Evo Moreles bak pres

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1119 bak format coup</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-->sandra bullock billy bob</font></div><div><div width="6" class="cellCell-g0fptp-0 ndOaa" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; min-width: 0px; grid-column: 5 / span 6; grid-row-end: span 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 class="TextstyledText-zyj2x0-0 headerStyledH2-sc-1pwlzp1-0 bjyrzA UPdxn" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1; margin: 10px 0px 20px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Brand is Crisis (2005)</font></h2></div><div width="6" class="cellCell-g0fptp-0 iLDXyn" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; min-width: 0px; grid-column: 5 / span 6; grid-row-end: span 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="TextstyledText-zyj2x0-0 paragraphStyledParagraph-wo9vc1-0 jGtmqY hcSdLH" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.55556; margin: 0px 0px 30px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058Q2YM8/?tag=thecultri-20" sl-processed="1" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; pointer-events: all; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(255, 188, 162) 0px -2px 0px inset; transition: box-shadow 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.33, 0.66, 0.66, 1) 0s; will-change: box-shadow; padding-bottom: 0px;">Our Brand is Crisis</a>&nbsp;is an insightful documentary that examines the questionable practice of U.S. Government interference in Latin American elections. In 2002, a sleek U.S. funded political marketing campaign headed by&nbsp;<b>legendary image consultant James Carville sees unpopular Bolivian candidate Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, A.K.A. Gringo Goni, get elected ahead of the firebrand,&nbsp;</b>anti-imperialist Evo Morales. The documenary is widely praised for providing a fascinating insight into the sleazy world of U.S political campaigning.</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://theintercept.com/2021/05/04/bolivia-coup-trump-mit-evo-morales/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: SwiftNeueLTW01, Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: TIActuBeta-ExBold_web, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">JUSTICE DEPARTMENT</span>&nbsp;trial attorney repeatedly contacted Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers asking, eventually under threat of subpoena, about research they had conducted on the 2019 Bolivian presidential election, according to emails obtained by The Intercept. Sent between October 2020 and January 2021, the emails point to the existence of the&nbsp;Justice Department inquiry and add new evidence to support Bolivian allegations that the United States was implicated in its 2019 coup.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: SwiftNeueLTW01, Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 20px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The emails reveal the Justice Department’s involvement in the Bolivian coup regime’s criminal investigation into alleged voter fraud, which has not previously been reported. The inquiry targeted a pair of respected MIT researchers about their work for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in which they broadly refuted suspicions that Bolivia’s socialist party had&nbsp;rigged the&nbsp;election.&nbsp;</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: SwiftNeueLTW01, Georgia, serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-size: 20px;">The short-lived coup regime reached power following a clear script: In the weeks leading up to the Bolivian presidential election in October 2019, the opposition pumped endless propaganda through social media and television networks, warning that incumbent President Evo Morales would exploit widespread fraud to win reelection. Morales had become the first Indigenous president elected in Bolivia in 2005, at the head of his party Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, and by 2019, he was running for his fourth term. He faced intense opposition, often framed in explicitly racist terms, from a Frankenstein coalition of right-wing Bolivians of European descent and supporters of former President Carlos Mesa, once a member of Bolivia’s left revolutionary party who had become hostile to Morales’s social democratic government.</p></div><div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjhl5Gks9XtAhVERKwKHfAYCDgQIDAFegQIDhAH" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">=</font></a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjhl5Gks9XtAhVERKwKHfAYCDgQIDAFegQIDhAH" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-coup-2649595275/</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">IMI</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjhl5Gks9XtAhVERKwKHfAYCDgQIDAFegQIDhAH">I</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">n recent weeks, Donald Trump has been ridiculed, slathered with contempt, and repeatedly branded a "liar," as well as an existential threat to democracy in the United States, by the biggest media outlets in the country. This is in response to his attempts to reverse the results of the U.S. presidential election, and claiming—without evidence—that it was stolen. He still clings to these allegations, but he will be leaving the White House on January 20.</span></font><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But just over a year ago, a similar effort was launched in Bolivia, and it actually prevailed. The country's democratically elected president, Evo Morales, was toppled three weeks after the October 20 vote, before his term was finished. He left the country after the military "asked" him to resign.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The similarities are remarkable. Leaders of the Bolivian opposition indicated before the votes were counted, as Trump did, that they would&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50119655" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">not accept</a>&nbsp;the result if they lost. Like Trump, they had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/world/americas/bolivia-election-evo-morales.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">no evidence</a>&nbsp;for their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">allegations</a>&nbsp;of fraud when the votes were counted. And as with Trump, the falseness of their charges was obvious from&nbsp;<a href="https://cepr.net/press-release/oas-should-retract-its-press-release-on-bolivian-election-cepr-co-director-says/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">day one</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some readers may question the relevance of the comparison with a developing country whose democratic institutions have a shorter history, and are in important ways weaker than those in the U.S. government. But the Bolivian right would not have succeeded, where Trump has failed, if not for another important difference: the Bolivian right had powerful help from outside the country in pulling off their coup.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not surprisingly some of this help came from the Trump administration, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-regarding-resignation-bolivian-president-evo-morales/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">stated</a>&nbsp;the day after the coup that "Morales's departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Even more important help came from the Organization of American States (OAS), which, not coincidentally, gets 60 percent of its funding from the United States. The OAS also currently has a leader, Luis Almagro, who at the time of Bolivia's election needed the support of Trump and his allied right-wing governments in the Americas in order to be reelected as the head of the organization. The OAS issued a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-085/19" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">statement</a>&nbsp;the day after the election, expressing "deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This allegation turned out to be "false," as the New York Times would later&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/world/americas/bolivia-election-evo-morales.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">report</a>; but as the Times noted, this false allegation "changed the South American nation's history." It changed history because it served as the political foundation for the military coup on November 10, 2019.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another similarity: remember when Trump and his Republican allies were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-will-win-if-legal-votes-are-counted-says-dems-are-trying-to-steal-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">saying</a>&nbsp;that the Democrats were "stealing" the election here because the later, mostly mail-in votes were coming in overwhelmingly from Democrats? Of course this was false; the truth was simply that more Democrats than Republicans were voting by mail.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">The OAS allegation in Bolivia was the same</b>: for various reasons—including geography—votes in the pro-Morales areas came in later than those for the opposing candidates. This was obvious from the day after the election by simply looking at the areas where the earlier and later votes were coming from; the data was all on the web. That's why 133 economists and statisticians from various countries—the majority from the United States—signed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/02/the-oas-has-to-answer-for-its-role-in-the-bolivian-coup" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">letter</a>&nbsp;demanding that the OAS retract its false statements.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's why four members of the U.S. Congress&nbsp;<a href="https://schakowsky.house.gov/sites/schakowsky.house.gov/files/OAS%20Boliva_Final.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">asked</a>&nbsp;the OAS if they ever considered the possibility—which amazingly was not mentioned in three more OAS reports—that the later-reporting precincts were politically different from the earlier ones.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It's been a year, and the OAS still hasn't answered.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In October, the de facto government, which took power after last year's coup, held elections, after postponing them twice. Luis Arce, Evo Morales's economy minister for 13 years, won by a margin of more than 26 percentage points.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the people killed by the post-coup government, including at least 22 people killed in two&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/3p2Z9P2" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">massacres</a>&nbsp;committed by security forces, cannot be brought back to life. The&nbsp;<b>victims were all Indigenous.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like the effort of Trump in the United States—as seen in the recent Republican&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/us/politics/michigan-election-results.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">attempt</a>&nbsp;to throw out hundreds of thousands of votes from Detroit, Michigan, where nearly 80 percent of residents are Black—the assault on democracy in Bolivia is also tied to systemic racism.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Evo Morales is the first Indigenous president in a country with the largest percent of Indigenous population in the Americas, who have overwhelmingly supported him and his party; the leaders of the coup are&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/38gFwfE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">infused</a>&nbsp;with white supremacists and seek to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/world/americas/morales-bolivia-Indigenous-racism.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">restore</a>&nbsp;the dominance of the mostly white elite who ruled the country before Morales was first elected in 2005.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, both of Chicago, have called for Congress to&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/515085-congress-should-investigate-oas-actions-in-bolivia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">investigate</a>&nbsp;the role of the OAS in Bolivia following the 2019 election.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is vitally important, because the coup, and the violence and political repression that followed, might never have happened without the OAS's pivotal role. Perhaps most importantly, the OAS had an enormous impact on the international and domestic media, with many journalists mistakenly believing that the OAS Electoral Observation Mission was impartial, and that therefore their allegations were true.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the Bolivian coup is not the first time that the OAS has abused its authority as an electoral observer, in order to support a U.S.-backed effort to topple a democratically elected government. This&nbsp;<a href="https://cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-oas-2011-10.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">happened</a>&nbsp;in Haiti between 2000 and 2004. And also in Haiti, the OAS did something in 2011 that perhaps no election observers had ever done: they reversed the results of a first-round presidential election,&nbsp;<a href="https://cepr.net/documents/publications/haiti-oas-2011-10.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">without</a>&nbsp;even a recount or a statistical analysis.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The OAS and its leadership must be held accountable, or these crimes will keep happening.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://cepr.net/staff-member/mark-weisbrot/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mark Weisbrot</a>&nbsp;is co-director of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cepr.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Center for Economic and Policy Research</a>&nbsp;in Washington, D.C. He is the author of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cepr.net/publications/failed-what-the-experts-got-wrong-about-the-global-economy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy</a>&nbsp;(Oxford University Press, 2015).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was produced in partnership by the&nbsp;<a href="https://cepr.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Center for Economic and Policy Research</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; 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transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Is Trump Trying to Stage a Coup? - The Atlantic ›</a></li></ul></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:pQ4OA6SwV6EJ:https://www.rapidtransition.org/stories/the-rights-of-nature-in-bolivia-and-ecuador/%2B%26cd%3D6%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwjhl5Gks9XtAhVERKwKHfAYCDgQIDAFegQIDhAH" style="text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"></font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see evang opponent</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">has doing god's will earned him "magical authority? see below</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-and-white-evangelical-christians-are-bonded-by-sadism/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/trump-and-white-evangelical-christians-are-bonded-by-sadism/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">john s eb</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">t<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here’s still too much confusion over the president’s bond&nbsp;with white evangelical Protestants (WEPs). I suppose there will always be as long as outsiders presume that Donald Trump’s strongest supporters believe in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;loving thy neighbor as thyself. Once you see that WEPs do not apply the Golden Rule universally and unconditionally, things become clearer. Once this Christian concept is removed from the discussion, “paradoxes” melt into the air. What’s left is a natural alignment of political interests.</span></font></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">How do I know WEPs don’t truly believe in the Golden Rule? From life experience. I know what I’m talking about. All you have to do is listen carefully, however, and know what to listen for. Elizabeth Dias wrote a big piece in the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Times</em>&nbsp;last week trying to clear up the “contradiction” of WEPs standing by Trump “when he shut out Muslim refugees. When he separated children from their parents at the border. When he issued brash insults over social media. When he uttered falsehoods as if they were true. When he was impeached.” A source explains helpfully that there’s no contradiction at all.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The years of the Obama presidency were confusing to her,” Dias wrote of her source. “She said she heard talk of giving freedoms to gay people and members of minority groups. But to her it felt like her freedoms were being taken away. And that she was turning into the minority.</b>” The source: “I do not love Trump. I think Trump is good for America as a country.&nbsp;<b>I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all. Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This makes no sense to outsiders. Freedom for “gay people and members of minority groups” is not taking anything away from anybody. This makes no sense, because outsiders do not generally accept a</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;worldview in which power is ordered. First God, then man, then woman, then child. White over nonwhite. Heterosexual over LGBTQ. Christian over non-Christian. When you believe with your whole being that power is ordered according to God’s will, “giving freedoms to gay people and members of minority groups” is not political&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">equality</em>, as outsiders would often see it. It’s knocking you out of the order of power. It’s taking something away. Equality is literally&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">theft</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">when political equality is theft, you cannot apply the Golden Rule universally and unconditionally. If you did, you’d be complicit in a crime. The Golden Rule demands white people share power with nonwhite people. It demands husbands share power with their wives. Neither can&nbsp;</span><em times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding">ever</em><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">&nbsp;be done.<b>&nbsp;A wife, according to the same source in Dias’ reporting, must “submit” to her husband in accordance with God’s law. If she does not, she’s trying “to rule over him.”</b>&nbsp;Same for whites and nonwhites. If white people are not at the top of the order, they are being ruled over. This is why Dias’ source says that, “Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.” The more for “them,” the less for “us.” They believe Trump prevents that from happening.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>They believe Trump is “restoring their freedom.</b>” Utter nonsense. What they are really saying is that the president will prevent people lower down the order of power from achieving more freedom and equality, “violating” their “freedom.” He must do that by any means, even if he confiscates kids from their mothers, bans a world religion, or<b>&nbsp;commits treason. None of that matters as much as maintaining the supremacy of a religious identity built on sand.&nbsp;</b>And make no mistake: this is a religious identity. These are very real anti-democratic Christians hostile to critical thinking, modernity, pluralism, and all forms of equality. “It’s almost like it is a reverse intolerance,” a WEP source told Dias. “<b>If you have somebody that’s maybe on the liberal side, they say that we are intolerant of them. But it is inverse intolerant if we can’t live out our faith.”[ // reverse discrimination]</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">If WEPs believed in the Golden Rule, they’d never tolerate other people’s pain. They do tolerate it, however. Indeed, they like it. It feels good to see the president “restoring their freedom.”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;When WEPs say they want to “live out our faith,” what they mean is sadism is and should be a natural consequence of the natural order of things in which God’s people are chosen to rule in God’s name.&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is,” Dias wrote. “They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are.”</b>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That’s correct, but take that to its logical conclusion. His enemies are their enemies. His pleasures, their pleasures. Their bond is far from a contradiction. It’s an alignment of political interests in which sadism is the point.</span></font></p><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">has doing god's will earned him "magical authority? ends justify the means? see above</span></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">mis-spoke? made up extreme exec priv or somesuch? invokes article II? or somesuch?that&nbsp;<b>chosen one&nbsp;</b>was a goof/joke? tho rw in bolivia ~ evo m claims she is restoring xian thus doing god's will? reasserts hier over indig prez</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/former-dhs-staff-trump-claimed-magical-authorities-to-break-the-law/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/former-dhs-staff-trump-claimed-magical-authorities-to-break-the-law/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt text</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Former DHS staff: Trump claimed ‘magical authorities’ to break the law</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 19, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of all the Never Trump groups that have organized to defeat the president, the one that has impressed me the most is Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT). They’ve asked lifelong Republicans to videotape themselves explaining why they refuse to support Trump.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because I know quite a few conservatives, I’m aware that many of them are uncomfortable with this president—even though they won’t admit it openly. Hearing from Republicans about their refusal to support Trump can provide a permission structure that allows them to confront their partisan tribalism and begin to surface their distaste for having a narcissistic bully in the White House.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the latest video from RVAT goes a step further and brings us a voice from inside the Trump administration about what’s really going on behind the scenes. It is as terrifying as we’ve all imagined.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security says that the president wanted to exploit DHS “for his own political purposes and to fuel his own agenda.”&nbsp; For example, in the middle of the wildfires in California, Trump told FEMA to cut off funding for assistance to that state because the people who lived there didn’t support him. That lends credence to the story from Katherine Eban that Trump and Kushner were content to allow tens of thousands of Americans to die from COVID-19 as long as they were from Democratic states and counties.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But here’s the really terrifying part of that video: the president didn’t want to hear that his directives were illegal, saying he had “magical authorities.” What the hell does that mean?</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the same day that this video was released, an op-ed by Miles Taylor was published at the Washington Post in which he states:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Like many Americans, I had hoped that Donald Trump, once in office, would soberly accept the burdens of the presidency — foremost among them the duty to keep America safe. But he did not rise to the challenge. Instead, the president has governed by whim, political calculation and self-interest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Frankly, there were other people in the room when Trump claimed “magical authorities” to break the law (I’m looking at you Kirstjen Nielsen). They now need to step up to the plate for their country to back up what Taylor is saying …</span>&nbsp;That’s because the stakes are so high. At the end of the video above, Taylor says that people who are still serving in this administration have told him, “Just wait until the second term. It’ll be no holds barred, it’ll be shock and awe, we’ll do what we want.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Taylor ends by saying that, despite having policy differences with Joe Biden, he will vote for the Democratic ticket in November. That’s because he understands the difference between what Adam Gopnik called&nbsp;<b>“toxic enemies and honest opponents.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What’s needed against Trump now is…not an ideologically narrow, politically focussed opposition but the widest possible coalition of people who genuinely value the tenets of democracy, meaning no more than the passionate desire to settle differences by debate and argument, rather than by power and cruelty and clan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’d say that, given their latest ad, the Lincoln Project knows the difference too. Above and beyond policy differences, it all comes down to character.</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/the-u-s-supported-coup-in-bolivia-continues-to-produce-repression-and-tyranny-while-revealing-how-u-s-media-propaganda-works/">https://theintercept.com/2020/07/23/the-u-s-supported-coup-in-bolivia-continues-to-produce-repression-and-tyranny-while-revealing-how-u-s-media-propaganda-works/</a>
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</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: none; text-transform: uppercase; line-height: 30px;">U.S.-SUPPORTED MILITARY COUP</span>&nbsp;in Bolivia has largely disappeared from western news outlets ever since the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/20/bolivia-el-alto-violence-death-protest" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">November 2019 massacres</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;pro-democracy protesters by the right-wing faction that seized power. But for Bolivians, the repression and tyranny that replaced their stable and thriving democracy endures. And, predictably, the “interim president” installed after the coup, Jeanine Áñez, continues to rule the country&nbsp;10 months later, despite no possibility of being democratically elected, while she and her party plot how to prevent an election which all&nbsp;<a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200316-morales-pick-leads-in-bolivia-opinion-polls" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">polls show</a>&nbsp;will result in victory for the socialist party of toppled President Evo Morales.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What makes the coup in Bolivia and its aftermath so worthwhile to explore is not just the inherent importance of Bolivia itself: a country of 11 million people with a rich and unique ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, as well as an ample supply of the now-vital resource of lithium. It is also instructive because of how&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/08/the-nyt-admits-key-falsehoods-that-drove-last-years-coup-in-bolivia-falsehoods-peddled-by-the-u-s-its-media-and-the-nyt/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">U.S. discourse evolved in support of the coup</a>, with&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">supposed “foreign policy experts” across the political spectrum — The Atlantic’s Yascha Mounk, Mother Jones’ Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery, former Obama official and&nbsp;<b>Stanford Professor Michael McFaul,</b>&nbsp;along with the Economist, the New York Times, and the Washington Post — spouting outright falsehoods to depict the destruction of Bolivian democracy as the salvation of it.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Since the coup last October, many of the key claims used to justify the ousting of Morales — most particularly claims by the Organization of American States that the election resulting in Morales’s victory was fraudulent — have been proven&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/08/the-nyt-admits-key-falsehoods-that-drove-last-years-coup-in-bolivia-falsehoods-peddled-by-the-u-s-its-media-and-the-nyt/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">to have been lies</a></span>. Yet not a single one of the foreign policy “experts” or media outlets have acknowledged their errors or even addressed these subsequent revelations, because they know that there are never any consequences for journalists and analysts as long as they remain subservient to the U.S. government agenda (while the New York Times reported on the studies proving the OAS claims to be baseless, they never acknowledged that their own reporting and editorializing treated those claims as true).</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolivia is&nbsp;but the latest&nbsp;of&nbsp;a long line of thriving, stable democracies destroyed with the support if not the outright participation of the U.S. government, while jingoistic media figures disseminated the propaganda used to justify it all. And the suffering, violence, repression and tyranny left in its wake are then simply ignored by those who helped bring it about.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1em; letter-spacing: 0.01em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE, which debuts at 2:00 pm ET on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgxK9w5DSvQ" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept’s YouTube channel</a>, explores all of these issues, provides an update on post-coup Bolivia, and dissects the key role played by propaganda from U.S. political and media venues. I’m joined by two&nbsp;<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" style="box-sizing: border-box;">of the most knowledgeable specialists on Bolivia: Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network,&nbsp;who has lived and worked with coca farmers in Bolivia for the last 30 years,&nbsp;and Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic & Policy Research,&nbsp;the first group to debunk the OAS claims of election fraud. For so many reasons, Bolivia matters, not just to people in the region but also in the U.S.&nbsp;</span></font></p><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div></div></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/08/the-nyt-admits-key-falsehoods-that-drove-last-years-coup-in-bolivia-falsehoods-peddled-by-the-u-s-its-media-and-the-nyt/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://theintercept.com/2020/06/08/the-nyt-admits-key-falsehoods-that-drove-last-years-coup-in-bolivia-falsehoods-peddled-by-the-u-s-its-media-and-the-nyt/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;New York Times Admits Key Falsehoods That Drove Last Year’s Coup in Bolivia: Falsehoods Peddled by the U.S., Its Media, and the Times</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. government and its media once again help destroy a thriving Latin American democracy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Glenn Greenwald</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 8 2020,&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this Nov. 27, 2019 photo, Bolivia's former President Evo Morales pumps his fist after a press conference at the journalists club in Mexico City. Morales went into exile in Mexico after he was prodded by police and the military, forcing him to resigned on Nov. 10, after he claimed victory in an election that international observers invited in by the government said was marred by numerous irregularities. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)In this Nov. 27, 2019, photo, Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales pumps his fist after a press conference at the journalists club in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) AP]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IN NOVEMBER 2019, Bolivia’s three-term left-wing president, Evo Morales, was forced by the country’s military and police forces to flee to Mexico after Morales, the prior month, had been officially certified as the winner of his fourth consecutive presidential election. It was unsurprising that Morales won. As the Associated Press noted in 2014, his governance was successful by almost every key metric, and he was thus “widely popular at home for a pragmatic economic stewardship that spread Bolivia’s natural gas and mineral wealth among the masses.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Morales’s popularity had marginally waned since his 2014 landslide victory, he was still the most popular politician in the country. On the night of the October 21, 2019, vote, Bolivia’s election board certified that Morales’s margin of victory against the second-place candidate exceeded the ten percent threshold required under Bolivian law to avoid a runoff, thus earning him a fourth term. But allegations of election fraud were quickly voiced by Morales’s right-wing opponents, leading to his expulsion from the country on November 11.</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Once he fled, Bolivia’s first-ever president from the country’s Indigenous population was replaced by a little-known, white, far-right senator, Jeanine Áñez, from the country’s minority European-descendent, Christian, wealthy region. Her new, unelected government promptly massacred dozens of Indigenous protesters and then vested the responsible soldiers with immunity. Seven months later, Áñez predictably continues to rule Bolivia as “interim president” despite never having run for president, let alone having been democratically elected.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolivia's interim President Jeanine Anez addresses the nation at the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020. The message marked the anniversary of the naming of Bolivia as the "Plurinational State of Bolivia," by former President Evo Morales. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)Bolivia’s “interim” President Jeanine Áñez addresses the nation at the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, on Jan. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Juan Karita) AP]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The central tool used by both the Bolivian right and their U.S. government allies to justify the invalidation of Morales’s 10-point election victory were two election audits by the regional group Organization of American States — one a preliminary report issued on November 10, the day before Morales was forced from the country, and then its final report issued the next month — which asserted widespread, deliberate election fraud.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Given all the irregularities observed, it is impossible to guarantee the integrity of the data and certify the accuracy of the results,” the OAS announced on November 10 as the country was in turmoil over the election. The next day, Morales, under the threat of force to him and his family, boarded a plane to Mexico, where he was granted asylum. The final OAS report in December claimed that “the audit team has detected willful manipulation” of the results based on “incontrovertible evidence of an electoral process marred by grave irregularities.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But on Sunday, the New York Times published an article strongly suggesting that it was the OAS audit, not the Bolivian election, that was “marred by grave irregularities,” making it “impossible to guarantee the integrity of the data and certify the accuracy of the” OAS claims.</b> The paper of record summarized its reporting this way: “A close look at Bolivian election data suggests an initial analysis by the OAS that raised questions of vote-rigging — and helped force out a president — was flawed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New York Times, June 7, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To cast serious doubt on the integrity of these critical OAS reports, the Times relies upon a new independent study from three scholars at U.S. universities which — in the words of the NYT — examined “data obtained by the New York Times from the Bolivian electoral authorities.” That study, said the NYT, “has found that the Organization of American States’ statistical analysis was itself flawed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That study documented that the key “irregularity” cited by OAS “was actually an artifact of the analysts’ error.” It further explained that with regard to “the patterns that the observers deemed ‘inexplicable,’” the new data analysis shows that “we can explain them without invoking fraud.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While this new study focuses solely on the OAS’s data claims and does not purport to decree the Bolivian election entirely free of fraud — virtually no election, including in the U.S., is entirely free of irregularities — the NYT explains that “the authors of the new study said they were unable to replicate the OAS’s findings using its likely techniques” and that “the difference is significant” in assessing the overall validity of the OAS’s claims.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">”In sum,” the new report concludes, “we offer a different interpretation of the quantitative evidence that led the OAS and other researchers to question the integrity of the Bolivian election.“ Specifically, “we find that we do not require fraud in order to explain the quantitative patterns used to help indict Evo Morales.” The scholars’ bottom line: “we cannot replicate the OAS results.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>IT IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE to overstate the importance of the OAS accusations in driving Morales from his own country and, with no democratic mandate, shifting power in<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> lithium</span>-rich Bolivia to the white, Christian, U.S.-subservient right.</b> While critics had also accused Morales of improperly seeking a fourth term despite constitutional term limits, Bolivia’s duly constituted court had invalidated those term limits (much the way that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg induced the City Council to overturn a term limit referendum so he could seek a third term), leaving anti-Morales outside agitators, such as the OAS and U.S. officials, to rely instead on claims of election fraud.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On the day the preliminary OAS report was released, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited it both on Twitter and on the official State Department website to demand new elections:</b></font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pompeo, in January of this year, visited OAS’s Washington office and heaped praise on the organization for the role its audit played in forcing Morales from the country — a move which Pompeo heralded by invoking the long Orwellian U.S. tradition of depicting pro-U.S. military coups as “pro-democracy”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More recently, the OAS honored the former Bolivian government’s request to conduct an audit of the disputed election results. The probe conducted uncovered proof of massive and systemic fraud. It helped end the violence that had broken out over the election dispute. It helped the Bolivian Congress unanimously establish a date and conditions for a new election. And it honored – importantly, it honored the Bolivian people’s courageous demand for a free and fair election, and for democracy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.S. media outlets and foreign policy commentators dutifully echoed the U.S. State Department’s line, as they typically do, by depicting the violent military coup as an advancement of freedom and democracy for the Bolivian people (the same Bolivian people who had just voted for Morales to be their president). As a Washington Post op-ed in February by two MIT scholars noted: “The media has largely reported the allegations of fraud [from the OAS] as fact.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two days before Morales was forced to flee Bolivia, Johns Hopkins professor Yascha Mounk, who also covers foreign policy for The Atlantic, praised the coup leaders as “bravely standing up for democracy against a wannabe dictator,” and then, the following day, cited the preliminary OAS study as proof that the election was fraudulent:</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On November 11, the day after Morales was forced to flee, Mounk wrote in The Atlantic that Morales got what he deserved, claiming, among other things, that he rigged the election: “The strong circumstantial evidence of vote tampering succeeded in inspiring what years of more subtle attacks on democratic institutions had failed to do: Millions of Bolivians went out into the streets to demand a fair election.” One point Mounk got right: The OAS report was decisive. “When an independent observer mission from the Organization of American States published its audit of the election yesterday, the game was finally up,” he wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>(Mounk, knowing that there are never consequences for serving as a puppet for U.S foreign policy, has said not a word about the new study debunking the OAS claims)</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Obama foreign policy official and current Stanford professor Michael McFaul also cited the OAS report to cheer Morales’s fleeing as some sort of “excellent” blow for freedom and democracy<b>, only subsequently to delete his tweet when it prompted criticism</b>, acknowledging that he lacked the necessary information to form judgments:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The editor-in-chief of the ostensibly progressive journal Mother Jones, Clara Jeffery, had never previously evinced the slightest interest in or knowledge about Bolivia, yet somehow decided she was able to credibly snap into line behind the State Department by claiming that it was Morales — rather than the coup-plotters — who had “taken several end runs around a democratic process”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It likely goes without saying that the reliably pro-western-coup magazine, The Economist, was also among those leading the way in echoing the U.S. State Department and cheering the coup as a victory for democracy. “The armed forces spoke up for democracy and the constitution against an attempt at dictatorship,” announced the magazine during the week Morales was forced into exile. The Economist also posted more than a dozen tweets during that week claiming it was Morales who posed the threat to Bolivian democracy by virtue of the OAS findings of fraud:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But as usual, the two news outlets most influential in disseminating and ratifying false anti-democratic claims from the U.S. government were the Washington Post and — though they neglected to mention it in their article yesterday on the debunked OAS findings — the New York Times itself. The Post, in its article the day after Morales was forced to leave, ratified the election fraud accusation in its headline: “Bolivia’s Morales resigns amid scathing election report, rising protests.” The article heralded the findings of what it called “the multilateral organization,” noting that the OAS found Morales’s victory “was marred by profound irregularities.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Post editorial from the same day proclaimed in its headline: “Bolivia is in danger of slipping into anarchy. It’s Evo Morales’s fault.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Post editorial decreed: “there could be little doubt who was ultimately responsible for the chaos: newly resigned president Evo Morales.” How could the victim of a coup — who had just been elected President — be at fault for the resulting chaos? Because, explained the Post’s editors, “an audit released by the Organization of American States reported massive irregularities in the vote count and called for a fresh election.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times similarly and repeatedly hyped the OAS report as proof that Morales’s victory was illegitimate and the coup therefore democratic. “An independent international audit of Bolivia’s disputed election concluded that former President Evo Morales’s officials resorted to lies, manipulation and forgery to ensure his victory,” its news article claimed, without a syllable of critical pushback until the penultimate paragraph, where it noted that “some economists and statisticians in the United States” had pointed to flaws in the OAS’s data analysis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the paper’s editorial contained no such reservations, pronouncing Morales’s victory the byproduct of “a flawed election,” noting that “early suspicions of fraud by the Organization of American States helped fuel the protests and provided cover for the military to ‘suggest’ that Mr. Morales leave office.” The Times’s editorial then cited the final OAS report — which the paper yesterday called into question — as “substantiating those suspicions” by proving “‘a series of malicious operations aimed at altering the will expressed at the polls’ on Oct. 20.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In sum, when it came to the 2019 Bolivian coup, the U.S. media played its decades-old, standard role whenever the U.S. wants to depict a military coup against a government it dislikes as a victory for democracy: Namely, it blindly and dutifully adopted the State Department’s view and uncritically waved the flag.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As documented in his great, new book on the CIA’s Cold War tactics, “The Jakarta Method,” journalist Vincent Bevins — whom I recently interviewed for SYSTEM UPDATE — recounts how, throughout the Cold War, the U.S. media served as a key propaganda arm of the U.S. government by reliably depicting overthrows of adverse regimes as a joyous advancement for democracy. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As but one example, Bevins described how the CIA prevailed on the New York Times to suppress reporting about the savagery of the agency-supported coup-plotters in Guatemala and instead glorify them as “rebels” who were nobly fighting for democracy:</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vincent Bevins, “The Jakarta Method,” p. 45</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exactly the same formula was used by the New York Times and the bulk of the U.S. media when a U.S.-supported coup attempt in Venezuela failed in 2002 to depose the democratically elected President Hugo Chávez</b>. In an extraordinary paragraph, the Times heralded the U.S.-favored coup-leaders in Caracas as the guardians and saviors of democracy, while the democratically elected president was somehow the “dictator”:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Times similarly lamented the dangers posed to Bolivian democracy back in 2014 as the result of Morales’s landslide victory at the polls. To the Times and the U.S. media at large, democracy is imperiled when a candidate disliked by the U.S. wins at the polls; conversely, democracy can be saved only when such elected leaders are overthrown and replaced by force with a U.S.-backed puppet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NYT editors, while conceding in 2014 that “it is easy to see why many Bolivians would want to see Mr. Morales, the country’s first president with Indigenous roots, remain at the helm” — namely, “during his tenure, the economy of the country, one of the least developed in the hemisphere, grew at a healthy rate, the level of inequality shrank and the number of people living in poverty dropped significantly” — nonetheless insisted that Morales should be regarded as an enemy of democracy because “the pattern of prolonged terms in power is unhealthy for the region” [notably, the NYT would never suggest that Angela Merkel’s “prolonged term in power” as German chancellor (15 years and counting) or Benjamin Netanyahu’s 4-terms-and-counting-in-power as Israeli prime minister pose a similar threat to democracy. This is a “concern” reserved by the U.S. media only for Latin American leaders disliked by the U.S. State Department].</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the end of its 2014 editorial on Bolivia and Latin America, the Times inadvertently revealed the real reason it disliked these elected leaders. Concern for democracy is the pretext. The real reason it wants those elected leaders gone was revealed by this candid sentence: “This regional dynamic has been dismal for Washington’s influence in the region.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As U.S. media coverage of last year’s coup in Bolivia demonstrates, little has changed since the Cold War when it comes to media fealty to the State Department and the CIA. Because the U.S. government preferred the right-wing coup-plotters to the left-wing Morales, the U.S. media deliberately inverted the entire narrative to describe the elected leader (Morales) as the tyrant and the violent military coup leaders as the saviors of democracy. And they peddled this false narrative only by relying heavily on an OAS report that even the NYT is now forced to admit was, at best, deeply flawed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THAT THE OAS REPORT WAS DUBIOUS is not, contrary to the subtext of the NYT’s new article, something that was only recently discovered. That has been clear from ample evidence from the start — evidence that the jingoistic U.S. media rarely saw fit to mention.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after the preliminary OAS report was issued, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), on November 8, issued its own report highlighting numerous flaws in what it called “unsubstantiated doubts cast upon the vote count by the OAS mission.” Explaining that OAS claims of election irregularities were made “without evidence,” the report detailed that “neither the OAS mission nor any other party has demonstrated that there were widespread or systematic irregularities in the elections of October 20, 2019.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, the CEPR issued an even more comprehensive analysis, an 82-page report that concluded: “the OAS’s observation activities in Bolivia’s 2019 general elections are the latest example of a deeply problematic observation mission whose dishonest, biased, and unprofessional conduct has caused serious damage to the country’s democracy.” It added that “while the fraud narrative that the OAS helped promote contributed to Evo Morales, the country’s democratically elected president, fleeing the country,” the OAS Report “does not provide any evidence that those irregularities altered the outcome of the election, or were part of an actual attempt to do so.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In February — with Morales now in exile in Argentina — the Washington Post published an op-ed by two scholars from MIT. They summarized their argument this way:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The media has largely reported the [OAS’s] allegations of fraud as fact. And many commentators have justified the coup as a response to electoral fraud by MAS-IPSP. However, as specialists in election integrity, we find that the statistical evidence does not support the claim of fraud in Bolivia’s October election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In sum, the authors concluded, after setting forth their statistical findings in detail: “there is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find — the trends in the preliminary count, the lack of any big jump in support for Morales after the halt, and the size of Morales’s margin all appear legitimate. All in all, the OAS’s statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That the OAS is a subservient tool of the U.S. State Department is something that is widely known in Latin America. Yet it is a claim that virtually never appears in mainstream accounts from U.S. news outlets, which — as they did here — treat the group as some sort of neutral, authoritative arbiter of political disputes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Shortly after Morales was exiled from Bolivia and received asylum in Mexico, I traveled to Mexico City to interview him. I asked Morales about the OAS, and this is what he said:</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All along, there was ample reason to seriously doubt, if not outright reject, the OAS accusations of election irregularities and voter fraud. As CEPR’s Jake Johnston said today in response to the New York Times article:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For those paying close attention to the 2019 election, there was never any doubt that the OAS’ claims of fraud were bogus. Just days after the election, a high-level official inside the OAS privately acknowledged to me that there had been no “inexplicable” change in the trend, yet the organization continued to repeat its false assertions for many months with little to no pushback or accountability.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet those reasons for doubting the OAS accusations were barely ever even mentioned, let alone vested with credibility, by the U.S. media or its leading foreign policy commentators. Instead, as the MIT scholars wrote in the Washington Post, “the media largely reported the allegations of fraud as fact.” That’s because whenever it comes to changing a foreign country’s government that is disliked by the U.S., the U.S. media reflexively sides with the U.S. State Department and ceases to report and instead engages in pro-government propaganda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this case, Bolivia lost its most successful president in its modern history, and is consequently now ruled by an unelected military junta, all cheered on by the U.S. and its media, relying on an OAS report which even the New York Times is now forced to acknowledge is, at best, deeply flawed. Thus did the U.S. government and its media, yet again, help destroy a thriving Latin American democracy.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/bolivia-coup-was-based-on-false-claims-of-election-fraud/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/bolivia-coup-was-based-on-false-claims-of-election-fraud/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bolivia coup was based on false claims of election fraud</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams February 28, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A new study released by a pair of MIT researchers Thursday reveals that, contrary to claims from the U.S.-backed Organization of American States, there was no fraud in Bolivia’s Oct. 20, 2019 elections — an accusation used by the OAS and others as a pretext for supporting the coup in the country that deposed President Evo Morales and replaced him with an unelected right-wing government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Good lord,” tweeted MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes. “Given the fact the entire Morales government was toppled over accusations of election fraud, the OAS has a lot to answer for.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Intercept’s Jon Schwarz took a similar approach to the findings and the OAS’ conclusions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jon Schwarz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@schwarz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a surprising development, it appears that the same political forces and media that have lied about absolutely everything about Latin America for the past 100 years were lying again </b>https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/26/bolivia-dismissed-its-october-elections-fraudulent-our-research-found-no-reason-suspect-fraud/ …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Analysis | Bolivia dismissed its October elections as fraudulent. Our research found no reason to...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolivians will hold a new election in May — without ousted President Evo Morales.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">washingtonpost.com</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">593</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9:01 AM - Feb 27, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">248 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">MIT researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams reviewed the OAS report on the election for the Washington Post and found that the “election irregularities” cited by the group were based on “problematic” statistical claims. The OAS report rested its claim on the assumption that these so-called irregularities gave Morales a boost in numbers that raised his results over 10% higher than any other candidate, precluding a runoff election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The researchers say they requested a response from the OAS about their findings, but received no reply.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Curiel and Williams’ study was commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). The group’s co-director, Mark Weisbrot, said in a statement that the OAS has a lot of explaining to do after facilitating the coup through faulty information.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The OAS greatly misled the media and the public about what happened in Bolivia’s elections, and helped to foster a great deal of mistrust in the electoral process and the results,” said Weisbrot.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The orgnaization’s report bolstered the accusations of fraud in the Nov. 10 OAS report that precipitated the coup and the institution of hard-right legislator Jeanine Añez as president. The ensuing unrest and threats against he and his family, as Common Dreams reported at the time, forced Morales to flee the country for Mexico.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Curiel and Williams, the data used by OAS doesn’t line up with the organization’s conclusion:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Our results were straightforward. There does not seem to be a statistically significant difference in the margin before and after the halt of the preliminary vote. Instead, it is highly likely that Morales surpassed the 10-percentage-point margin in the first round. …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find </b>— the trends in the preliminary count, the lack of any big jump in support for Morales after the halt, and the size of Morales’ margin all appear legitimate. All in all, the OAS’ statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEPR’s Weisbrot declared the researchers’ findings troubling and questioned the OAS’ credibility.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This important analysis from MIT election researchers is the latest to show that the OAS’ statements were without basis, and that simple arithmetic shows that there is no evidence that fraud or irregularities affected the preliminary results, or the official results ? the ones that actually matter,” Weisbrot said. “The OAS needs to explain why it made these statements and why anyone should trust it when it comes to elections.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So much for that Bolivian election fraud,” tweeted the Intercept’s Ryan Grim.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The OAS is set to monitor new national elections in Bolivia set for May 3. Morales, still in exile, has effectively been barred from running.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Williams told Common Dreams that his and Curiel’s findings cast doubt on the organization’s impartiality and ability to act as a neutral arbiter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The OAS’s report has basic methodological and statistical errors that make it difficult to see the OAS as an impartial election observer,” said Williams. “The fact that they did not respond to researchers asking about their report on Bolivia seems to suggest they know this.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Nurses United director of communications Charles Idelson said on Twitter that the findings throw cold water on an attack line deployed by right-wing opponents of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, who have used his statement at Tuesday’s debate that the U.S. meddles in other countries against him.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The fraudulent right wing military coup in Bolivia was carried out with Trump administration support,” said Idelson, “but some apparently still pretend the U.S. never overthrows governments of other countries.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Curiel and Williams also point to the role in the media for uncritically regurgitating OAS claims on face value as the coup against Morales’ Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS-IPSP) party was underway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“The media has largely reported the allegations of fraud as fact,” the researchers write. “And many commentators have justified the coup as a response to electoral fraud by MAS-IPSP.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Utah-based progressive activist Tom Taylor called for accountability on the part of the media.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Our news outlets took what known liars like John Bolton said about Morales at face value,” said Taylor. “Zero critical thinking. The journalists were old enough to remember when we were lied into the Iraq War.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“There’s no other way to put it,” Taylor added. “Our media supported a coup.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/they-are-afraid-of-democracy-bolivias-evo-morales-protests-as-tribunal-blocks-his-senate-run/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/they-are-afraid-of-democracy-bolivias-evo-morales-protests-as-tribunal-blocks-his-senate-run/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>‘They are afraid of democracy’: Bolivia’s Evo Morales protests as tribunal blocks his Senate run</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams February 21, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Former Bolivian President Evo Morales on Friday accused the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal of being “afraid of democracy” after the seven-member body late Thursday barred Morales from running for Senate on the grounds that he did not meet residency requirements.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morales, who is currently living in Argentina after being ousted in a military coup last November, said during a press conference in Buenos Aires on Friday that the tribunal’s decision was “illegal and unconstitutional” and alleged the U.S. government was involved in the ruling.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a tweet Thursday night, Morales called the decision a “blow to democracy.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The members of the TSE know I meet the requirements to be a candidate,” added Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. The former president claimed that the ultimate goal of the current right-wing government of Jeanine Áñez is to ban the Movement for Socialism (MAS), Morales’ left-wing political party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December, the Áñez government issued an arrest warrant against Morales, accusing the former president of “terrorism and sedition.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ben Norton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@BenjaminNorton</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bolivia's only elected president, Evo Morales, characterized his ban from running as a Senate candidate as an assault on democracy. </b>"They are afraid of democracy," he said in a presser in Buenos Aires. He accused the Electoral Court of submitting to the dictatorship and US gov't. https://twitter.com/FreddyteleSUR/status/1230862972270018562 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freddy Morales</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@FreddyteleSUR</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evo Morales calificó su inhabilitación como candidato al Senado, como un atentado a la democracia. "Tienen miedo a la democracia", dijo en rueda de prensa en Buenos Aires. Acusó al Tribunal Electoral de someterse a la "dictadura" y al gobierno de los EE.UU.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolivian elections are set for May 3, the first contest since the November coup that deposed Morales and paved the way for Áñez to declare herself interim president. Bolivian lawmakers in November approved a measure calling for the new elections and barring Morales from participating.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Áñez announced last month that her name will be on the presidential ballot in May after previously suggesting it would be improper for her to run.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A poll by Ciesmori released earlier this week found that Luis Arce, the MAS presidential candidate, is leading the presidential field with 31.6 percent support. Former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa polled in second place with 17% support and Áñez ranked third with 16% support.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The ouster of Morales in November was followed by massive military and police repression of indigenous Bolivians, who took to the streets among others to voice opposition to the right-wing government. Days after declaring herself interim president on Nov. 12, Áñez issued a decree shielding military and law enforcement from prosecution for gunning down demonstrators.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Earlier this week, Morales tweeted that in just three months in power the Áñez government has “destroyed” the economic and social welfare policies he put in place during his nearly 14 years as president.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This situation hurts us a lot,” Morales said. “They want to get rid of all our social programs and privatize them.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>jaNUARY 24, 2020</div><div><b>What the Right Wing in Latin America Means by Democracy Is Violence</b></div><div>by VIJAY PRASHAD</div><div>
</div><div>It was a curious exchange. Frustrated by the attacks on his party—the Movement for Socialism (MAS)—former president of Bolivia Evo Morales made an audio recording in which he called upon his supporters to form militias. Maximilian Heath of Reuters went to Argentina to speak with Morales about this leaked recording; Morales said, “In Bolivia, if the armed forces are shooting the people, killing the people, the people have the right to organize their security.”</div><div>
</div><div>Morales’ anxiousness is rooted in fact. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—a body of the pro-U.S. Organization of American States—reported in December 2019 that there have been a series of massacres conducted by the armed forces of the current interim government in Bolivia. The use of the word “massacre” in this report is significant; these were not clashes or conflicts, but the targeted murder of civilians who supported MAS and Morales.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez Chávez, has made inflammatory statements about the indigenous support base of MAS and Morales. She has frequently spoken of them with derision, even saying that she dreams of a Bolivia without “satanic indigenous rites” and that “the city is not for the Indians.</b>” Áñez signed Supreme Decree no. 4078 that exempted the military from any criminal responsibility for its use of force; she wants to ban MAS, and her interior minister has filed a warrant for the arrest of Morales. This is a rapid and disturbing attack on the political fabric of Bolivia.</div><div>
</div><div>Apology</div><div>
</div><div>Morales’ statement about militias came merely as a way to say that he worried about the repression and violence occasioned by the interim government and the military, now immune from prosecution. U.S. President Donald Trump’s main envoy to Latin America—Mauricio Claver-Carone (who organized the bankrupting $57 billion loan to Argentina when he was the U.S. director at the International Monetary Fund)—went to Bolivia and attacked Morales. Morales, Claver-Carone said, is fomenting insurrection from Argentina. This is a bizarre statement.</div><div>
</div><div>Morales was re-elected in 2014. There was not a whiff of impropriety in that election. He had a mandate to remain in office until January 2020. Even if there was a problem in the 2019 election, he should have remained in office until this month. But he was removed by a U.S.-backed military coup. That coup is not the insurrection that worries Claver-Carone. What worries him is that Morales is concerned about his supporters who are being intimidated and killed. It was not the coup, but Morales’ statement of anguish that became the scandal. Morales then apologized for his statement.</div><div>
</div><div>Elections</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bolivia will face an election on May 3. The Movement for Socialism Party nominated Luis Arce Catacora, Bolivia’s former minister for the economy, as its presidential candidate, and David Choquehuanca, Bolivia’s former foreign minister, as its vice-presidential candidate. MAS has been deeply bruised. More than 100 government officials from the MAS party are either in detention or face criminal charges, while a handful are in the Mexican embassy in La Paz (they have been denied safe passage to the airport).</span></div><div>
</div><div>The anti-coup uprising in Chapare province led the interior minister Arturo Murillo to make a statement that he would perhaps disenfranchise the entire province if the rebellion continues (the rebels burned down a hotel that he owns). Supporters of MAS and its party workers are afraid to leave their homes, let alone campaign in the election. Morales’ statement came as a mirror of their own anxiousness.</div><div>
</div><div>No one imagines that there is going to be a “fair election.” The Trump administration has said it will send a USAID team to Bolivia to monitor the situation, and then to resume U.S. aid to the country; the U.S. will also monitor the elections. Between the U.S. monitors and Supreme Decree no. 4078, the conditions for a fair election simply do not apply.</div><div>
</div><div>And not many outside the region seem to have any problem with this attack against democracy.</div><div>
</div><div>‘Staggering Number’</div><div>
</div><div><b>On January 14, the UN’s human rights body released a brief statement on the killings of human rights activists in Colombia.</b>&nbsp;The UN said that a “staggering number of human rights defenders” were killed last year in Colombia; by the UN’s count, between 107 and 120 activists were murdered. In 2018, 115 human rights defenders were killed, and in the first two weeks of January of this year, 10 human rights defenders have already been murdered. Most of them are from left-wing people’s organizations.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The UN numbers are conservative. For 2018, the Center for Research and Popular Education Peace Program, based in Colombia, documented 1,151 death threats, 648 assassinations, and 304 cases of physical injurie</b>s. But the UN’s trendline is correct. Of the murders last year, 98 percent took place in very poor rural areas. The killers, the UN suggests, are “criminal groups and armed groups linked to illicit economies in areas vacated by the FARC-EP.” In other words, right-wing paramilitary groups and their affiliated drug gangs have taken advantage of the peace treaty signed by the Left to terrorize the countryside.</div><div>
</div><div>In the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research dossier on Colombia (December 2019), the argument is made that the Colombian oligarchy does not want to move toward peace because this would shift the needle of Colombian politics toward the people’s movements and the Left. The continuation of the war—now as assassination and intimidation—favors the oligarchy. They prefer this violence to democratic politics.</div><div>
</div><div>These targeted murders and this targeted intimidation is only one part of the problem in Latin America. The other is that this region—with its outrageous social inequality—experiences violence at extreme levels. While Latin America is home to only 8 percent of the world’s population, 33 percent of all homicides occur in the region. This includes high violence against young men, and it includes the highest rates of femicide in the world. None of the right-wing governments are interested in addressing this fundamental problem for the hemisphere.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What the government of Iván Duque is doing in Colombia is what the interim government of Jeanine Áñez is doing in Bolivia—both are using extreme state violence against trade unionists and peasant organizers, against socialist leaders and indigenous leaders. This extreme violence undermines the possibility of democracy and allows the oligarchy to be re-elected in polling booths where the Left not dare enter.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Héroes del Ñancahuazú</div><div>
</div><div>In 2016, Evo Morales inaugurated the General Juan José Torres Anti-Imperialist Command School in the town of Warnes. General Juan José Torres was the socialist president of Bolivia in 1970-71. He was overthrown in a coup by the Bolivian general favored by the CIA, Hugo Bánzer. Bánzer had closely worked with the Nazi leader Klaus Barbie to set up the CIA-run Operation Condor to search out and kill any and every communist in the hemisphere. They killed Torres in 1976. The combination of the CIA, Nazis, and the oligarchies of the region is not something from the past: Brazil’s culture secretary—Roberto Alvim—recently plagiarized a speech from the Nazi Joseph Goebbels.</div><div>
</div><div>The interim government’s interim Defense Minister Luis Fernando López said that his government has renamed the Anti-Imperialist school. “We are not anti-anything,” he said, as if his government is not anti-Morales, anti-MAS, and anti-communist. The school has been renamed Héroes del Ñancahuazú.</div><div>
</div><div>In 1967, Che Guevara and his National Liberation Army of Bolivia operated near the Ñancahuazú River in Bolivia’s southeast. The government of General René Barrientos Ortuño, the CIA agent Félix Rodríguez, and the Nazi Klaus Barbie ran the operation to destroy Guevara’s campaign. They named their operation the Ñancahuazú Campaign. The Anti-Imperialist School in Bolivia now honors the men—led by a CIA agent and a Nazi—who killed Che Guevara. It sends a message to the Che Guevaras of today: We will get you. This is the democracy of the oligarchy in Latin America today.</div><div>
</div><div>This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new</font></div><div><a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/22164/evo-morales-bolivia-right-wing-coup-united-states-media"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://inthesetimes.com/article/22164/evo-morales-bolivia-right-wing-coup-united-states-media</font></a></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">article first appeared in&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/home/the-bolivian-coup-is-not-a-coup-because-us-wanted-it-to-happen/" style="font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; transition: all 0.2s ease 0s;">FAIR</a>.</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Army generals appearing on television to demand the resignation and arrest of an elected civilian head of state seems like a textbook example of a coup. And yet that is certainly not how corporate media are presenting the weekend’s events in Bolivia.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">No establishment outlet framed the action as a coup; instead, President Evo Morales “resigned” (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">ABC News</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-bolivias-military-morales-resign-66894544?cid=clicksource_4380645_null_headlines_hed" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>), amid widespread “protests” (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">CBS News</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShBju8Ubhc" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) from an “infuriated population” (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Times</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/americas/evo-morales-bolivia.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) angry at the “election fraud” (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Fox News</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/bolivia-president-evo-morales-resigns-election-fraud-allegations" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) of the “full-blown dictatorship” (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Miami Herald</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/andres-oppenheimer/article237168994.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/9/19</a>). When the word “coup” is used at all, it comes only as an accusation from Morales or another official from his government, which corporate media have been demonizing since his election in 2006 (<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">FAIR.org</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/uncategorized/press-ignorance-competes-with-distortions-on-bolivia/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">5/6/09</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/home/the-threat-again-of-left-wing-latin-american-democracy/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">8/1/12</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/home/dictator-media-code-for-government-we-dont-like/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">4/11/19</a>).</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Times</strong>&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/americas/evo-morales-bolivia.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) did not hide its approval at events, presenting Morales as a power-hungry despot who had finally “lost his grip on power,” claiming he was “besieged by protests” and “abandoned by allies” like the security services</span>. His authoritarian tendencies, the news article claimed, “worried critics and many supporters for years,” and allowed one source to claim that his overthrow marked “the end of tyranny” for Bolivia. With an apparent nod to balance, it did note that Morales “admitted no wrongdoing” and claimed he was a “victim of a coup.” By that point, however, the well had been thoroughly poisoned.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">CNN</strong>&nbsp;(<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/10/americas/bolivia-new-election-audit/index.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) dismissed the results of the&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/home/media-conceal-chiles-state-criminality-delegitimize-bolivian-democracy/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">recent election</a>, where Bolivia gave Morales another term in office, as beset with “accusations of election fraud,” presenting them as a farce where “Morales declared himself the winner.”&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Time</strong>’s report (<a href="https://time.com/5723562/evo-morales-bolivia-resigns/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) presented the catalyst for his “resignation” as “protests” and “fraud allegations,” rather than being forced at gunpoint by the military. Meanwhile,&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">CBS News</strong>&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShBju8Ubhc" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>) did not even include the word “allegations,” its headline reading, “Bolivian President Evo Morales Resigns After Election Fraud and Protests.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Delegitimizing foreign elections where the “wrong” person wins, of course, is a favorite pastime of corporate media&nbsp;</span>(<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">FAIR.org</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/home/media-delegitimize-venezuelan-elections-amid-complete-unanimity-of-outlook/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">5/23/18</a>). There is a great deal of uncritical acceptance of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) opinions on elections, including in coverage of Bolivia’s October vote (e.g.,&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">BBC</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50365340" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>;&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Vox</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/11/10/20957613/evo-morales-bolivia-president-resigns-protests-report" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>;&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Voice of America</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.voanews.com/americas/oas-finds-irregularities-disputed-bolivia-vote-calls-new-elections" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/10/19</a>), despite the lack of evidence to back up its assertions. No mainstream outlet warned its readers that the OAS is a Cold War organization, explicitly set up to halt the spread of leftist governments. In 1962, for example, it&nbsp;<a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam17.asp" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">passed an official resolution</a>&nbsp;claiming that the Cuban government was “incompatible with the principles and objectives of the inter-American system.” Furthermore, the organization is bankrolled by the US government; indeed, in justifying its continued funding, US AID&nbsp;<a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2018/06/01/oas-anti-venezuela-pro-us-bias-right-wing-hypocrisy/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">argued</a>&nbsp;that the OAS is a crucial tool in “promot[ing] US interests in the Western hemisphere by countering the influence of anti-US countries” like Bolivia.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In contrast, there was no coverage at all in US corporate media of the&nbsp;<a href="http://cepr.net/publications/reports/bolivia-elections-2019-11" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">detailed new report</a>&nbsp;from the independent Washington-based think tank CEPR, which claimed that the election results were “consistent” with the win totals announced.</b>&nbsp;There was also scant mention of the&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1193730263924256768" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">kidnapping</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/11/07/bolivian-opposition-carries-out-racist-misogynist-attacks-against-government-supporters/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">torture</a>&nbsp;of elected officials, the&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1193696946961211393" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">ransacking</a>&nbsp;of Morales’ house, the burning of&nbsp;<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/11/02/bolivian-right-wing-activates-electoral-fraud-contingency-plan-against-morales/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">public buildings</a>&nbsp;and of the indigenous&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/The_Red_Nation/status/1193690391372955648" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">Wiphala flag</a>, all of which were widely shared on social media and would have suggested a very different interpretation of events.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Words have power. And framing an event is a powerful method of conveying legitimacy and suggesting action. “Coups,” almost by definition, cannot be supported, while “protests” generally should be. Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, a conservative US-backed billionaire, has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests/chiles-pinera-to-crack-down-on-vandals-looters-amid-unrest-idUSKBN1XH2BE" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">literally declared war</a>&nbsp;on over a million people demonstrating against his rule. Corporate media, however, have framed that uprising not as a protest, but rather a “riot” (e.g.,&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">NBC News</strong>,<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/riots-chile-leave-least-three-dead-state-emergency-declared-n1069111" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">&nbsp;10/20/19</a>;&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Reuters</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-pinera/chiles-pinera-acknowledges-abuses-in-handling-of-riots-media-idUSKBN1XJ0C0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/9/19</a>;&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Toronto Sun</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://torontosun.com/news/world/how-a-transit-fare-hike-sparked-protests-and-deadly-riots-in-chile" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/9/19</a>). In fact,&nbsp;<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;">Reuters</strong>&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests/chiles-pinera-to-crack-down-on-vandals-looters-amid-unrest-idUSKBN1XH2BE" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">11/8/19</a>) described the events as Piñera responding to “vandals” and “looters.” Who would possibly oppose that?</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Morales was the first indigenous president in his majority indigenous nation</b>—one that has been ruled by a white European elite since the days of the conquistadors. While in office, his Movement Towards Socialism party has&nbsp;<a href="http://cepr.net/press-center/press-releases/new-report-reviews-changes-in-bolivia-s-economy-under-evo-morales-s-presidency" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">managed to</a>&nbsp;reduce poverty by 42% and extreme poverty by 60%, cut unemployment in half and conduct a number of impressive public works programs. Morales saw himself as part of a decolonizing wave across Latin America, rejecting neoliberalism and nationalizing the country’s key resources,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.coha.org/eleven-years-of-the-process-of-change-in-evo-morales-bolivia/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">spending the proceeds</a>&nbsp;on health, education and affordable food for the population.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His policies drew the great ire of the US government, Western corporations and the corporate press, who function as the ideological shock troops against leftist governments in Latin America. In the case of Venezuela, Western journalists unironically&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thecanary.co/feature/2019/05/03/corporate-journalists-see-themselves-as-ideological-shock-troops-in-the-war-against-venezuela-says-media-expert-alan-macleod/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s;">call themselves</a>&nbsp;“the resistance” to the government, and describe it as their No. 1 goal to “get rid of Maduro,” all the while presenting themselves as neutral and unbiased actors.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.66667; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The media message from the Bolivia case is clear: A coup is not a coup if we like the outcome.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEW</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;This is&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em>&nbsp;I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong>&nbsp;We turn now to the deepening political crisis in Bolivia. On Sunday, Bolivian President Evo Morales resigned in what he described as a coup, shortly after the Bolivian military took to the airwaves to call for his departure. On Tuesday, Morales flew to Mexico, where he has received asylum. On Tuesday night, right-wing Senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself Bolivia’s new president despite a lack of a quorum in the Congress to approve her ascension to that post.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SEN</span>.&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JEANINE</span>&nbsp;ÁÑEZ:</strong>&nbsp;[translated] We are facing here a presidential succession originating from the vacancy of the presidency of the state. Due to the definitive absence of the president and vice president, which means that according to the text and meaning of the Constitution, as president of the Chamber of Senators, I immediately assume the presidency of the state as foreseen in the constitutional order. And I commit myself to accept responsibility for all necessary measures to pacify the country.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Jeanine Áñez held a Bible when announcing her claim to the presidency, declaring, “The Bible returns to the presidential palace.” Evo Morales’s Movement Toward Socialism party is refusing to recognize the new president, calling her claim illegal and decrying Morales’s resignation as a military coup.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Last month, President Morales was re-elected for a fourth term in a race his opponents claim was marred by fraud. He ran for a fourth term after contesting a referendum upholding term limits. Morales stepped down soon after accepting the Organization of American States’ call for new elections. On Tuesday, Morales spoke in Mexico.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">EVO</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MORALES</span>:</strong>&nbsp;[translated] I also want to tell you, brothers and sisters, as long as I am alive, we will stay in politics. As long as I am alive, the fight will continue. And we’re sure that the people of the world have all the rights to free themselves.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Morales’s departure has sparked demonstrations and clashes across Bolivia. In La Paz Tuesday, his supporters took to the streets.</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MORALES</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">SUPPORTER</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Remember, the opposition will never be able to govern as Evo Morales has done. It hurts us. Evo Morales was our leader. Viva Evo! We miss and love you, Evo. We have been left orphaned.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Well, for more, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">we host a debate on the political crisis in Bolivia. In La Paz, we’re joined via&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em>&nbsp;vidoe stream by Pablo Solón, former ambassador to the United Nations under President Evo Morales until 2011. He’s former chief negotiator on climate change for Bolivia. And in Amherst, Massachusetts, we’re joined by Kevin Young, assistant professor of history at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He’s the author of&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia</em>. Young is also the editor of&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Making the Revolution: Histories of the Latin American Left</em>.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We welcome you both to&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Democracy Now!</em>&nbsp;Let’s begin in Bolivia with Pablo Solón. Do you describe what happened as a coup?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;I think it’s very complicated to say it’s a coup, because I think there was a popular rebellion, because this issue started in 2016, when Evo Morales didn’t recognize the result of a referendum that said that he couldn’t run for a new re-election. If he would have respected that referendum, he would have finished his third term as probably the best president in Bolivia. But he didn’t do that. He forced that the constitutional tribunal did a statement saying that it was a human right to run for new elections.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then we have the elections of the 20th of October, where there was definitely fraud. We have so many evidences here, so many reports from different institutions, not only&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">OAS</span>&nbsp;saying it, that, of course, the population went to the streets. It was massive, and it has lasted for 20 days.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, to say this is a coup d’état planned by the White House, the right-wing forces, fascist forces, I think it’s to make a caricature of what is really happening. Now, who’s going to take advantage of the situation are going to be right-wing forces, is going to be the imperialists of North America. But who created this crisis, I think, was this addiction to power that Evo Morales and his party began to have during the last years.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong>&nbsp;I’d like to ask Kevin Young to deal with the same issue of whether this was a coup or not, and also to deal with the reality that the majority in the Congress is still of the — is the political party of Evo Morales. So, to what degree can whoever becomes president be able to move forward with a political agenda, given the enormous strength still of the Evo Morales forces in the country?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KEVIN</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">YOUNG</span>:</strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;A coup has a simple and straightforward definition. It’s the unconstitutional removal of a sitting president before that president’s term in office is up. And in the case of Bolivia, Evo Morales is the elected president. His term isn’t due up until January 21st of 2020. And in this case, on Sunday, you had the lead commander of the Bolivian Armed Forces directly intervening and ordering Evo out of office. So that’s a coup. And I think that’s pretty straightforward. That shouldn’t be controversial.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What makes this coup particularly dangerous is that it is being supported by the most racist and reactionary elements in Bolivian society, as well as by the United States</b>. Now, all of that being said, the overall political situation in Bolivia is complex. All of the opposition is not the same. The opposition is not monolithic. There are opposition protesters who are much more progressive. Many indigenous groups, working-class Bolivians have become very disillusioned with Evo’s government and have turned against it. So, those voices are important to recognize. We shouldn’t be painting the entire opposition with the same brush or insinuating that it’s all some conspiracy by the United States.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But at the same time, it is important to recognize, as well, that almost half of the Bolivian population voted for Evo Morales on October 20th. And whether you think that’s 47%, as the government said, or maybe it’s only 46 or 45%, the fact remains that almost half of Bolivians still supported Evo on October 20th. And those voices also need to be counted and recognized. They may have criticisms of the government — many of them do, and I know some of them — <b>but they’re not supporting the coup, because they fear that a right-wing government is really going to roll back some of the progressive gains that have been made in the last 13 years. And in an immediate sense, they’re fearful of right-wing violence in the streets, which is happening and which is targeting particularly indigenous Bolivians.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now, what’s going to happen with the Congress? Because despite the fact that many&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>&nbsp;legislators and officials have resigned, sometimes under threat of violence from the right, it is still true that a majority of the Congress is controlled by the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>&nbsp;party. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">They have signaled — they have said that they are interested in finding a constitutional resolution to the crisis. Now, what exactly that’s going to look like is still very unclear. It’s not clear what new elections are going to look like or under what conditions they’re going to be held. The&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;party is somewhat in disarray the last several days. So, we really don’t know what’s going to happen at this point.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong>&nbsp;Well, Pablo Solón, I wanted to ask you about this issue of — Evo Morales had agreed, as a result of the protests in the streets and the recommendation of the Organization of American States, to hold new elections. So, shouldn’t the opposition have at least waited until his term was up, until new elections were held, before attempting to remove him completely? And also, the issue of the military. The military, on the one hand, said they were not going to intercede when the police officers began rebelling against the government, but then has interceded to join the police in now attempting to quell protests of Morales supporters.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;OK. So, the first thing, Evo Morales called to new elections — well, he said he was going to call to new elections. And he said he was going to change the electoral court, which meant that he agreed that the electoral court was involved in some case of fraud in the elections of the 20th of October, because, I mean, Evo Morales didn’t say, “I call with elections, and I respect this electoral court.” No, “I will change it,” because the evidence were too big. There was fraud. And, of course, you had, in the population —&nbsp;not the right-wing forces — the population said, “Watch out. Your saying that, new elections with a new electoral court, means that there was fraud.” And fraud is something that you cannot accept. It’s a crime. So, you cannot say, “OK, well, you know, there was fraud. Now I’m going to call for a new elections. Nothing happened in Bolivia. Now I guarantee you that everything is going to be OK.” It’s impossible.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And what happened then? Did the military do a coup and went out to the streets that day and force Evo Morales? No, they said, “We are not going to go out to the streets. The situation is terrible. People don’t accept new elections after you are recognizing that there was fraud.” That is what they said. “And we suggest that you resign.” And they didn’t went out to the streets.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Evo Morales, why did he resign? My point of view is he resigned because he was not able to sustain this idea that the elections of the 20th of October were clean. And if they weren’t clean, he was involved, because you cannot do that fraud without the involvement of the government. So, he resigned, and he went to El Chapare, because he thought that his resignation was going to create an uprise, because it’s true, what the other person says, he has the support of more than 40% of the population. And he was suspecting that there would be an uprise, and then his sector would mobilize.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But then what happened? There was that mobilization, but that mobilization was a mix of supporters of&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>&nbsp;but also of vandalic groups that began to assault, burn. There were more than 70 buses of the public service system here in La Paz that were burned, drugstores. And it was the night — the night of Sunday and Monday was terror in many cities. And the police, the police stations began to be attacked by this combination of&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>&nbsp;—&nbsp;of supporters of the political party of the government, what’s called&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>, and this vandalic group. So, the police was not able to stop this. Neighborhoods began to organize to defend themselves, not only in rich areas, but also in poor areas. At that moment, the police said, “We need to have the support of the military to stop this, this violence, these vandalic groups.” And you had the military coming out. I’m not in favor of that, but those are the facts. And then you had the military coming to the streets. And you have seen they have intervened, and in places where there are vandalic groups, huge violence. But, for example, yesterday, you had the big mass demonstration from El Alto.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">JUAN</span>&nbsp;GONZÁLEZ:</strong>&nbsp;Can we bring in Kevin Young? Your response to the description of Pablo Solón of what’s been going on?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">KEVIN</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">YOUNG</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Sure. So, I do want to briefly address the question of the October 20th elections. There is this widespread narrative that’s been uncritically embraced in the media in the United States that there was a fraud in the October 20th elections. And that’s largely based on the preliminary audit of the Organization of American States, which was released this past weekend, which does contain allegations of widespread irregularities. On the other hand, we have the authoritative report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which last week released a detailed study of the October 20th election and found that there was no evidence of fraud, or at least if there were irregularities, there was no evidence that they were decisive in determining the outcome. Now, is it possible that there were irregularities? Absolutely. I’m not denying that. But as you said, Juan, on November 10th, earlier in the day, Evo Morales actually offered to hold new elections, as a major concession to the protesters. He even offered to replace the entire electoral monitoring body. And I don’t see that —&nbsp;I disagree with Pablo here. I don’t see that as necessarily an admission of fraud. I see it more as a concession that was intended to keep the peace. But the fact is that the opposition, most of them, didn’t want new elections because they doubted that they could beat Evo at the ballot boxes. They wanted a coup. And that’s exactly when the military steps in and orders Evo to leave.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, I agree with Pablo that the situation on the streets is extremely concerning. There is violence being committed, not only by the right, but also by many&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">MAS</span>&nbsp;supporters who are, justly, terrified of what’s going to happen. So, the situation is complex. It shouldn’t be reduced to simple good versus bad, or left versus right. But that doesn’t change the fact that this was a coup. It’s a complex situation, and it’s a coup with some popular support, but it’s still a coup.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Pablo Solón, are you concerned about, you know, the woman who has just declared herself president saying she’s bringing the Bible back into government; opposition protesters kidnapping Mayor Patricia Arce, the mayor loyal to Morales, forcibly cutting her hair, dousing her with red paint, parading her through the streets? And then you have, for example, Luis Fernando Camacho, who is the far-right multimillionaire, who arose, many say, out of fascist movements in Bolivia, saying, “Pachamama will never return to the palace. Bolivia belongs to Christ.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;Well, first, let me answer. <b>You are not right. Before the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">OAS</span>, we had here in Bolivia reports. We were able to see different reports from the voting places where they were — where they changed signatures. They changed figures, numbers.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Pablo, we have 30 seconds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">OAS</span>&nbsp;didn’t created this because of them. They had to see the evidence that we have here. And you have other reports before the&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">OAS</span>&nbsp;report. Second thing, when you —</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;Pablo, we have 30 seconds.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;One of the — excuse me. I mean, because you say it is a coup. A coup means the military went out to the streets. Why did Evo Morales, when Evo Morales resigned, said this is a coup from the police and the civil? He didn’t want to mention the military. Now, going to your question —</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;We’re going to have to go to that question in Part 2 of this discussion.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PABLO</span>&nbsp;SOLÓN:</strong>&nbsp;Yes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 30px 0px; letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">AMY</span>&nbsp;<span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box;">GOODMAN</span>:</strong>&nbsp;I want to thank Pablo Solón, former ambassador to the U.N. under President Evo Morales until 2011, and Kevin Young, professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">evangelicals burning houses?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conversation.com/bolivia-in-crisis-how-evo-morales-was-forced-out-126859</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">evo Morales has left Bolivia on a plane for Mexico, a day after he resigned as president.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morales and his vice-president, Álvaro García Linera, stood down from office on November 10, following a suggestion by the head of the military, Williams Kaliman.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Met with jubilation and despair by different sectors of Bolivian society, the resignations were the culmination of weeks of unrest following presidential and parliamentary elections on October 20. Morales initially appeared to have won in the first round, but the whole process was overshadowed by accusations of electoral fraud and the spectre of military intervention.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nothing at the moment is black and white. The events represent both a military coup d’état and a moment of mass protest that unseated the government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For and against Morales</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The social base of Morales’s political party, Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), are the peasant organisations of the Andean highlands altiplano and the semi-tropical valleys of Cochabamba, alongside a group of unions and federations which represent peasants and rural proletarian labourers. They have an organic relationship with the MAS and as such will all turn out to vote for and defend it on the streets.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This hard core of social support is complemented by those who work in sectors that have benefited from the politics of the MAS. These include swaths of the informal petty commodity producers and hidden wage labourers found in the popular economy, miners employed by both the state and cooperatives, and sections of the lower middle and professional classes who feel Morales has reduced the stigma they confront in their day-to-day lives. These groups, as I examined in my own PhD research, felt excluded and unrepresented within the liberal parliamentary democracy before the election of Morales in 2006.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The opposition to Morales is also comprised of multiple different – and contradictory – currents. First, there is a group concerned with the abstract notion of representative democracy, comprised of the urban middle-classes and university students. This is probably the largest opposition group and is found in all nine departmental capitals.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The second are indigenous groups which do not share the developmental agenda of the MAS government, and are in the pathways of extractive or large-scale infrastructure projects. The most visible of this opposition has come from the lowland indigenous groups, particularly those in the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory and groups in the Chaco regions affected by hydrocarbon extraction. Others include groups in the Madidi national park opposing the megadams Bala and Chapete and the ayllus, socio-territorial units of Aymara indigenous communities, of North Potosí.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Increasingly powerful regional opposition groups are also concerned with the distribution of power and resources within the country. The indigenous opposition to Morales in the city of Potosí can be categorised as part of this group, as can the civic committees of the departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Opponents of Evo Morales celebrate his resignation in La Paz on November 10. cop?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coup d'état?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Time accelerated in the period following presidential and parliamentary elections in Bolivia on October 20, with a decade’s worth of political events unfolding in the space of a couple of weeks, reorienting the political terrain. Yet time has also slowed down, with observers from afar looking on as if at a car crash in slow motion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That Morales and García Linera stood down at the behest of the military is no surprise, and the possibility of a coup became increasingly likely in the days of protests and civic strikes between election day and November 10.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the story of a coup d’état is by no means the whole story – and the ability of the three opposition groups to construct a multitude of popular forces powerful enough to direct the political currents in this moment has been astounding. In the wake of the election, the city of Santa Cruz was shut down for weeks by a general strike – the longest in the city’s history – while the streets of La Paz, Oruro, Potosí and Cochabamba were also barricaded.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The disorganised masses who congregated and burnt down vote counting stations in Oruro, Potosí, Santa Cruz and Tarija following the suspension of the quick count broadcast on the night of October 20, coalesced into a movement strong enough to coordinate and sustain political activity against the MAS government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During Morales’s final days in office, they were joined by social groups once supportive of the MAS, including the Bolivian Workers’ Central. In this sense, the resignation of Morales and García Linera follows weeks of massive social protest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Probably the most remarkable dynamic in this sped-up unfurling of history is the emergence of Luis Fernando Camacho, head of the Pro Santa Cruz Committee, from the backwaters of regional, right-wing politics in Santa Cruz to a political figure on the national scene. The arrival of the evangelical right to Bolivian politics – first in the form of presidential candidate Chi Hyun Chung and now in the figure of Camacho – has been a long time coming, but is nothing to celebrate.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Camacho, who speaks of bringing the bible to Bolivian politics, has been one of the more prominent figures calling for military intervention. The far-right currents in the opposition movements have created the conditions that allowed more extreme opposition groups to burn down the houses of several prominent MAS allies during the night of November 9.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These acts of violence, coupled with the initial findings of an audit of the election by the Organisation of American States of the elections, led Morales to call for new elections, overseen by a reconstituted Supreme Electoral Tribunal. But by the day of Morales’s resignation the demands of many protesters had surpassed the call for new elections and now only Morales’s exit would do.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Power vacuum</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[A handout photo from the Mexican foreign ministry of Evo Morales on a plane to Mexico. EPA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the wake of the resignations, both Carlos Mesa, Morales’s main electoral opponent and Camacho demanded new elections without the participation of Morales. The urban support base of the MAS took to the streets in violent protest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The preliminary report from the OAS audit into electoral fraud – whose methodology has been questioned by some experts – stated that even though there were numerous voting irregularities, it’s highly probable that Morales would have captured the largest share of the vote anyway.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Without Morales on the ballot paper in a future election, a large section of the electorate will not be able to vote for their candidate. This is a situation that some will call justice, given the way Morales skirted around the constitutional term limits, but that will leave a large, mainly rural, indigenous section of the population disenfranchised. Such frustration will lead to further violence if left unresolved.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The resignation of Morales and García Linera has now left a power vacuum. The deputy head of the senate, Jeanine Anez, is likely to step into the breach as interim president, but the route to new elections under a reconstituted Supreme Electoral Tribunal remains far from clear.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 1983, Bolivian social theorist René Zavaleta Mercado noted the inability of Bolivian democracy to represent its sociedad abigarrada – its motley society. In 2019, the route forward appears to be the exclusion of a large proportion of Bolivians. The wiphala, the square banner that has long been a symbol of indigenous peoples and resistance, has been torn from government buildings and unceremoniously burnt.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Camacho’s proclamation that “Pachamama (indigenous people) will never return to the palace. Bolivia is Christ” is anything to go by, Bolivian democracy remains incapable of managing the country’s motley societ</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/11/13/bolivia_evo_morales_coup_debate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In&nbsp; Bolivia, right-wing Senator Jeanine Áñez declared herself president Tuesday night despite a lack of quorum in Congress, amid a deepening political crisis in the country. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, left the country Monday after being granted asylum in Mexico. Morales announced his resignation Sunday shortly after the Bolivian military took to the airwaves to call for his departure. His Movement Toward Socialism party is refusing to recognize Áñez as president, calling her claim illegal and decrying Evo Morales’s resignation over the weekend as a military coup. Last month, Morales was re-elected for a fourth term in a race his opponents claimed was marred by fraud. He ran for a fourth term after contesting a referendum upholding term limits. On Tuesday, the Organization of American States held an emergency meeting in Washington, where U.S. Ambassador Carlos Trujillo read a statement from President Donald Trump applauding Evo Morales’s resignation and warning it should “send a strong signal” to Venezuela and Nicaragua. Mexico, Uruguay, Nicaragua and the president-elect of Argentina have all denounced Morales’s departure as a coup. Morales’s departure has sparked demonstrations and clashes across Bolivia. We host a debate on the political crisis in Bolivia with Pablo Solón, former ambassador to the United Nations under President Evo Morales until 2011, and Kevin Young, assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the author of “Blood of the Earth: Resource Nationalism, Revolution, and Empire in Bolivia.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1119 morales 1st indig leader out in mil coup</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">christian parenti uprising: morales ppl said we need 10 yrs to get power, happnened in one; reverse neo-libr, stand tough on climate tho US pulled millions in aid;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2013, Julian Assange [in ecuador emb] of WikiLeaks played a pivotal role in helping National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden leave Hong Kong for Russia. During the U.S. hunt for Snowden, Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land in Austria for 14 hours after Spain, France, Portugal and Italy closed their airspace under pressure from the United States over false rumors Snowden was on board. Assange gives the inside story on why that plane was targeted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the U.S. picked up a statement, a supportive statement made in Moscow by President Evo Morales, and appears to have picked up our codeword for the actual operation, and put two and two together and made 22, and then pressured France—successfully pressured France, Portugal and Spain to close their airspace to President Evo Morales’s jet in its flight from Moscow to the Canary Islands for refueling and then back to Bolivia. And as a result, it was forced to land in Vienna. And then, once in Vienna, there was pressure to search the plane.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">..AMY GOODMAN: Were you shocked when the U.S. forced down President Evo Morales’s plane?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes and no. I didn’t—we didn’t expect that they would do that. But we had seen from what they—Snowden was shocked—that we had seen in our battles over the past few years that similarly illegal conduct occurred. For example, they flew a private jet with six FBI agents and two prosecutors illegally into Iceland to interrogate people and commission them to try and steal information from us. So, we had seen this type of illegality before.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wiki</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Juan Evo Morales Ayma (born October 26, 1959), popularly known as Evo (Spanish pronunciation: ['eßo]), is a Bolivian politician and cocalero activist who has served as President of Boliviasince 2006. Widely regarded as the country's first president to come from the indigenous population,[a]his administration has focused on the implementation of leftist policies, poverty reduction, and combating the influence of the United States and multinational corporations in Bolivia. A democratic socialist, he is the head of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Born to an Aymara family of subsistence farmers in Isallawi, Orinoca Canton, Morales undertook a basic education before mandatory military service, in 1978 moving to Chapare Province. Growingcoca and becoming a trade unionist, he rose to prominence in the campesino ("rural laborers") union, campaigning against U.S. and Bolivian attempts to eradicate coca as a part of the War on Drugs, which he denounced as an imperialist violation of indigenous Andean culture. He repeatedly engaged in anti-government direct action protests, resulting in multiple arrests. Entering electoral politics in 1995, he became the leader of the MAS and was elected to Congress. His campaign focused on issues affecting indigenous and poor communities, advocating land reform and the redistribution of gas wealth. Gaining increasing visibility through the Cochabamba protests and gas conflict, in 2002 he was expelled from Congress for encouraging protesters, although he came second in that year's presidential election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Elected president in 2005, Morales increased taxation on the hydrocarbons industry to bolster social spending, emphasising projects to combat illiteracy, poverty, racism, and sexism. Although vocally criticizing neoliberalism and reducing dependence on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, his administration retained a liberal economic policy and oversaw strong economic growth. Scaling back U.S. influence in the country, he built relationships with leftist governments in the Latin American pink tide and signed Bolivia to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. Attempting to moderate the left-indigenous activist community, his administration also opposed the right-wing autonomist demands of Bolivia's eastern provinces. Winning a recall referendum in 2008, he instituted a new constitution that established Bolivia as a plurinational state before being re-elected in 2009. His second term witnessed the continuation of leftist policies and Bolivia's joining of the Bank of the South and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. After becoming the world's oldest professional footballer by signing to a Bolivian team, he was again reelected in the 2014 general election.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morales is a controversial world figure, lauded by his supporters as a champion of indigenous rights,anti-imperialism, and environmentalism. Praised for seriously reducing poverty and illiteracy in Bolivia, he has been internationally decorated with various awards. He has been criticised from many perspectives on the political spectrum: right-wing opponents have labelled his administration as authoritarian and radical, while leftist, indigenous, and environmentalist critics have accused him of failing to live up to many of his espoused values.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contents&nbsp; [hide]&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 Early life and activism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1.1 Childhood, education and military service: 1959–78</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1.2 Early cocalero activism: 1978–83</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1.3 General Secretary of the Cocalero Union: 1984–94</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Political Rise</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.1 The ASP, IPSP, and MAS: 1995–99</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.2 Cochabamba protests: 2000–02</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2.3 Rise to power: 2003–05</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Presidency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1 First presidential term: 2006–09</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1.1 Economic program</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1.2 ALBA and international appearances</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1.3 Social reform</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.1.4 Domestic unrest and the new constitution</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.2 Second presidential term: 2009–14</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.2.1 Domestic protests</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3.3 Third presidential term: 2014–present</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Political ideology</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 Personal life</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 Influence and legacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 References</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.1 Notes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.2 Footnotes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7.3 Bibliography</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Early life and activism[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Childhood, education and military service: 1959–78[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Morales was born in the small rural village of Isallawi in Orinoca Canton, part of western Bolivia's Oruro Department, on 26 October 1959.[9] One of seven children born to Dionisio Morales Choque and Maria Ayma, only he and two siblings, Esther and Hugo, survived past childhood.[10] His mother almost died from a postpartum haemorrhage following his birth.[8] Ethnically identifying as a member of the indigenous Aymara people, in keeping with Aymara custom, his father buried the placenta produced after his birth in a place specially chosen for the occasion.[8] His childhood home was a traditional adobehouse,[11] and he grew up speaking the Aymara language, although later commentators would remark that by the time he had become president he was no longer an entirely fluent speaker.[12</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cochabamba protests: 2000–02[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2000, the Tunari Waters corporation doubled the price at which they sold water to Bolivian consumers, resulting in a backlash from leftist activist groups, including the cocaleros. Activists clashed with police and armed forces, in what was dubbed "the Water War", resulting in 6 dead and 175 wounded. Responding to the violence, the government removed the contract from Tunari and placed the utility under cooperative control.[63] In ensuing years further violent protests broke out over a range of issues, resulting in more deaths both among activists and law enforcement.[64]Much of this unrest was connected with the widespread opposition to economic liberalization across Bolivian society, with a common perception that it only benefited a small minority.[65] In the Andean High Plateau, a cocalero group launched a guerrilla uprising under the leadership of Felipe Quispe; an ethnic separatist, he and Morales disliked each other, with Quispe considering Morales to be a traitor and an opportunist for his willingness to cooperate with White Bolivians.[66] Morales had not taken a leading role in these protests, but did use them to get across his message that the MAS was not a single-issue party, and that rather than simply fighting for the rights of the cocalero it was arguing for structural change to the political system and a redefinition of citizenship in Bolivia.[67]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In August 2001, Banzer resigned due to terminal illness, and Jorge Quiroga took over as President.[68]Under U.S. pressure, Quiroga sought to have Morales expelled from Congress. To do so, he claimed that Morales' inflammatory language had caused the deaths of two police officers in Sacaba near Cochabamba, however was unable to provide any evidence of Morales' culpability.[69] 140 deputies voted for Morales' expulsion, which came about in 2002.[70] Morales asserted that "This was a trial against Aymara and Quechas",[70] while MAS activists interpreted it as evidence of the pseudo-democratic credentials of the political class.[64]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The MAS gained increasing popularity as a protest party, relying largely on widespread dissatisfaction with the existing mainstream political parties among Bolivians living in rural and poor urban areas.[71] Morales recognized this, and much of his discourse focused on differentiating the MAS from the traditional political class.[72] Their campaign was successful, and in the 2002 presidential election the MAS gained 20.94% of the national vote, becoming Bolivia's second largest party, being only 1.5% behind the victorious MNR, whose candidate, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, became President.[73] They won 8 seats in the Senate and 27 in the Chamber of Deputies.[74] Now the leader of the political opposition, Morales focused on criticising government policies rather than outlining alternatives.[75] He had several unconstructive meetings with Lozada,[76] but also met with Venezuela's democratic socialist President Hugo Chávez for the first time.[77]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bolivia's U.S. embassy had become publicly highly critical of Morales; just prior to the election, the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia Manuel Rocha issued a statement declaring that U.S. aid to Bolivia would be cut if MAS won the election. However, exit polls revealed that Rocha's comments had served to increase support for Morales.[78][79] Following the election, the U.S. embassy maintained this critical stance, characterising Morales as a criminal and encouraging Bolivia's traditional parties to sign a broad agreement to oppose the MAS; Morales himself began alleging that the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency was plotting to assassinate him.[80]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rise to power: 2003–05[edit]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2003, the Bolivian gas conflict broke out as activists – including coca growers – protested against the privatization of the country's natural gas supply and its sale to U.S. companies below the market value. Activists blocked off the road into La Paz, resulting in clashes with police. 80 were killed and 411 injured, among them officers, activists, and civilians, including children.[81] Morales did not take an active role in the conflict, instead traveling to Libya and Switzerland, there describing the uprising as a "peaceful revolution in progress."[82] The government accused Morales and the MAS of using the protests to overthrow Bolivia's parliamentary democracy with the aid of organised crime, FARC, and the far left governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Libya.[83</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3479-wikileaks-stratfor-vp-states-washington-would-have-assassinated-presidents-of-bolivia-and-venezuela-in-past-years</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Cyril Mychalejko&nbsp; &nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monday, 27 February 2012 16:19</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to internal company emails published by WikiLeaks, Austin-based intelligence firm Stratfor's Vice President stated that in the past Washington would have assassinated the Presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Back in the day, we would have been planning his (and Chavez's) helicopter 'accident,'” wrote VP Fred Burton, a former deputy chief of the State Department's counter terrorism division, in an email regarding Bolivian President Evo Morales. “Guess I'm getting old.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stratfor provides intelligence for corporations such as Coca-Cola, Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, as well as to US government agencies. Their analysts are cited in major media outlets around the globe.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the same email thread regarding a State Department source's “take on [Bolivian President Evo] Morales,” Stratfor operative Korena Zucha calls Morales a “4th grade educated, narco-trafficking, murderous thug” whose actions are protected by the “left-leaning MSM [Mainstream] media.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The email goes on to state:&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“His rhetoric is anti-US and anti-Capitalism, so he is the darling to the ultra-left and self-hating US citizens (Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, etc.)...his 'Mother Earth' Summit [aka, vehement anti-US, anti-Capitalism (specifically targeting Coca Cola), anti-UN, pro-coca (sic cocaine) and narco-trafficking platform that was embraced by 22,000 anti-US, left-wing anarchists in attendance].”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On 1 July 2013, president&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales" title="Evo Morales" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Evo Morales</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia" title="Bolivia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bolivia</a>, who had been attending a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Exporting_Countries_Forum" title="Gas Exporting Countries Forum" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">conference of gas-exporting countries</a>&nbsp;in Russia, gave an interview to the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT(TV_network)" title="RT (TV network)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">RT television network</a>&nbsp;in which he appeared predisposed to offer asylum to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden" title="Edward Snowden" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Edward Snowden</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-emol-1-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-emol--1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;Snowden had&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Flight_from_the_United_States" title="Edward Snowden" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">fled the United States</a>&nbsp;a month earlier after his disclosure of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures(2013%E2%80%93present)#2013" title="Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">secret, widespread surveillance</a>&nbsp;by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency" title="National Security Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">NSA</a>, for which he faced&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Criminal_charges" title="Edward Snowden" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">criminal charges in the U.S.</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The day after his TV interview, Morales's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Falcon_900" title="Dassault Falcon 900" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dassault Falcon 900</a>, carrying him back to Bolivia from Russia, took off from&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vnukovo_Airport" class="mw-redirect" title="Vnukovo Airport" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Vnukovo Airport</a>, but was rerouted to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria" title="Austria" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Austria</a>&nbsp;when&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France" title="France" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">France</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spain" title="Spain" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Spain</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy" title="Italy" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Italy</a><sup id="cite_ref-sol.sapo-_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-sol.sapo--2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;reportedly denied access to their airspace, allegedly due to suspicions that Snowden was on board.<sup id="cite_ref-bbc-morales-vienna_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-bbc-morales-vienna-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;Snowden was in fact still in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheremetyevo_Airport" class="mw-redirect" title="Sheremetyevo Airport" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Sheremetyevo Airport</a>, where he had been staying since arriving in Russia a week earlier. An audio tape was subsequently released which appeared to be a recording of the flight crew requesting to land in Austria on the grounds they "could not get a correct indication" of their remaining fuel levels.<sup id="cite_ref-washingtonpost-morales-vienna-erzählungen_4-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-washingtonpost-morales-vienna-erz%C3%A4hlungen-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#Forced_landing" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Forced landing</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#Aftermath" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Aftermath</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#Claim_of_responsibility" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Claim of responsibility</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li></ul></div><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Forced_landing">Forced landing</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 172px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evo_Morales_2011.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evo_Morales_2011.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President of Bolivia Evo Morales</font></a></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evo_Morales_2011.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Austria's deputy chancellor,&nbsp;</font></a><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Spindelegger" title="Michael Spindelegger" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Michael Spindelegger</a>, said that the plane was searched, although the Bolivian Defense Minister denied a search took place, saying Morales had denied entry to his plane.<sup id="cite_ref-washingtonpost-morales-vienna-erzählungen_4-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-washingtonpost-morales-vienna-erz%C3%A4hlungen-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-in.reuters-morales-vienna_5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-in.reuters-morales-vienna-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup>&nbsp;The refusals for entry into French, Spanish, and Italian airspace ostensibly for "technical reasons", strongly denounced by Bolivia, Ecuador, and other South American nations, were attributed to rumors disseminated allegedly by the US that Snowden was on board.<sup id="cite_ref-bigstory.ap-morales-wien_6-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-bigstory.ap-morales-wien-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-edition.cnn-morales-wien_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-edition.cnn-morales-wien-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup>&nbsp;Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José García-Margallo, publicly stated that they were told he was on board but did not specify as to who had informed them.<sup id="cite_ref-bbc-morales-vienna_3-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-bbc-morales-vienna-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Austrian media later reported that when the plane landed in Vienna to refuel, US Ambassador to Austria,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eacho" title="William Eacho" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">William Eacho</a>, “claimed with great certainty that Edward Snowden was onboard” and mentioned a “diplomatic note requesting Snowden’s extradition.”<sup id="cite_ref-rt-snowden-3countries-asylum_8-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-rt-snowden-3countries-asylum-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The President of Austria,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Fischer" title="Heinz Fischer" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Heinz Fischer</a>, went to greet President Morales in his plane and shared breakfast with him.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" style="line-height: 1; white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources. (November 2019)">citation needed</span></a></i>]</sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The plane took off again after Austrian officials confirmed that&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden" title="Edward Snowden" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Edward Snowden</a>&nbsp;was not on board.<sup id="cite_ref-theguardian-morales-complains-un_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-theguardian-morales-complains-un-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Aftermath">Aftermath</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 172px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ban_Ki-moon_1-2.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ban_Ki-moon_1-2.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">U.N. Secretary-General&nbsp;</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Ki-moon" title="Ban Ki-moon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ban Ki-moon</a>&nbsp;asserted that "a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_state" title="Head of state" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">head of state</a>&nbsp;and his or her aircraft enjoy immunity and inviolability"</font></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">France apologized for the incident immediately.<sup id="cite_ref-aljazeera-morales-vienna-france-apologieses_10-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-aljazeera-morales-vienna-france-apologieses-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup>&nbsp;The Spanish ambassador to Bolivia apologized two weeks later, citing inappropriate procedures.<sup id="cite_ref-ramos-2013_11-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-ramos-2013-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup>&nbsp;The Italians and Portuguese sent official explanations to the Bolivian Government.<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On 3 July,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen_Psaki" title="Jen Psaki" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jen Psaki</a>, spokesperson for the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_State" title="United States Department of State" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">U.S. Department of State</a>, acknowledged that the U.S. had been "in contact with a range of countries across the world who had any chance of having Mr. Snowden land or even transit through their countries".<sup id="cite_ref-state-morales-us-press-briefing_13-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-state-morales-us-press-briefing-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-theguardian-morales-live_14-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-theguardian-morales-live-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On 20 September, Evo Morales announced a lawsuit against the U.S. government for "crimes against humanity" for repeatedly blocking presidential flights,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> after an incident in which authorization for an overflight of&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico" title="Puerto Rico" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Puerto Rico</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;by President Maduro of Venezuela was delayed, although U.S. authorities said that they were entitled to three days' advance notice. Maduro had been en route to arrive in Beijing for bilaterial talks with the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China" class="mw-redirect" title="People's Republic of China" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">People's Republic of China</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-live.huffingtonpost-morales-sue-us-gov_15-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-live.huffingtonpost-morales-sue-us-gov-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In the aftermath of the incident, seven Latin American countries –&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia" title="Bolivia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bolivia</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina" title="Argentina" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Argentina</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba" title="Cuba" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Cuba</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuador" title="Ecuador" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ecuador</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua" title="Nicaragua" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Nicaragua</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay" title="Uruguay" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Uruguay</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela" title="Venezuela" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Venezuela</a>&nbsp;– voiced their concerns to UN Secretary-General&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Ki-Moon" class="mw-redirect" title="Ban Ki-Moon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ban Ki-Moon</a>, who asserted that "a Head of State and his or her aircraft enjoy immunity and inviolability".<sup id="cite_ref-un_16-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-un-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup>&nbsp;Ban also emphasized that it is important to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future.<sup id="cite_ref-un_16-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-un-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Claim_of_responsibility">Claim of responsibility</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In April 2015, Wikileaks founder&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange" title="Julian Assange" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Julian Assange</a>&nbsp;claimed to having deliberately leaked the false information about Snowden being on the plane to the U.S., as part of "special measures" to distract secret services. In response, the Bolivian ambassador to Russia demanded that Assange apologize for putting their president's life at risk</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Interviewed in August 2015 by the Bolivian newspaper&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Deber" title="El Deber" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">El Deber</a></i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Assange stated that Wikileaks and the government of Venezuela discussed smuggling Snowden out of Russia aboard the presidential plane of either Venezuela or Bolivia. Assange did not know whether or not the Bolivian government was aware of these negotiations, and did not himself communicate with the Bolivians, but said that Venezuela should have warned Bolivia.</span><sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evo_Morales_grounding_incident&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: See also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none; white-space: nowrap;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><ul style="list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" resources="resources" skins.vector.styles="skins.vector.styles" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" d4515="d4515" margin="margin" em="em" px="px" padding="padding" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia%E2%80%93Spain_relations" title="Bolivia–Spain relations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bolivia–Spain relations</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia%E2%80%93United_States_relations" title="Bolivia–United States relations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bolivia–United States relations</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_Evo_Morales" class="mw-redirect" title="Foreign policy of Evo Morales" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Foreign policy of Evo Morales</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis" title="2019 Bolivian political crisis" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">2019 Bolivian political crisis</font></a></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div id="r1-0" class="result results_links_deep highlight_d result--url-above-snippet highlight" data-domain="en.wikipedia.org" data-hostname="en.wikipedia.org" data-nir="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.2em; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); position: relative; overflow-wrap: break-word; border-radius: 4px; cursor: pointer; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="resultbody links_main links_deep" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 10px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 class="resulttitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; 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line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;">https://en.wikipedia.org</span><span class="resulturlfull" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; opacity: 1; visibility: visible;">/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident</span></a></font></div></div><div class="resultsnippet js-result-snippet" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.45; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Austria's deputy chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, said that the&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">plane</span>&nbsp;was searched, although the Bolivian Defense Minister denied a search took place, saying Morales had denied entry to his&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">plane</span>. The refusals for entry into French, Spanish, and Italian airspace ostensibly for "technical reasons", strongly denounced by Bolivia,&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Ecuador</span>, and other South American nations, were attributed to ...</font></div></div></div><div id="organic-module" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div id="r1-1" class="result results_links_deep highlight_d result--url-above-snippet" data-domain="www.bbc.co.uk" data-hostname="www.bbc.co.uk" data-nir="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.2em; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); position: relative; overflow-wrap: break-word; border-radius: 4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="resultbody links_main links_deep" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 10px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 class="resulttitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: middle; position: static; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;"><a class="resulta" rel="noopener" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23025810" style="margin: 0px 0px -0.05em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.22; vertical-align: middle; text-decoration-line: none; display: inline-block; max-width: 100%; white-space: nowrap; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Snowden</span>&nbsp;is 'not on&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">plane'</span>&nbsp;to Cuba in&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Ecuador</span>&nbsp;asylum bid ...</font></a></h2><div class="resultextras js-result-extras" style="margin: 1px 0px 2px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; 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padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline;">https://www.bbc.co.uk</span><span class="resulturlfull" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; opacity: 1; visibility: visible;">/news/world-europe-23025810</span></a></font></div></div><div class="resultsnippet js-result-snippet" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.45; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The location of former US intelligence contractor Edward&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Snowden</span>&nbsp;is unclear after a flight from Russia apparently leaves without him on board. ...&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Snowden</span>&nbsp;is 'not on&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">plane'</span>&nbsp;to Cuba in&nbsp;<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Ecuador</span>&nbsp;...</font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div>