- XR Bolivia Archived Message
Posted by Ian M
on November 12, 2019, 8:34 am, in reply to "Bolivian coup"
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Interested to hear peoples' thoughts on this. Stenutz has recently written an open letter to XR and Fridays for a Future in a similar vein (which weirdly doesn't seem to be visible online anywhere). There's some amount of skepticism but not nearly enough, and my knowledge on Bolivia is too sketchy to pitch in with any authority! I ***** https://medium.com/@leongalindostenutz/call-to-action-holding-political-leaders-accountable-for-ecocide-climate-crisis-evo-morales-b74abc86d1c9 CALL TO ACTION: HOLDING POLITICAL LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR ECOCIDE & CLIMATE CRISIS: EVO MORALES, PRESIDENT OF BOLIVIA Leon Galindo Stenutz·Monday, September 23, 2019· The trees & plants, animals & insects, and people of Bolivia need all the help we can get from fellow citizens around the world committed to environmental & social justice. Bolivia is preparing for national elections in less than a month. Evo Morales Ayma (EMA), a dictatorial President who has been governing for 14 years — abusively & unethically forcing how own re-election in the last 2 of his 3 terms in power — is now running for reelection for a 4th term in a desperate attempt to capture power for another five years despite popular vote & will saying he has to go. For some 20 years now, EMA has been a member and leader of the National Coca-Growers Union, which basically unites & represents over 50,000 families directly engaged in growing & selling coca, the primary ingredient of cocaine, a drug that has destroyed and continues to destroy millions of lives, untold numbers of families & communities in Bolivia, Brasil, Argentina and across the world, and fragile, and precious ecosystems across the Andes, Amazon, Chiquitanía, and Chaco. Vice-President of Bolivia, Alvaro Garcia Linera (AGL), is a man who was sent to jail for five years as a convicted terrorist. Along with EMA, his brother Raul, and leading ministers like Juan Ramon de la Quintana and ambassadors (including Saacha Llorenti, shamefully our ambassador to the United Nations), and other allies, Garcia Linera uses his terrorist logic to run the Bolivian Government and Parliament (as President of Congress). Together, EMA, AGL and the governing party — the “Movement Towards Socialism” or Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in Spanish, are leading one of the most immoral, abusive, corrupt, socially corrosive, and undemocratic regimes in the Americas — and possibly one of the most environmentally irresponsible & destructive governments in the world today. Let’s break this down: > ABUSE: If printed out, the documented cases of abuse and vast range of ways in which Evo, Alvaro, and the MAS have abused the public trust would fill truckloads. For over 20 years, EMA has used strong-man, bully tactics to belittled, attack, and in many cases threaten Bolivian citizens (and those of other countries). He threatens anyone who attacks him, irrespective of their profession, region, social class, religious or political affiliations, or just cause. Thousands have been either exiled, jailed, persecuted through judicial means, suffered from character assassination, or simply been insulted in ways that have led to self-censorship and people putting up with too much abuse for too long — and this has contributed directly to massive economic, social, political, and now environmental crimes. > CORRUPTION: Evo, Alvaro, and the MAS are leading one of the most openly corrupt governments in Bolivian history: Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of public funds of local tax payer money and international cooperation funds (also taxpayer money) have been abused, misused and or stolen, diverting critical funds away from vital social & environmental services to benefit a small majority of powerful and wealthy “socialists” affiliated to the governing “Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS)”, replicating the same level of corruption & unaccountability that prevails in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. (Evo recently led a delegation of 60 top leaders from the MAS to “support” Maduro on taxpayer money). > MEDIA MANIPULATION: Some studies calculate that Evo, Alvaro, and the MAS are spending over $US 100,000 a day on media, suspending funding of opposition media and actively funding friendly media in Bolivia — and across the world — to manipulate public opinion and create a completely false public image, trying to convince the world, as he has tried (somewhat successfully) to convince the average Bolivian citizen for over 14 years now — using hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money — that they are governing “for the people” and not in the pursuit of their own interests, and that they are defenders of indigenous people and “the pachamama”, mother earth, when the exact opposite is true. > SOCIAL CORROSION: Since coming to power in 2005, Evo’s direct ties to the cocaleros — coca growers whose product and industry are directly connected to narcotraffic, crime & terrorism — along with selective policy and the abuse of power, have severely damaged Bolivian civil society. The deterioration of the rule of law has led to hundreds of deaths, including barbaric public lynching of at least dozens, possibly hundreds of people; a rise in feminicide, rape, misogyny and the denigration of women; hundreds of thousands choosing to emigrate including untold numbers leaving broken families & abandoned children behind feeding local gangs with under-cared for youth; tens of thousands of families ravaged by the criminal coca-cocaine trade; and incalculable damage caused by diverting billions of dollars away from critical social services including in health and education. > THE SYSTEMIC DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY: Evo Morales and the MAS have systematically undermined, and where possible, destroyed every part of the democratic machinery that they have been able to get their hands on. The very first thing they did when they took power was to depose key leaders in the Armed Forces, the Police, and Intelligence (forming close partnerships with Iranian, Cuban, and Venezuelan advisors). Over the past 14 years they have used any number of tactics to strengthen the Executive, and to control Congress and the Judicial System, effectively neutralizing checks and balances and the separation of powers. They have physically and violently chased opposition leaders, including democratically elected Governors and Mayors, into jail or exile, weakening local and regional governments. They have invested untold sums to persecute those who think differently including through ‘creative’ new forms of oppression, such as vicious lawsuits (ex. Jose Maria Bacovich). They have, and today more than ever as we have national elections in less than a month, done everything in their power to control the Electoral System to skew the vote in their favor at any cost. Despite this, they have lost a referendum that they themselves called for, making the current elections, in effect, an illegal sham, which they must try to win at any cost (but won’t) in order to perpetuate their crimes — in association with criminal leaders, journalists, and citizens around the world who just don’t understand that this level of immorality is putting us all & our families at risk. > SHIFTING THE GEOPOLITICAL BALANCE: Since coming to power in 2005 the MAS has severed ties with historical allies — Europe, Canada, USA and others. Instead, they have cozied up to Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey, Belarus and a host of other nations led by strong men. The government of Evo Morales has kicked the US Ambassador, the DEA, Peace Corps, and USAID out of Bolivia. For many this is a good thing, but even for those who believe this (including people like Noam Chomsky perhaps), it is responsibly to look at the price that Bolivian citizens — and the environment — are paying as a consequence. The West, facing its own dillemmas, has retreated from the opportunities and responsibilities that being a good partner and ally demands, creating a vacuum that is now being filled by China, Brazil, and other less open and more corrupt regimes, destroying Western-based jobs, industries, organizations, and social networks and movements that are essential to enviromemtal and social wellbeing, putting us all at risk. Even though Bolivia is a small nation, the crude mismanagement of critical geopolitical interests and strategic relationships highlights how unenlightened, short-sighted geopolitical relations that succumb to the whims and abuses of aggressive dictators will, and does, undermine us all. A global democratic order and stable geopolitical alliances are a critical ingredient in addressing climate change and the growing number of environmental disasters we all face. Responsible politicians of all stripes in all nations must accept this. > UNPRECEDENTED, LARGE-SCALE ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION: In the past 40 days four million hectares of dry and tropical forests, grasslands, and wetlands (a territory bigger than Switzerland or Uruguay) have burned to the ground — — in what is the largest environmental disaster in Bolivian history — and together with the fires abetted by the Bolsonaro regime, probably the worst in all of South America in recorded history. Over the next months, scientists, politicians, and all of us will clearly see the impact on global climatic and environmental variables as a direct result of the absolutely irresponsible mismanagement of our own forests as natural carbon skinks. The fires are still raging, penetrating precious indigenous reserves and national parks — and yet Evo Morales and the MAS have refused to declare a National Emergency, call for full-scale international aid, fully engage the military, police, and all available public sector resources and to mobilize all of civil society to prevent, minimize, and stop the fires. At least 6 volunteer fire-fighters have died as have millions to billions of other sentient beings (including rare & endangered species). Entire ecosystems, some of the most pristine, rare & precious indigenous territories, national parks, biodiversity hotspots, and critical Amazonian & Andean ecosystems in the world have been destroyed. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: The immoral and criminal actions of Evo Morales Ayma, Alvaro Garcia Linera, and the MAS are a crude, terrible example of how irresponsible, democratically unaccountable leaders can, and are, directly contributing to the environmental collapse that can drag millions, possibly billions, of human beings into a truly dangerous, unviable period of human history. The fires in Bolivia are not merely the result of aggravated environmental circumstances directly related to climate change. They are that and much more — the outcome of a “perfect storm” that includes many variables. Chief among them: Government policies (with the direct or indirect complicity of international organizations and governments) actively designed to speed up deforestation through slash & burn tactics, favoring large-scale agroindustry and MAS-affiliated small and medium sized migrant “inter-cultural colonizers” from the highlands. All this backed by the massive demand for beef, soya, and other consumer goods both in the West and accelerated by official agreements between the MAS and the Chinese Government which has signed a deal with Morales to import tons of beef & soya, requiring the Bolivian (and Brazilian) governments to slash & burn millions of hectares of Amazonian, Andean and dry (Chaco & Chiquitano) forests and grasslands, directly cutting into the very heart of South America and the “lungs” of our earth. … REQUEST TO ALL ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL ACTIVISTS: Bolivian citizens, and human beings around the world, need to wake up to the fact that first and above all, we are a part of nature. We are primates, mammals, vertebrates, and sentient beings — just like billions of other living creatures. We need a reasonable temperature, a stable climate, fresh air, clean water, healthy soils, and good food to survive. We cannot thrive, let alone live or even survive, if we as citizens // and our elected leaders, political, military, religious, business, media, and academic authorities — continue to ignore that our current paradigm and “development” model are already killing us, and will take us to if we fail to act NOW. Whether we like it or not, our most basic needs and rights — including a stable climate and healthy environment — are directly linked to politics and our political system. We cannot simply expect to live in a sane, healthy, and happy world if we do not do our best, as citizens of one shared planet, to ensure that peaceful, ethical, democratic political systems prevail over hypocritical, abusive, corrupt ones. Today, September 23, 2019, even as fires continue to burn in the Bolivian Amazon, Evo Morales Ayma will be presenting himself to the global community through the United Nations in New York as a “defender” and “lover” of mother earth. He is also, illegally and unethically, pushing for a fourth term in government, even after having enacted, and continuing to defend, policies, that have led millions of animals, trees, and unique ecosystems and 4 million hectares of forests (and critical carbon sinks) to burn, releasing tons of additional C02 into the atmosphere, increasing even more (even if only by a small amount) the dangers of extreme weather and climate phenomena for every human and sentient being on earth. Someone has to hold this man and those around him accountable. We, the citizens of the world and our highest governing body, the United Nations, have to set a precedent. If the highest governing body in the world refuse to effectively reprimand Evo Morales Ayma and his government for all of his criminal activities against the lungs of our one shared planet and the geopolitical and ecosystemic heart of South America, than global civil society, through movements such as Fridays for Futures, Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, and many, many other social and environmental citizen movements that are gathering momentum across the planet must take on the responsibility of holding the following Bolivian authorities accountable for their actions: Evo Morales, Alvaro Garcia Linera, Sacha Llorenti (the Bolivian ambassador to the UN), and the Bolivian Ambassadors in every nation and at every international body in which Bolivia has an official presence. Leon Galindo Stenutz Co-Founder, Extinction Rebellion BOLIVIA |