While left-wing governments hold power across most of Latin America, ultraright social forces remain a threat. In Bolivia, powerful left-indigenous social movements have managed to keep an insurgent right wing at bay since the devastating coup of 2019. But a growing political crisis for the plurinational state highlights the urgent need to maintain unity in the face of an ever-powerful right.
The coup of 2019 was a catastrophic attack on Bolivian democracy. It saw the rapid ascent of ultraright conservatives from the lowland city of Santa Cruz — the axis of regional-class antagonism to the then President Evo Morales and his party, the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS — directed by businessman Luis Fernando Camacho, the leader of the business group Comité Pro Santa Cruz and former leader of the Nazi youth group Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC).
The coup unfolded when middle-class protesters took to the streets to dispute Evo’s victory in that year’s elections. As the protests escalated, the head of the armed forces “suggested” Morales resign, forcing him into exile in Mexico.
In the resulting power vacuum, the right-wing evangelical Jeanine Áñez seized the presidency, and as social movements resisted, she presided over two mass killings — of nine protesters in Sacaba, Cochabamba, and of ten protesters blockading the Senkata gas plant in El Alto who were shot dead by a military exempted from criminal liability by a sudden presidential decree.
Áñez swiftly reestablished diplomatic ties with the United States and Israel, with whom Morales had had strained relations. Clutching a giant Bible, Áñez declared, “The Bible has returned to the government,” as she paraded through the government headquarters. Soldiers were filmed…
Auteur: Olivia Arigho-Stiles
