politicians: The governments of Brazil, Colombia and, lastly, Venezuela, by which they mean the U.S.-installed puppet Juan Guaido, who has been in the news these past few days for the revelation of his pact with Colombian paramilitaries, in which he contracted their violent services in exchange for allowing them control of the Colombo-Venezuelan border. 

The actions of the OAS are unconscionable because they declared the vote count in Bolivia had stopped, however that assertion was one of de Mesa’s lies. The country of Mexico took the lead in rejecting the favoritism of the OAS mission toward the right.

The official vote tabulation never halted. What stopped was the rapid count, called the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results or TREP in the Spanish acronym. The prior agreement was that TREP would only tabulate 80% of the total vote. On Sunday evening, October 20, having reached 83.85% of the total vote, TREP measured a lead of 4% by Evo Morales Ayma over Carlos De Mesa. De Mesa said the TREP count proved there was going to be a run-off election between the two of them and demanded a TREP count of 100%. He claimed that a count of 100% had been promised. De Mesa was lying, according to the highest levels of MAS leadership.

Though it was not part of the original plan, the TREP count was reinitiated and the following night, Monday, at 23:59 hours, TREP made public new results representing 95.63% of the entire vote, showing that Evo Morales had won in the first round by the necessary 10% difference over Carlos De Mesa. 

At that point, De Mesa executed an about-face and insisted that TREP had joined a massive fraud against him. For the record, when de Mesa won with Goni against MAS, the difference was just 42,242 votes, while today, MAS has won by over 640,000 votes. Clearly, de Mesa would be satisfied with nothing less than overturning the elections.

At the time the polls were closed, 12 copies of the Act that sums up the votes at each polling place, signed by the representatives of each political party, were distributed among them. A photograph of the Act was also sent via the internet to the Supreme Electoral authorities. These photos are available to the public on-line and easily investigated. 

But those who allege foul play are not investigating anything, they are fanning what Bolivians of diverse political persuasions are calling "a psychosis." De Mesa’s few claims of fraud in the Acts that record the votes of each polling station, presented to the authorities, have been shown to be errors that were corrected, according to evidence on the same sheet of paper that was hidden from public view when Carlos de Mesa’s forces made the argument for fraud.  

Middle-class militants are fervent believers in the idea of stolen elections, absent real evidence.  Meanwhile, the right-wing is encouraging panic buying of foodstuffs and for those who have cars, filling their tanks. It is a recipe for inflation. The MAS government has managed to guarantee food provision in most of the country with the exception of Santa Cruz.

The OAS agreed to the request made by the winning party MAS to recount the vote. Their condition is that the two leading candidates would accept the results as binding. That recount started on October 31 and is due to conclude on November 13. De Mesa is now refusing to submit alleged proofs of fraud to the OAS, claiming the OAS is a pawn of MAS.

De Mesa’s lies spare no one. Most recently, he claimed that the recount of the vote requested by the winning party was arranged unilaterally with the Organization of American States. The OAS had to publicly challenge de Mesa, who at that point conceded that the OAS had telephoned him repeatedly to win de Mesa’s consent to abide by the recount. 

The Bolivian people versus the thuggery of the right

Workers and Campesinos have declared a state of emergency against the return of the “privatizing oligarchs.” They organized enormous marches in the department of La Paz, the heartland of Aymara resistance which ignited the massive protests of 2003 that brought down president Goni. Bystanders applauded them as the social movements arrived from the edge of the vast canyon in El Alto to its depths in La Paz. 

The intransigence of Carlos de Mesa and Luis Fernando Camacho is clear, as their militants descend into an abyss of chaos. On November 6 they attacked thousands of Indigenous women in Cochabamba who marched with their children in support of Evo Morales. The racist rage of the right-wing is there for all to see. Women in Indigenous dress were kidnapped, and MAS mayor Patricia Arce (formerly a Campesino union leader), was beaten, dragged through the dirt and doused with red paint in ritual fashion. She was made to kneel and beg for forgiveness. It is a “punishment” that the right uses repeatedly. Women in the grassroots of MAS point out that it is their sons who are being paid to join the shock brigades and attack their own mothers.

Massive rejection of the right-wing violence now includes many of those who voted for de Mesa, some high churchmen close to the oligarchy, and tens of thousands of women who have marched in the last weeks, first to demand respect for the rural and Indigenous vote and then to decry the cruelties unleashed against those marching women. Bolivia has one of the highest representations of women politicians on earth and putting aside political affiliations, they have urged their compatriots to abjure violence. The rationality of MAS, the United Nations, the vast Indigenous and Campesino populations and their urban relatives, and millions of mobilized women is such that the escalating savagery of the right can only be explained by a single factor: U.S. patronage.