Why a Second American Revolution Is Necessary for the Entire World

Eric ZUESSE

On November 11th, the very disturbing but clearly true “Lessons To Learn From The Coup In Bolivia” was posted to the Web. That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime — a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington. But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed, there won’t be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US international dictatorship — not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, —  will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world. He makes clear the complicity of US ‘news’-media in the lies that ‘justify’ this coup (and ‘justified’ those invasions). It’s, by now, clearly the way the US regime functions. Of course, none of those media will publish any such truth; they all cover-up constantly for the regime, because they actually are an essential part of it. (All of these invasions and coups are based on nothing but lies, and the media are a necessary part of that.) Censorship in America is thus actually extreme, and constant.

For example: how many US-and-allied media have even reported that fascists took over in Bolivia? Instead, we’ve got newspaper editorials such as the New York Times blaming the extraordinarily successful and popular democratically elected President of Bolivia for the coup which overthrew him and replaced him by fascists (and never using the word “coup,” except once derisively, by saying that “British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, cried ‘coup’” — as if it weren’t a coup — and making no mention whatsoever that it had been done by committed fascists). This ‘news’-paper’s ‘news’-report the prior day had been headlined with the ridiculously anodyne “Bolivian Leader Evo Morales Steps Down”, and it asserted that “Mr. Morales was once widely popular,” as if he weren’t still so, and as if all of the polling as well as the last Presidential election showed him still to be “widely popular”, but the CIA-and-oligarchs’ organized fascist mob hated him, and brought him down. Will the CIA and generals, and Bolivia’s oligarchs, be executed for that? Of course, they should be. If they aren’t, then how can democracy ever be restored there? It’s one, or the other — it’s continuation of the dictatorship, or else it will be restoration of the democracy — at this stage. There can be no ‘reconciliation’, now. This is an irreconcilable state of war that exists between the coupsters and the Bolivian people. There will be bloodshed — and the more so as the coupsters remain in power and Morales not be quickly restored fully to the powers to which he had repeatedly been popularly elected. However, he won’t be able safely to return to his home and his homeland, unless and until the coupsters are executed, because, otherwise, they certainly would execute him first, and he would never be able to feel safe there.

Because of what the coupsters did, this will inevitably be a war to the death — and not only for the principal persons on each side, but for hundreds, or probably thousands, of their followers. What the coupsters did has thus precipitated, inevitably, massive future bloodshed in Bolivia. And yet the US regime’s lying press supports what was done. The truths that they know they hide from the public. This constant lying will be necessary in order for the US regime’s extensions such as the OAS and the IMF to provide the coupsters the public support that will enable the Bolivian coup-regime to be granted international ‘legitimacy’, which will be necessary in order for that regime’s actions to be treated as legally valid and binding in international business.

Another recent example of this spreading cancer of the US regime’s fascism was the US coup that installed a rabidly fascist regime in Ukraine during February 2014. Even today, the US-and-allied ‘news’-media cover that  coup up, too, as having been a ‘democratic revolution.’ (How much of what is shown on that linked video was reported honestly in media such as the New York Times and Fox News?) Furthermore, when the EU learned, after the coup was over, that it had been a coup (instead of the democratic revolution they had thought it to have been), they were shocked, but plodded on to take Ukraine into the EU because they mistakenly thought that this would be of benefit to the EU nations, and not recognizing that it would turn out to be instead an albatross, which, even today, is nowhere closer to meeting EU standards than it had been on the day of the coup, and is actually far less so than it was even back before the coup occurred.

How can the public, in any country, possibly control the Government if they are being so viciously and routinely lied-to by the Government and by its ‘news’-media? Democracy is impossible in such a country as this. It is a sham. Multiple political parties don’t mean that they’re not all controlled by the 607 US billionaires — some who are Democrats, and others who are Republicans, but all of whom are actually lying fascists. Clearly, dishonesty rules, and it’s bought by the few individuals who control most of the nation’s wealth (and ‘news’-media). Here is an example within the US itself: the 2016 US Presidential ‘election’, which was actually a Presidential selection, by the billionaires.

Even decades after the entirely illegal tortures that the CIA perpetrated after 9/11 and which produced no usable information, the CIA officials and George W. Bush are not prosecuted for having broken both American and international laws, and the mere fact of that illegality has made impossible any court-trial anywhere of the alleged terrorists who remain at Guantanamo. The US regime is rampant and unrestrained illegality, lying, and it’s even blatant violence, and injustice, all with no accountability whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide, is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped from engulfing the entire world?

Eric ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historian

Bolivian Coup and Indian Wars on Thanksgiving

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Apt it is, in a heinous way, that as the United States celebrates its annual Thanksgiving Day this week, the indigenous people of Bolivia are being slaughtered by a US-backed coup unfolding in the Andean nation.

When former President Evo Morales was threatened out of office on November 10 by orchestrated, massive street violence, US President Donald Trump hailed it “a great day for democracy”. What Trump meant was “a great day for plutocracy”. The new regime in Laz Paz is the colonial-descendant, ruling class back in power, rolling back the gains made after 14 years of progressive socialism and democracy for the indigenous majority of Bolivians.

The coup was carried off by Washington’s smearing of Morales’ re-election on October 20 and by fascist paramilitaries directed by Bolivian oligarchs who are well connected in Washington, as documented by Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton.

The Bolivian oligarchs and their supporters espouse a rightwing Christian fundamentalism which disparages the indigenous culture as pagan. The violent racism towards the indigenous majority was expressed by the self-declared “interim president”, Jeannie Anez, who, like other oligarchic figures, denounced the native and largely poor population as “satanic”.

The takeover in Bolivia is as much about taking control of the country’s wealth – natural gas and minerals – as it about a racist revenge on the native Indian population who dared to rule the country under Morales’ leadership for the benefit of the poor majority.

Morales has been warned that if he returns from exile in Mexico he will be jailed for terrorism. The new regime has instructed state forces to “hunt down” members of Morales’ Movement to Socialism (MAS) party. It has given impunity for the police and army to shoot dead protesters who are holding strikes and other demonstrations against the new regime. The latter made earlier promises to hold new elections – without MAS being allowed to participate despite the party having a majority of lawmakers in the country’s Congress. It looks like even those hollow promises are now being scrapped.

Since Morales was ousted, over 30 people have been killed and hundreds injured as state forces fire live rounds at unarmed protesters. Reporting from on the ground, Medea Benjamin says the indigenous communities are living in fear of increasing atrocities and the return to the old days of military dictatorship.

In one incident in El Alto on November 19, army and police, reinforced with helicopters, killed eight people, including children, who were among MAS supporters holding an unarmed strike against the new regime.

“I saw the doctors and nurses desperately trying to save lives, carrying out emergency surgeries in difficult conditions with a shortage of medical equipment,” reported Benjamin. “I saw five dead bodies and dozens of people with bullet wounds… A grieving mother whose son was shot cried out between sobs: ‘They’re killing us like dogs’.”

The coup in Bolivia is consistent with the wider historical perspective of Indian Wars waged for centuries across the entire American continent. From the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors in the 15th century who wiped out the Mayan and smaller Andean civilizations in the central and southern continent, to the later British and other European colonialists who dispossessed and destroyed the native tribes in the north in what became the United States and Canada.

It may sound cliched, but nevertheless should never be forgotten that the United States and other modern American states were built on genocide of the native populations. That genocide has never been properly atoned for. Existing American-Indians live in predominantly marginalized, impoverished conditions. Their bountiful lands stolen and poisoned by industrial capitalism.

Official celebrations like Thanksgiving and Columbus Day stick in the craw because they sanitize the real and brutal history of the US being founded on barbaric crimes against humanity.

If there is no official acknowledgment – let alone atonement – for the exterminatory foundations of the US, and its economic and military power, then no wonder that the state permits itself to continue waging wars and subversions against other nations. It is above the law because it always has been above the law from its very inception.

The Hollywood-like depiction of Thanksgiving tells us that English settlers arriving on the northeast coast in the early 1600s were befriended by the indigenous people who shared their food and showed the foreigners how to survive harsh winters. What gets lopped out from this rosy narrative is the subsequent centuries when the European colonizers expanded their rapacious land-grabbing and pushed the natives to extinction, often by slaughtering them in their camps.

Native American elder Leonard Peltier (now 75), who has been in jail for nearly 40 years on a trumped-up conviction for killing two FBI officers, wrote the following reflection for this year’s Thanksgiving: “As I let my mind wander beyond the steel bars and concrete walls, I try to imagine what the people who live outside the prison gates are doing, and what they are thinking. Do they ever think of the indigenous people who were forced from their homelands? Do they understand that with every step they take, no matter the direction, that they are walking on stolen land? Can they imagine, even for one minute, what it was like to watch the suffering of the women, the children and babies and yes, the sick and elderly, as they were made to keep pushing west in freezing temperatures, with little or no food? These were my people and this was our land.”

In his reflection, Leonard Peltier makes a direction connection with the coup in Bolivia to past crimes against the indigenous people of all America.

“We also remember our brothers and sisters of Bolivia, who are rioting, in support of the first indigenous President, Evo Morales. His commitment to the people, the land, their resources and protection against corruption is commendable. We recognize and identify with that struggle so well,” he writes.

The crime against Bolivia is allowed to happen because the US by and large is held in a condition of historical amnesia by its plutocratic system and its obedient corporate mass media. Thanksgiving Day is followed by a day of consumerist frenzy, known as Black Friday, when crowds queue up for shops to open their doors for sales. People fill up their empty lives with cheap gadgets and techno-fetichism. And so plutocrats like Trump and his evangelical Christian cabinet can espouse the crass nonsense that what is happening in Bolivia is “a great day for democracy”.

As Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn put it beautifully: “You thought it was over but it’s just like before. Will there never be an end to the Indian Wars?”

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

Bolivia: More Lessons From a Noble Experiment Gone Awry

Stephen KARGANOVIC

Poor, naive Evo Morales. Instead of seeking secure refuge in a sovereign friendly country, he must be languishing now in the catacombs of Mexico City, where his tormentors are making sure that he will remain isolated and is never allowed to attempt a comeback. They are a wicked lot, but also undeniably sharp learners. They will use every tool at their disposal to make sure Morales does not spring on them a nasty surprise, as Lula just did.

The contours of the racist, anti-democratic coup in Bolivia are progressively coming into view. A few elements in particular need to be stressed.

First of all, it is the absolute amorality (not mere immorality, because there is a difference; immoralists are by comparison fairly decent people) of the empire’s playbook. Any instrument

will do that achieves the empire’s sordid purposes. In the Ukraine it may be the neo-nazi Azov battalion, in Syria head-chopping ISIS. In Bolivia, corrupt public officials and fascist militia heavily tinged with generational remnants of World War II Croatian Ustashi Axis collaborators are just fine too. As if to illustrate the point, the clownish emperor himself averred just a few days ago that “When I meet with the leaders of countries as they come in — kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents and dictators, I meet ’em all … Anybody wants to come in. Dictators? It’s OK. Come on in.” As soon as the junta in Bolivia gets its act together, look for another dictator, “our son of a bitch,” arriving for a visit from La Paz.

For a glimpse of the ideological inspiration behind the coup, it suffices to advert to its principal civilian protagonists, such as the Santa Cruz Youth Union, at one time led by oligarch Luis Fernando Camacho, who also happens to be the éminence grise behind the overthrow of Morales and his government. Their salutes tell the story. Even their imperial sponsors were compelled, in a diplomatic cable, to refer to these useful but unsavory pawns in somewhat uncomplimentary terms:

Among all the usual suspects involved in the Bolivian coup there is also a certain third-generation Ustashi gentleman by the name of Branko Marinkovic, who just happens to be a wealthy landowner and unsurprisingly a backer of right-wing causes. Marinkovic must be a squalid character because he got a bad review even from Stratfor, which is actually suspected of working for the same bosses as he. Around fifteen years ago, Marinkovic was using his wealth and influence to actively promote the Katanga-style secession of Bolivia’s mineral-rich Santa Cruz region, in alliance with transnationals eager to appropriate its natural resources.

This cast of civilian characters inexplicably were allowed to operate by the poor, naive President instead of having been shut down a long time ago. But in terms of executing the coup, they were outdone by the corrupt army and national police chiefs, who apparently profited nothing from the uplifting example shown by their Venezuelan colleagues when faced recently with similar pecuniary temptations. They avidly took the bribes and intimidated the Bolivian President into quitting.

A key point is that army commander Gen. Williams Kaliman had served as Bolivia’s military attache in Washington in 2013, prior to being elevated to his current post. It so happens (and someone should have informed the clueless President Morales) that military attaches are favorite recruitment targets. A long forgotten precedent is Gen. Humberto Delgado, Portugal’s military attache in Washington during the 1950s. Apparently turned by his hosts, who were upset at being rebuffed by Prime Minister Antonio Salazar when they offered Portugal several billion dollars  in exchange for oil-rich Angola, he was encouraged to run for president in the 1958 elections on the understanding that if he won, he would dismiss Dr. Salazar. (Oh yes, in keeping with the playbook that vote count was also denounced as fraudulent, just like the recent one in Bolivia.) Delgado tried and failed; Kaliman, on the other hand, took the cash and earned his keep. The famous example of Gen. Pinochet, who was Chile’s military attache in Washington in 1956 but in whose integrity equally clueless President Allende believed until the last minute, also readily comes to mind. The lesson: unless you are prepared to thoroughly clean the stables and staff your government with incorruptible patriots, stay away from revolutionary politics.

The third and related lesson of the Bolivian coup is that a non-servile regime – if it intends to survive – must scornfully dismiss the “democratic” discourse of its imperialist enemies and deal decisively with their fifth column and domestic foot soldiers. It has now been established, and it surfaced literally just hours after the coup, that Srdja Popovic’s infamous CANVAS/Otpor outfit on the operational level was thoroughly embedded in coup preparations. Where was Bolivia’s security service and what were they doing while the foundations of the popular government were being undermined by a determined, organized, and well-financed fringe group using sophisticated technologies of subversion? Were they watching Bugs Bunny cartoons?

Naive President Morales (and he is still President of Bolivia because he was driven out of office illegally and under duress) may have deluded himself that reducing illiteracy from 13% to 2,4%, unemployment from 9,2% to 4,1%, and extreme poverty from 38,2% to 15,2% guaranteed the stability of his government. In the end, these impressive statistics failed him. Did he think that grateful masses would rally to his defense? If, as is probable, he had never heard of the treacherous General Delgado, surely he must have heard of Che Guevara?

There is little doubt that the huddled masses, dispirited by centuries of colonial servitude, are rooting for him in their jungle hovels. But faint is the resistance that they can effectively

counterpose to the machinations of greedy and impudent scoundrels like Messrs. Camacho and Marinkovic, not to mention corrupt bullies like Gen. Kaliman.

Stephen KARGANOVIC

President of the Srebrenica Historical Project

Western Media Whitewash US-Backed Coup in Bolivia

With Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales fleeing for his life to Mexico, the Andean country is on the brink of escalating civil strife and a potential take-over by military rulers. Reports of lawmakers belonging to Morales’ socialist party being attacked by riot police and shut out from parliament, where they still hold a majority of seats, raises fears that Bolivia is descending into the anarchy and dark past of former military dictatorships.

It seems stupendous denial to call the tumultuous events in Bolivia over the past week as anything other than a coup against democracy. But that is what Western governments and media are doing. Denying shocking reality.

With street protests by rightwing and neofascist groups mounting over the past three weeks since Morales won re-election on October 20, the military and police finally warned the president to step down. Morales did so on November 10. He said he wanted to “stop the bloodshed.” If that’s not a coup, then what is?

With incredible double-think, US President Donald Trump hailed the news of Morales’ forced resignation as a “great moment for democracy”. Trump’s celebratory remarks were echoed by other rightwing leaders across Latin America, including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Columbia’s Ivan Duque, both of whom are close allies of Washington and its policy of hostility towards socialist governments in the region – a region which Washington considers its “backyard” and prerogative to intervene in at will under the aegis of the 19th century Monroe Doctrine.

In an unveiled menacing message to other Latin American governments whom Washington disapproves of, Trump said: “These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail. We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western hemisphere.”

To the list of Trump’s “illegitimate regimes”, we can add Cuba and the recently elected leftwing administration in Argentina, where Washington’s pro-business ally Mauricio Macri was voted out of office last month.

In many ways what happened in Bolivia was a repeat of Washington’s attempted regime-change operation in Venezuela carried out at the start of this year. An elected leader is smeared by an intensive media campaign as “illegitimate”, “authoritarian” and “undemocratic”. Then follows a campaign of orchestrated street violence to destabilize the targeted country. As usual, the people pulling the strings are connected to US government funding, such as USAID, and to Washington so-called “think-tanks”. In Venezuela’s case, the military remained loyal to the constitution and incumbent President Nicolas Maduro. Hence, US subversion of the oil-rich country seems to have failed. Not so Bolivia. Its military and attachés in Washington appear to have been successfully turned to serve US interests.

At stake are Bolivia’s prodigious natural resources of gas energy and minerals, in particular lithium. President Morales transformed the economy during 14 years of successive administrations to dramatically reduce poverty and increase living standards, especially for the indigenous majority who were previously marginalized by a ruling class descended from Spanish colonialists.

Morales became a hate-figure for the oligarchs and their business patrons in Washington. His nationalization of the energy industry and his growing trade and investment ties with China and Russia made him a target for regime change for Washington and the multi-millionaires in Bolivia who despised his socialist policies and elevation of indigenous people’s rights.

Admittedly, Morales caused controversy when he sought a fourth term as president, thus breaching constitutional term limits. But despite Western media claims and that of the Washington-funded Organization of American States (OAS), it seems Morales decisively won a free and fair election held last month. He won by a margin of 10 per cent ahead of his nearest rival.

We can debate the probity of Morales’ extended would-be fourth term, but what seems quite clear and unacceptable is the systematic US-fomented campaign to throw Bolivia into violent chaos and grossly interfere in the country’s democratic process. The irony of Washington complaining about alleged Russian interference in its elections is amplified by the blatant way the US has trashed the sovereignty of Bolivia to instal a militaristic, pro-oligarchic regime whom it desires for its geopolitical and economic objectives.

Amazingly, or perhaps not, the Western media have reacted to the sinister events in Bolivia with an attempt to whitewash and justify what is an egregious subversion.

A New York Times headline this week stated: “Bolivia’s Interim Leader Pledges to ‘Reconstruct Democracy’”. This is a reference to a pro-Washington opposition figure who has appointed a new cabinet.

The Washington Post in an editorial declared: “Bolivia is in danger of slipping into anarchy. It’s Evo Morales’ fault.

A curious distraction opinion piece by Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg made the convoluted analogy between Bolivia and Russia, contending that the Russian people and its military will eventually turn against President Vladimir Putin because of his allegedly similar “arbitrary rule.”

It is disgraceful that Western media should seek to cover-up what has happened in Bolivia. By denying that a coup took place, these media are complicit in giving Washington a license to attack or subvert other nations for regime change. Where is international law? Where is respect for sovereignty? Where is respect for democratic rights, peace and security? This is a green light of creeping fascism.

Here’s the crowning irony for Trump and the American corporate media. They can’t, or won’t, acknowledge illegal regime change and coups in Bolivia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria or elsewhere. Because the very same process of subversion is underway in the US itself against an elected president there.

The Bolivian Coup Comes Down to One Precious Mineral

Vijay PRASHAD

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to bring economic and social democracy to his long-exploited country. It is important to recall that Bolivia has suffered a series of coups, often conducted by the military and the oligarchy on behalf of transnational mining companies. Initially, these were tin firms, but tin is no longer the main target in Bolivia. The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car.

Over the past 13 years, Morales has tried to build a different relationship between his country and its resources. He has not wanted the resources to benefit the transnational mining firms, but rather to benefit his own population. Part of that promise was met as Bolivia’s poverty rate has declined, and as Bolivia’s population was able to improve its social indicators. Nationalization of resources combined with the use of its income to fund social development has played a role. The attitude of the Morales government toward the transnational firms produced a harsh response from them, many of them taking Bolivia to court.

“The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies.”

Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the “fuel that will feed the world.” Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash.

Clash With the Transnational Firms

When Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism took power in 2006, the government immediately sought to undo decades of theft by transnational mining firms. Morales’ government seized several of the mining operations of the most powerful firms, such as Glencore, Jindal Steel & Power, Anglo-Argentine Pan American Energy, and South American Silver (now TriMetals Mining). It sent a message that business as usual was not going to continue.

Nonetheless, these large firms continued their operations—based on older contracts—in some areas of the country. For example, the Canadian transnational firm South American Silver had created a company in 2003—before Morales came to power—to mine the Malku Khota for silver and indium (a rare earth metal used in flat-screen televisions). South American Silver then began to extend its reach into its concessions. The land that it claimed was inhabited by indigenous Bolivians, who argued that the company was destroying its sacred spaces as well as promoting an atmosphere of violence.

On August 1, 2012, the Morales government—by Supreme Decree no. 1308—annulled the contract with South American Silver (TriMetals Mining), which then sought international arbitration and compensation. Canada’s government of Justin Trudeau—as part of a broader push on behalf of Canadian mining companies in South America—put an immense amount of pressure on Bolivia. In August 2019, TriMetals struck a deal with the Bolivian government for $25.8 million, about a tenth of what it had earlier demanded as compensation.

Jindal Steel, an Indian transnational corporation, had an old contract to mine iron ore from Bolivia’s El Mutún, a contract that was put on hold by the Morales government in 2007. In July 2012, Jindal Steel terminated the contract and sought international arbitration and compensation for its investment. In 2014, it won $22.5 million from Bolivia in a ruling from Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. For another case against Bolivia, Jindal Steel demanded $100 million in compensation.

The Morales government seized three facilities from the Swiss-based transnational mining firm Glencore; these included a tin and zinc mine as well as two smelters. The mine’s expropriation took place after Glencore’s subsidiary clashed violently with miners.

Most aggressively, Pan American sued the Bolivian government for $1.5 billion for the expropriation of the Anglo-Argentinian company’s stake in natural gas producer Chaco by the state. Bolivia settled for $357 million in 2014.

The scale of these payouts is enormous. It was estimated in 2014 that the public and private payments made for nationalization of these key sectors amounted to at least $1.9 billion (Bolivia’s GDP was at that time $28 billion).

In 2014, even the Financial Times agreed that Morales’ strategy was not entirely inappropriate. “Proof of the success of Morales’s economic model is that since coming to power he has tripled the size of the economy while ramping up record foreign reserves.”

Lithium

Bolivia’s key reserves are in lithium, which is essential for the electric car. Bolivia claims to have 70 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, mostly in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. The complexity of the mining and processing has meant that Bolivia has not been able to develop the lithium industry on its own. It requires capital, and it requires expertise.

The salt flat is about 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) above sea level, and it receives high rainfall. This makes it difficult to use sun-based evaporation. Such simpler solutions are available to Chile’s Atacama Desert and in Argentina’s Hombre Muerto. More technical solutions are needed for Bolivia, which means that more investment is needed.

The nationalization policy of the Morales government and the geographical complexity of Salar de Uyuni chased away several transnational mining firms. Eramet (France), FMC (United States) and Posco (South Korea) could not make deals with Bolivia, so they now operate in Argentina.

Morales made it clear that any development of the lithium had to be done with Bolivia’s Comibol—its national mining company—and Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB)—its national lithium company—as equal partners.

Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019.

Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies.

Tesla (United States) and Pure Energy Minerals (Canada) both showed great interest in having a direct stake in Bolivian lithium. But they could not make a deal that would take into consideration the parameters set by the Morales government. Morales himself was a direct impediment to the takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms. He had to go.

After the coup, Tesla’s stock rose astronomically.

Globetrotter via truthdig.com

MSM Adamantly Avoids the Word ‘Coup’ in Bolivia Coverage

Caitlin JOHNSTONE

There has been a military coup in Bolivia backed by violent right-wing  rioters and the U.S. government, but you’d hardly know this from any of the mainstream media headlines.

“Bolivian President Evo Morales steps down following accusations of election fraud” proclaims CNN.

“Bolivia’s Morales resigns amid scathing election report, rising protests” reports The Washington Post.

“Bolivian Leader Evo Morales Steps Down” says The New York Times.

“Bolivian President Evo Morales resigns amid fraud poll protests” declares the BBC.

“President of Bolivia steps down amid allegations of election rigging” we are informed by Telegraph.

“Bolivia’s President Morales resigns after backlash to disputed election” says the Sydney Morning Herald.

So, there you have it. The indigenous leader of a socialist South American government which has successfully lifted masses of people out of crushing poverty, which happens to control the world’s largest reserves of lithium (which may one day replace oil as a crucial energy resource due to its use in powering smartphones, laptops, hybrid and electric cars), which has an extensive and well-documented history of being targeted for regime change by the U.S. government, simply stepped down due to some sort of scandal involving a “disputed election.” Nothing to do with the fact that right-wing mobs had been terrorizing this leader’s family, or the fact that the nation’s military literally commanded him to step down and are now currently searching for him to arrest him, leading to ousted government officials being rounded up and held captive by soldiers wearingmasks.

All perfectly normal and not suspicious at all.

Secretary Pompeo

✔@SecPompeo

Fully support the findings of the @OAS_official report recommending new elections in #Bolivia to ensure a truly democratic process representative of the people’s will. The credibility of the electoral system must be restored.

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As is usual, mass media’s reporting on this story is in full alignment with the U.S. State Department, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also advancing the “disputed election” line in a tweet shortly before the forced resignation of Morales. Pompeo cited the evidence-free and discredited allegation of suspicious vote tallies during Morales’s re-election last month from the Washington-basedOrganization of American States (OAS). As Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic & Policy Research explains in a recent article for The Nation, the OAS receives 60 percent of its funding from Washington, which gives the U.S. tremendous leverage over the supposedly neutral and international body. This ties in interestingly with what we discussed the other day about Washington’s known history of using its disproportionate financial support for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as leverage to force that supposedly neutral and international body to comply with U.S. agendas.

The field of narrative management keeps making more and more advances.

Mark Weisbrot@MarkWeisbrot

They never did find any evidence of fraud in the October 20th election, but the media repeated the allegation so many times that it became "true," in this post-truth world. Thread: https://twitter.com/MarkWeisbrot/status/1193629359925579776 …

Mark Weisbrot@MarkWeisbrot

Well it's officially a military coup now in Bolivia. And, as usual, backed by the United States government. Without the US-dominated OAS, & a lot of terrible and even false reporting, it probably wouldn't have happened.

8 832

03:08 - 11 нояб. 2019 г.

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The U.S.-centralized empire just keeps throwing coup attempts at unabsorbed governments until they stick. The coup in Venezuela failed in 2002 and again in 2019, but they’ll just keep attempting them until one takes hold. A kickboxer throws strikes in combinations with the understanding that most attacks will miss or do minimal damage against a trained opponent, but eventually one will get through and score the knockout blow. Imperialist regime change agendas employ the same punches-in-bunches philosophy: just keep attacking and undermining at every possible turn, and eventually something will stick.

And the empire can afford to do this. When you have all the power and resources, you can bide your time, knowing that if the current attempt at toppling the government in a sovereign nation fails, there’s always tomorrow.

At a United Nations Security Council meeting last year, Morales summed up the true nature of America’s role in the world very accurately, and, it turns out, very presciently.

“I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy,” Morales said. “If such were the case it would not have financed coups d’etat and supported dictators. It would not have threatened with military intervention democratically elected governments as it has done with Venezuela. The United States could not care less about human rights or justice. If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties that have protected human rights. It would not have threatened the investigation mechanism of the International Criminal Court, nor would it promote the use of torture, nor would it have walked away from the Human Rights Council. And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families, nor put them in cages.”

“The United States is not interested in multilateralism,” Morales continued. “If it were interested in multilateralism it would not have withdrawn from the Paris Agreement or given the cold shoulder to the global compact on migration, it would not have launched unilateral attacks, nor have taken decisions such as illegally declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. This contempt for multilateralism is motivated by the thirst of the United States for political control and for the seizing of natural resources.”

“Each time that the United States invades nations, launches missiles, or finances regime change, it does so behind a propaganda campaign which incessantly repeats the message that it is acting in the course of justice, freedom and democracy, in the cause of human rights or for humanitarian reasons,” Morales also said.

“The responsibility of our generation is to hand over a fairer and more secure world to the following generation,” Morales concluded. “We will only achieve this dream if we work together to consolidate a multipolar world, a world with common rules that are respected by and defended from all the threats ranged against the United Nations.”

Indeed, the only reason the U.S. is able to wage its endless campaign of regime change agendas against unabsorbed governments is because the unipolar world order it rules has allowed it the power, resources and leisure to do so. A multipolar world would enable the citizenry of this planet to have a say in what happens to them in a way that is not dictated by a few sociopaths in and around Washington, DC. A multipolar world is to democracy as a unipolar world is to monarchy. The citizens of the world should oppose this unipolarity.

CaitlinJohnstone.com via consortiumnews.com