jmp on Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:23:42 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> Evo Morales: people of Bolivia are rising up



On 11/11/2019 23:33, martha rosler wrote:
> is this where nettime is heading? Toward straight rightwing talking points?
>  Sheesh!
>  Makes Morlock seem rational, or at least original.

It is probably a little more complex than left/right, although it is so
conveniently nice and easy to reduce disagreements to that.

The link
[https://towardfreedom.org/front-page-feature/bolivia-the-extreme-right-takes-advantage-of-a-popular-uprising/]
provided by Hanns Holger Rutz is informative:

"...What caused the fall of the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia is
an uprising by the people of Bolivia and their organizations. Their
movements demanded his resignation before the army and police did. The
Organization of American States sustained the government until the
bitter end....

...The context for what is taking place in Bolivia didn’t start with
electoral fraud, rather it began with systematic attacks by the
government of Evo Morales and Álvaro García Linera against the same
popular movements that brought them to power, to the point that when
they needed the movements to defend them, the movements were deactivated
and demoralized...

...The social mobilization and the refusal of movements to defend what
in another moment they considered to be “their” government was what
precipitated Morales’ resignation. That is made clear by the
declarations by the Workers’ Central of Bolivia (COB), the teachers and
authorities of the Public University of El Alto (UPEA), and dozens of
other organizations, including Mujeres Creando, which has been perhaps
the clearest of all. The Latin American left appears unable to accept
that a considerable segment of popular movements demanded the
resignation of the government, because they can’t see beyond the leaders
(los caudillos)..."

It is written by Raul Zibechi, who is well respected by many lefty-like
researchers and
activists *who actually know what is going on in Latin America*:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAl_Zibechi

https://towardfreedom.org/author/raul-zibechi/

On a personal note: I happened to be in Bolivia the week after Morales
went into office. There were protests. He was always unpopular with many
indigenous and peasants,

Same as Correa [Ecuador]. A Sarayaku activist friend said during
Correa's election campaign: "It will be great for the middle classes, a
disaster for us."

And it was.

Correa was praised and touted by Euro-American 'socialists' as some sort
of beacon... In reality he was a cunning liar and ruthlessly used the
military to destroy indigenous questioning of his developmentalism.

Back in those days I'd receive outraged mails from "lefties" calling me
a traitor when reporting...

Here a txt msg from a Bolivian friend just came:

"..Morales hords are terrorising la paz, burning houses, buses,
persecuting innocent people, etc..."

.. and so on....

If you want to make this a left/right issue, you will always end up on
the right, but the wrong side.. The people of Bolivia are rising up
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