From very early on Sunday afternoon, my friend Yandira, a doctor from a town in Bolivia, sent me a text on Facebook telling me her concern about the violence that was unleashing in the capital of the country, La Paz, that day, and it was spreading throughout most of the country.
The texts with images sent to me did not stop. She kept sending me information on burning buildings, vandalism and Bolivian media news to my Facebook account, saying that she was afraid to write her byline about it, because he would lose her new job of a couple of months, after three years of being unemployed as a doctor. She blamed the government for bringing doctors from Cuba who were taking jobs from Bolivians.
As the minutes passed, and then hours, I had already gotten involved in the Bolivian situation, and I continued researching on social media and Google about what she described to me as a chaotic situation.
“Evo Morales has just resigned!”, she suddenly wrote to me alarmed, and cheerful. “We are going to be free in Bolivia!
Already by then the news about the possible fall of the peasant leader, the first president of Bolivia that comes from the original inhabitants of the American continent, looked eminent. The news outlets worldwide were on the subject. The news was spreading as gunpowder, violence increased.
From the department Beni, a department in northeastern Bolivia, in the lowland region, and the second largest in the country, Yandira continued her shift as the doctor on duty at a local hospital, while following the events. Concerned about the situation in the country and with great uncertainty, she kept sending me reports on the situation in her country through Facebook Messenger, with the idea that I would divulge them.
I connected to a live network, and Evo Morales appeared announcing his resignation at a press conference, and in another the supreme command of the national police and those of the armed forces – the army – appeared in the cameras asking the president for his resignation, “For the sake of the peace of our dear Bolivia,” they said.
The police were marching with the townspeople,
But what happened in Bolivia? I wondered. Everything went so fast. Moments before when I was chatting with my doctor friend, it wasn’t mentioned, nor did she imagined that suddenly Evo Morales would no longer be president.
I personally had not followed the news of Bolivia, until now.
Bolivia had been with under an indefinite strike for about three weeks, with its main cities paralyzed by blockades of the country’s most important routes and a national strike against the outcome of the elections that gave Evo Morales a new presidential term. He canceled the elections, but it didn’t work.
The shouts of the demonstrations denounced electoral fraud, which would have given Morales a fourth period. They asked for his resignation.
The Central Obrera of Bolivia, the strongest union of President Evo Morales turned his back on him and asked for his resignation.
“We ask the president to reflect on that request that the Bolivian people have, if it is for the good of the country, if it is for the health of the country, that our President resigns,” said executive Juan Carlos Huarachi.
Morales himself, who asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to recount the votes, accused with evidence that there was fraud.
Born in Orinoca in 1959, Evo went from being a pastor of llamas and a union leader, which boosted him in the political life of the country.
He had no university education, but he always argued that he trained at the “university of life.”
Leader of the coca federations of Cochabamba, he made that his banner and faced the government of Hugo Bánzer in the 90s, who wanted to cut the coca crops.
His struggle gave him popularity not only among coca growers, but among the natives. And so he became a congressman in 1997. But Evo wanted more.
Today it has become a great international controversy. Some praise him and others condemn him.
After his residence was ransacked and that of his sister burned, the Mexican government offered him political asylum. And at the time of writing these lines Evo Morales would have already reached the Aztec capital in a Mexican military plane as an exile. But he promised to return.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard announced that Mexico will request an urgent meeting of the OAS regional body, while condemning the pressures that led Evo Morales to leave power.
“The conduct of Mexico will be governed by an elementary principle: the principle of non-intervention means that Mexico maintains the recognition of the legitimately elected government until the end of its period, recognizing another government is an intervention of the process that contradicts our principles,” said Ebrard.
The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States will meet in an extraordinary session on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 3 p.m. EST (8 p.m. GMT) in the Simón Bolívar Room of the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, to Consider “the situation in Bolivia,” according to the request of the Permanent Missions of Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the United States, Guatemala, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
The meeting will be broadcast – with interpretation in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese – live through the OAS website and the official OAS Facebook page.
If it was a coup d’etat the fact that the military asked him to leave power, which would be a violation of the constitutional order, Evo also broke it, because he did not abide by the popular vote in a referendum he himself called for. The people themselves told him that they did not accept reelection, but still he unleashed popular will and ran.
In addition, by simply consulting with the Supreme Court of Justice on the validity of the constitutional mandate that prohibits re-election, it is itself unconstitutional, as he himself swore to obey and defend the Constitution that he now violated to re-elect himself. And that destroyed the last days of his presidency and the peace of his country.
Evo Morales, the leader who brought forward the poorest country in Latin America in 13 years as president, as a headline stated, “neither the achievements nor the coming of the people were enough for Evo to be able to stay in the position he held on to. Without the support of the army or the police, the president had no choice but to resign.”
Now we must wait for calm again and new elections to be organized with new electoral authorities, and that the economic achievements that Evo reached, can bring peace and economic prosperity to this proudly indigenous nation, to be an example of all of America.
