Watch: Exclusive Interview With
Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Who Was Deposed
in a Coup
By
Glenn Greenwald & Evo Morales
December 17, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- On November 10, Evo Morales, who
served as president of Bolivia for 13
years and presided over extraordinary
economic growth and a reduction of
inequality praised even by his critics,
announced that he was resigning the
presidency under duress, with implicit
threats from the Bolivian military.
Morales later made clear that he viewed
these events as a classic right-wing
military coup of the kind that has
plagued the continent for decades,
explaining that he was removed from his
position by force and then
ultimately pressured by a police mutiny
and military threats to flee his own
country.
Morales went to Mexico, where
he was granted political asylum, and has
lived under heavy security in Mexico
City ever since (earlier this week, he
was granted refugee status in
Argentina). On December 3, I sat with
Morales in Mexico City for an hour long
interview that was wide-ranging in
scope: not only about the events that
led to his removal and exile from
Bolivia, but also broader trends in
regional and global politics, as well as
the role played by the U.S. in Latin
America.
We
discussed who was behind this coup, what its
motives are, the role played by both the
U.S. and Brazil, the use of violence by the
right-wing “interim” government against
Indigenous protesters, the criticisms voiced
against him for seeking a fourth term
despite constitutional term limits, and how
his removal by military force in favor of an
unelected right-wing coup regime — led by
the country’s right, white, Christian
minority — reflects broader trends in Latin
American politics and global political
trends generally.
