Andre Vltchek

 

They pledged to do it, and they did—Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites”—they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America.

 

One day, they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will stand trial for sedition. One day, they will have to reveal who trained them, who employed them, who turned them into spineless beasts. One day! Hopefully soon.

 

But now, Evo Morales, legitimate President of Bolivia, elected again and again by his people, is leaving his beloved country. He is crossing the Andes, flying far, to fraternal Mexico, which extended her beautiful hand, and offered him political asylum.

 

This is now. The striking streets of La Paz are covered by smoke, full of soldiers, stained with blood. People are disappearing. They are being detained, beaten, and tortured. Photos of indigenous men and women, kneeling, facing walls, hands tied behind their backs, are beginning to circulate on social media.

 

El Alto, until recently a place of hope, with its playgrounds for children and elegant cable cars connecting the once dirt-poor communities, is now beginning to lose its native sons and daughters. Battles are raging. People are charging against the oppressors, carrying flags, dying.

 

A civil war, or more precisely, a war for the survival of socialism, a war against imperialism, for social justice, for indigenous people. A war against racism. A war for Bolivia, for its tremendous pre-colonial culture, for life; life as it is being perceived in the Andes, or deep in the South American rainforest, not as it is seen in Paris, Washington or Madrid.

 

* * *

 

The legacy of Evo Morales is tangible, and simple to understand.

 

During almost 14 years in power, all the social indicators of Bolivia went sky-high. Millions were pulled out of poverty. Millions have been benefiting from free medical care, free education, subsidised housing, improved infrastructure, a relatively high minimum wage, but also, from pride that was given back to the indigenous population, which forms the majority in this historically feudal country governed by corrupt, ruthless ‘elites’—descendants of Spanish conquistadors and European ‘gold-diggers’.

 

Evo Morales made the Aymara and Quechua languages official, on par with Spanish. He made people who communicate in these languages, equal to those who use the tongue of the conquerors. He elevated the great indigenous culture high, to where it belongs—making it the symbol of Bolivia, and of the entire region.

 

Gone was the Christian cross-kissing (look at the crosses reappearing again, all around the oh so European-looking Jeanine Añez who has grabbed power, ‘temporarily’ but still thoroughly illegally). Instead, Evo used to travel, at least once a year, to Tiwanaku, “the capital of the powerful pre-Hispanic empire that dominated a large area of the southern Andes and beyond, reached its apogee between 500 and 900 AD”, according to UNESCO. That is where he used to search for spiritual peace. That is where his identity came from.

 

Gone was the veneration of the Western colonialist and imperialist culture, of savage capitalism.

 

This was a new world, with ancient, deep roots. This is where South America has been regrouping. Here, and in Correa’s Ecuador, before Correa and his beliefs were purged and ousted by the treacherous Moreno.

 

And what is more: before the coup, Bolivia was not suffering from economic downfall; it was doing well, extremely well. It was growing, stable, reliable, confident.

 

Even the owners of big Bolivian companies, if they were to care one bit for Bolivia and its people, had countless reasons to rejoice.

 

* * *

But the Bolivian business community, as in so many other Latin American countries, is obsessed with the one and only ‘indicator’: “how much higher, how much above the average citizens it can get”. This is the old mentality of the colonialists; a feudal, fascist mentality.

 

Years ago, I was invited, in La Paz, for dinner by an old family of senators and mass media owners. With no shame, no fear, openly, they spoke, despite knowing who I was:

 

“We will get rid of this Indigenous bastard. Who does he think he is? If we lose millions of dollars in the process, as we did in 1973 Chile and now in Venezuela, we will still do it. Restoring our order is the priority.”

 

There is absolutely no way to reason with these people. They cannot be appeased, only crushed; defeated. In Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador or in Bolivia. They are like rats, like disease, proverbial symbols of fascism as in the novel The Plague, written by Albert Camus. They can hide, but they never fully disappear. They are always ready to invade, with zero notice, some happy city.

 

They are always ready to join forces with the West, because their roots are in the West. They think precisely like the European conquerors, like North American imperialists. They have double nationalities and homes scattered all over the world. Latin America for them is just a place to live, and to plunder natural resources, exploit labor. They rob here, and spend money elsewhere; educate their children elsewhere, get their surgeries done (plastic and real) elsewhere. They go to opera houses in Paris but never mingle with indigenous people at home. Even if, by some miracle, they join the Left, it is the Western, anarcho-syndicalist Left of North America and Europe, never the real, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Left of non-European countries.

 

They don’t need the success of the nation. They don’t want a great, prosperous Bolivia; Bolivia for all of its citizens.

 

They only want prosperous corporations. They want money, profit; for themselves, for their families and clans, for their bandit group of people. They want to be revered, considered ‘exceptional’, superior. They cannot live without that gap—the great gap between them and those ‘dirty Indians’, as they call the indigenous people, when no one hears them!

 

* * *

 

And that is why, Bolivia should fight, defend itself,as it is beginning to do so right now.

 

If this, what is happening to Evo and his government, is “the end”, then Bolivia will be set back by decades. Entire generations will again rot alive, in desperation, in rural shacks made of clay, without water and electricity, and without hope.

 

The ‘elites’ are now talking about ‘peace’. Peace for whom? For them! Peace, as it was before Evo; ‘peace’ so the rich can play golf and fly for shopping to their beloved Miami and Madrid, while 90% of the population was getting kicked, humiliated, insulted. I remember that ‘peace’. The Bolivian people remember it even better.

 

I covered the civil war in neighboring Peru, for several years, in the 90’s, and I often crossed over into Bolivia. I wrote an entire novel about it—“Point of No Return”. It was an absolute horror. I could not even take my local photographers to a concert or for a cup of coffee in a decent place, because they were cholos, indigenous. Nobodies in their own countries. It was apartheid. And if socialism does not return, it will be apartheid once again.

 

Last time I went to Bolivia, few months ago, it was totally different country. Free, confident. Stunning.

 

Remembering what I saw in Bolivia and Peru, quarter of a century ago, I declare, clearly and decisively: “To hell with such ‘peace’, proposed by elites’”!

 

* * *

 

In Paris, on the 10th November, in the middle of the Place de la Republique, a huge crowd of treasonous Bolivians gathered, demanding the resignation of Evo. I filmed and photographed these people. I wanted to have this footage in my possession, for posterity.

 

They live in France, and their allegiances are towards the West. Some are even of European stock, although others are indigenous.

 

There are millions of Cubans, Venezuelans, Brazilians, living in the US and Europe, working tirelessly for the destruction of their former motherlands. They do it in order to please their new masters, to make profit, as well as various other reasons.

 

It is not peace. This is terrible, brutal war, which has already taken millions of lives, in Latin America alone.

 

This continent has the most unequally distributed wealth on earth. Hundreds of millions are living in misery. While others, sons and daughters or Bolivian feudal scum, are attending Sorbonne and Cambridge, to get intellectually conditioned, in order to serve the West.

 

Each time, and I repeat each time, a decent, honest government is voted in, democratically, by the people, each time there is someone who has invented a brilliant solution and solid plan to improve this dire situation, the clock begins ticking. The years (sometimes even months) of the leader are numbered. He or she will either be killed, or ousted, or humiliated and forced out of power.

 

The country then goes back to, literally, shit, as has happened just recently to Ecuador (under Moreno), Argentina (under Macri) and Brazil (under Bolsonaro). The brutal status quo is preserved. The lives of tens of millions are ruined. “Peace” returns. For the Western regime and its lackeys.

 

Then, as a raped country screams in pain, countless international NGOs, UN agencies and funding organisations, descend upon it, suddenly determined to ‘help refugees’, to keep children in classrooms, to ‘empower women’, or to fight malnutrition and hunger.

 

None of this would be needed, if the elected governments which are serving their people were to be left alone; left in real peace!

 

Enough is enough!

 

Latin America is, once again, waking up. The people are outraged. The coup in Bolivia will be resisted. Macri’s regime has fallen. Mexico is marching in a cautiously socialist direction. Chile wants its socialist country back; a country which was crushed by military boots in 1973.

 

In the name of the people, in the name of the great indigenous culture, and in the name of the entire continent, Bolivian citizens are now resisting, struggling, confronting the fascist, pro-Western forces.

 

Revolutionary language is once again being used. It may be out of fashion in Paris or London, but not in South America. And that is what matters—here!

 

Evo did not lose. He won. His country has won. Under his leadership, it became a wonderful country; a country full of hope, a country that offered great prospects to hundreds of millions all over La Patria Grande. Everyone south of the Rio Grande knows it. Marvelous Mexico, which has given him asylum, knows it, too.

 

Evo has won. And then, he was forced out by the treasonous military, by treasonous business thugs, feudal land owners, and by Washington. Evo and his family and comrades have been brutalised by that extreme right-wing paramilitary leader—Luis Fernando Camacho—who is calling himself a Christian; brutalised by him and by his men and women.

 

Bolivia will fight. It will bring back its legitimate President where he belongs; to the Presidential Palace.

 

The plane which is taking Evo to Mexico, north, is actually taking him home, back to Bolivia. It is a big, big detour. Thousands of kilometers, and months, perhaps even years… But from the moment the airplane took off, the tremendous, epic journey back to La Paz began.

 

The people of Bolivia will never abandon their President. 

And Evo is, forever, tied to his People.

And Long Live Bolivia, Damn It!

 

(Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. He presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East.)