Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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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).
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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.
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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.
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A year later, Bolivia’s left-wing party, the MAS, staged a stunning political comeback. It came after campesinos, indigenous groups, and the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), Bolivia’s major trade union federation, brought the country to a standstill by forming roadblocks to demand that the dictatorship government hold elections. Faced with the insurgent popular forces, the government buckled.
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the MAS swept to power in a landslide, repudiating the neoliberal and racist policies initiated by Bolivia’s elites. Those elites remain, nonetheless, active and powerful.
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self-styled pititas — urban, young, middle-class protesters. Some were students at the universities in La Paz, such as the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), whose then rector, Waldo Albarracín, was a longtime critic of the MAS.
✏️ After 2019 coup, this was the 1st major element that grew out of the far-right. 🔗 View Highlight
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the ultraright concentrated in the wealthy eastern region of Santa Cruz with ties to Brazilian fascists and Washington, DC. This faction coalesced around Camacho, who went on to become governor of Santa Cruz in the 2021 regional elections. His old organization, the UJC, launched a campaign of terror in Santa Cruz in the wake of the coup, setting off bombs outside the headquarters of the local peasant union.
✏️ After 2019 coup, this was the 2nd element that grew out of the far-right. 🔗 View Highlight