The US backed coup in Bolivia.

[Cliffy]

This written from my former boss at Global Exchange, a non governmental human rights org based in San Francisco. Media Benjamin is in Bolivia witnessing and taking reports of human rights violations. You can trust them to report the truth, even when the US gov is behind the violations. - Sunita Chethic


"They're Killing Us Like Dogs"—A Massacre in Bolivia and a Plea for Help

Writing this dispatch from Bolivia, the conflict here is spiraling out of control and I fear it will only get worse.


I am writing from Bolivia just days after witnessing the November 19 military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto, and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession on November 21 to commemorate the dead. These are examples, unfortunately, of the modus operandi of the de facto government that seized control in a coup that forced Evo Morales out of power.
The coup has spawned massive protests, with blockades set up around the country as part of a national strike calling for the resignation of this new government. One well-organized blockade is in El Alto, where residents set up barriers surrounding the Senkata gas plant, stopping tankers from leaving the plant and cutting off La Paz’s main source of gasoline.


"The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing," cried a mother whose son had just been shot in Senkata. "Please, tell the international community to come here and stop this."

Determined to break the blockade, the government sent in helicopters, tanks and heavily armed soldiers in the evening of November 18. The next day, mayhem broke out when the soldiers began teargassing residents, then shooting into the crowd. I arrived just after the shooting. The furious residents took me to local clinics where the wounded were taken. I saw the doctors and nurses desperately trying to save lives, carrying out emergency surgeries in difficult conditions with a shortage of medical equipment. I saw five dead bodies and dozens of people with bullet wounds. Some had just been walking to work when they were struck by bullets. A grieving mother whose son was shot cried out between sobs: “They’re killing us like dogs.” In the end, there were eight confirmed dead.


More: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/11/22/theyre-killing-us-dogs-massacre-bolivia-and-plea-help

 

[Cliffy]

"Commanders of Bolivia’s military and police helped plot the coup and guaranteed its success. They were previously educated for insurrection in the US government’s notorious School of the Americas and FBI training programs." Activists in the US have been trying to shut that place down since the early 80s. The military school just changed their name to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation based at Ft. Benning, Georgia.


Top Bolivian coup plotters trained by US military’s School of the Americas, served as attachés in FBI police programs

The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country’s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.
Just prior to Morales’ resignation, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces Williams Kaliman “suggested” that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country’s police force had rebelled.
Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attaché of Bolivia’s embassy in the US capital.
Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the US through WHINSEC, the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas. Kaliman himself attended a course called “Comando y Estado Mayor” at the SOA in 2003.
At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington.



More: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/13/bolivian-coup-plotters-school-of-the-americas-fbi-police-programs

 

[petros]

Kaliman

Must be a Joo.

 

[Cliffy]

 

[B00Mer]

Please stop acting like brainwashed Liberals. This has absolutely nothing to do with the coup. Every single person in Bolivia protested and got together and overthrew the dictatorship of Evo Morales

Canada backs coup against Bolivia’s president

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIOFVI98ww&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2cbpTvvHbyfo0-643HT-AVjglJnJ536cnvyuSAeXEhL1-OClgKVWBfjH4

 

[Cliffy]

Bolivian Police Gas Funeral March in Latest Crack-Down

La Paz, Bolivia
Last Thursday thousands of people descended into La Paz from El Alto carrying the caskets of eight people shot dead by police earlier that week. Emotions were running high and protestors had tears streaming down their faces. They had assembled peacefully to demand justice.
“Áñez, murderer. We want your resignation”, they shouted. “Justicia!”. It was not a march in support of a political party; it was a march of grief and fury.
Around thirty minutes later, the police dropped cans of tear gas over the marchers, forcing the families to abandon the coffins on the ground under the hot sun. As the tear gas floated across Plaza San Francisco, people implored “calma, calma” to prevent a crush as the crowd fled.
The dead had been among those blockading the natural gas plant at Senkata, El Alto in protest at the new interim government of Bolivia. In total, nine were shot by state forces on Tuesday in a military operation to unblock the plant, which supplies most of La Paz’s gas.
The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights this week convened open meetings across Bolivia to assess the current human rights situation. At one, a woman described how her husband was not involved directly in the Senkata blockade but was shot by the military “like a dog in the street”.
The protest on Thursday comes as Bolivia enters a deep impasse following the removal of former President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous leader. The present juncture is marked by institutional breakdown, political reprisals and near-unprecedented state violence. The week before, eight cocaleros (coca growers) were massacred by state security forces as they protested against the new government in Sacaba, Cochabamba.
According to Bolivian human rights organization CIDOB, there have been 32 people killed and 700 injured in the several weeks of unrest which engulfed Bolivia after the elections on October 20. Speaking to some at the protests, many fear the unofficial count is higher. The security forces have impunity after the new government passed a decree which exempts them from criminal responsibility when using force.
On Thursday there was a sizeable contingent of students from Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), the main public university in La Paz, who formed a human chain to pass water to the protestors. This marks a shift from previous anti-coup marches in which university students as a bloc, were largely absent. Under the leadership of opposition-supporting rector Waldo Albarracin, UMSA has been a nexus of anti-Morales activity and in the two weeks after the elections, UMSA students were key instigators of anti-Morales blockades. But these students shouted “Fascistas, no pasaran”, indicating that the violence of the post-coup government may have provoked a volte-face.
Meanwhile, the government, headed by religious conservative Jeanine Áñez, continues its McCarthy-esque purge of officials appointed under the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), issuing highly politicized and seemingly arbitrary arrest warrants. It should be remembered that Áñez’s party only received 4% of the popular vote in the election.



More: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/27/bolivian-police-gas-funeral-march-in-latest-crack-down

 

[Walter]

Bolivian Police Gas Funeral March in Latest Crack-Down
La Paz, Bolivia
Last Thursday thousands of people descended into La Paz from El Alto carrying the caskets of eight people shot dead by police earlier that week. Emotions were running high and protestors had tears streaming down their faces. They had assembled peacefully to demand justice.
“Áñez, murderer. We want your resignation”, they shouted. “Justicia!”. It was not a march in support of a political party; it was a march of grief and fury.
Around thirty minutes later, the police dropped cans of tear gas over the marchers, forcing the families to abandon the coffins on the ground under the hot sun. As the tear gas floated across Plaza San Francisco, people implored “calma, calma” to prevent a crush as the crowd fled.
The dead had been among those blockading the natural gas plant at Senkata, El Alto in protest at the new interim government of Bolivia. In total, nine were shot by state forces on Tuesday in a military operation to unblock the plant, which supplies most of La Paz’s gas.
The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights this week convened open meetings across Bolivia to assess the current human rights situation. At one, a woman described how her husband was not involved directly in the Senkata blockade but was shot by the military “like a dog in the street”.
The protest on Thursday comes as Bolivia enters a deep impasse following the removal of former President Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous leader. The present juncture is marked by institutional breakdown, political reprisals and near-unprecedented state violence. The week before, eight cocaleros (coca growers) were massacred by state security forces as they protested against the new government in Sacaba, Cochabamba.
According to Bolivian human rights organization CIDOB, there have been 32 people killed and 700 injured in the several weeks of unrest which engulfed Bolivia after the elections on October 20. Speaking to some at the protests, many fear the unofficial count is higher. The security forces have impunity after the new government passed a decree which exempts them from criminal responsibility when using force.
On Thursday there was a sizeable contingent of students from Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), the main public university in La Paz, who formed a human chain to pass water to the protestors. This marks a shift from previous anti-coup marches in which university students as a bloc, were largely absent. Under the leadership of opposition-supporting rector Waldo Albarracin, UMSA has been a nexus of anti-Morales activity and in the two weeks after the elections, UMSA students were key instigators of anti-Morales blockades. But these students shouted “Fascistas, no pasaran”, indicating that the violence of the post-coup government may have provoked a volte-face.
Meanwhile, the government, headed by religious conservative Jeanine Áñez, continues its McCarthy-esque purge of officials appointed under the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS), issuing highly politicized and seemingly arbitrary arrest warrants. It should be remembered that Áñez’s party only received 4% of the popular vote in the election.
More: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/27/bolivian-police-gas-funeral-march-in-latest-crack-down

Progs love violence.

 

[Cliffy]

Welcome to the Global Rebellion Against Neoliberalism

As distinct as the protests seem, the uprisings rocking Bolivia, Lebanon, and scores of other countries all share a common theme.

Something—someone—keeps knocking at the door. It’s cold out there and getting colder, but the people inside are cozy on the sofa with the TV on and a blanket on their laps. But there’s that knock again: at the front door now, then the side door, then the back. Maybe it’s the wind. Now there’s knocking at the windows and the roof and the walls of the house—who knew they were so thin? It’s hard to understand: How could so many people be knocking all at once?
But they are, and it’s getting louder. Last week you could hear the banging in Colombia—in Bogotá, Cali, Cartagena, Barranquilla, Medellín, a curfew declared, the army in the streets—and the week before that in Iran, a steady beat that quickly spread to more than 100 cities. At least 100 protesters have been killed so far. It’s hard to know if there were more, or exactly what is going on: The government shut off the Internet on the protests’ second day. But even when there’s a steady connection, it’s hard to put it all together: Protests have been roiling through Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Spain, Sudan, the UK, and Zimbabwe—I’m sure I’m leaving someplace out—and that’s only since September. Some have been the fleeting, routine sort that snarls up traffic for a day. Others look more like revolutions, big enough to topple governments, shut down entire nations.


More: https://www.thenation.com/article/global-rebellions-inequality/

 

[Curious Cdn]

Backing Latin American coups is an old Thanksgiving tradition going right back to Teddy Roosevelt.