How Bush Tried to Bring Down Evo Morales

[Judi Lynn]

November 18, 2008

How Bush Tried to Bring Down Evo Morales
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia
By ROGER BURBACH

Evo Morales is the latest democratically-elected Latin American president to be the target of a US plot to destabilize and overthrow his government. On September 10, 2008 Morales expelled US Ambassador Philip Goldberg because “he is conspiring against democracy and seeking the division of Bolivia.”
Observers of US-Latin American policy tend to view the crisis in US-Bolivian relations as due to a policy of neglect and ineptness towards Latin America because of US involvement in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. In fact, the Bolivia coup attempt was a conscious policy rooted in US hostility towards Morales, his political party the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the social movements that are aligned with him.

“The US embassy is historically used to calling the shots in Bolivia, violating our sovereignty, treating us like a banana republic,” says Gustavo Guzman, who was expelled as Bolivian ambassador to Washington following Goldberg’s removal. In 2002, when Morales narrowly lost his first bid for the presidency, US ambassador Manuel Rocha openly campaigned against him, threatening, “ if you elect those who want Bolivia to become a major cocaine exporter again, this will endanger the future of US assistance to Bolivia.” Because he led the Cocaleros Federation prior to assuming the presidency, the US State Department called Morales an “illegal coca agitator.”Morales advocated “Coca Yes, Cocaine No,” and called which for an end to violent U.S.-sponsored coca eradication raids, and for the right of Bolivian peasants to grow coca for domestic consumption, medicinal uses and even for export as an herb in tea and other products.

“When Morales triumphed in the next presidential election,” says Guzman, “it represented a defeat for the United States.” Shortly after his inauguration, Morales received a call from George Bush, offering to help "bring a better life to Bolivians." Morales asked Bush to reduce US trade barriers for Bolivian products, and suggested that he come for a visit. Bush did not reply. As Guzman notes, “the United States was trying to woo Morales with polite and banal comments to keep him from aligning with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.” David Greenlee, the US ambassador prior to Goldberg, expressed his "preoccupation" with Bolivia's foreign alliances, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others at the Pentagon began talking about "security concerns" in Bolivia.

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, the highest ranking US official to attend Morales’ inauguration, declared a willingness to dialogue with Morales. In fact, what followed were almost three years of diplomatic wrangling while the U.S. provided direct and covert assistance to the opposition movement centered in the four eastern departments of Bolivia known as “La Media Luna”. Dominated by agro-industrial interests, the departments began a drive for regional autonomy soon after Morales, the first Indian president in Bolivian history took office. (About 55% of the country’s population is Indian.) Headed by departmental prefects (governors) and large landowners, the autonomy movement has been determined to stymie Morales’ plans for national agrarian reform, and bent on taking control of the substantial hydro-carbon resources located in the Media Luna

~snip~
In late 2007, the US embassy began moving openly to meet with the right-wing opposition in Media Luna. Ambassador Goldberg was photographed in Santa Cruz with a leading business magnate who backs the autonomy movement, and a well-known Colombian narco-trafficker who had been detained by the local police. Morales, in revealing the photo, said the trafficker was linked to right wing para-military organizations in Colombia. In response, the US embassy asserted that it couldn’t vet everyone who appeared in a photo with the ambassador.

Then in January, 2008, the Embassy was caught giving aid to a special intelligence unit of the Bolivian police force. The embassy rationalized its assistance by saying “the U.S. government has a long history of helping the National Police of Bolivia in diverse programs.” U.S.-Bolivian relations were next roiled in February, when it was revealed that Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar had been pressured by an embassy official to keep tabs on Venezuelans and Cubans in the country. This violated the founding statutes of the Peace Corps, which prohibit any intelligence activities by volunteers.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach11182008.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. A very dramatic story of the Bushwhacks' active participation in a fascist coup attempt

this year, just concluded, with the failure of the coup.

I would add that I think Brazil and Argentina were key players in stopping this coup--which attempted to violently split off Bolivia's gas/oil rich provinces into a fascist mini-state in control of the resources. Brazil and Argentina are Bolivia's chief gas customers, and they said, early on, that they would not recognize any separatist state and would not trade with them.

The leftist governments of South America are sticking together to defend their self-determination and sovereignty from attack by the Bushwhacks, which may well continue, if Obama's appointment of Chiquita International's death squad attorney, Eric Holder, as U.S. Attorney General, is any indication. I couldn't be more outraged at a Bush...oops, Obama appointment. Very bad signal on South America. More U.S. troublemaking, attempted resource grabs, killings, efforts to destabilize, coup attempts and economic, and possibly outright bloody war on the people of the south. That's what Eric Holder as A.G. says to me--and will say to South America--and Obama will have to prove otherwise, if he really intends peace and cooperation.