Tío Bad: Slain Rapper Defended the Mixe-Popoluca Language

Por

24 December, 2019

Tío Bad, Veracruzan rapper murdered — Tío Bad rapping in Oaxaca. Photo: Daliri Oropeza

Tío Bad rapping in Oaxaca. Photo: Daliri Oropeza

Translated by David Milan for Avispa Midia. Originally written in Spanish by Daliri Oropeza for Pie de Página.

Tío Bad, a rapper from the village of Sayula de Alemán, Veracruz, Mexico, fought for his people’s Mixe-Popoluca language. Through his art, he denounced the devastation wrought by fracking in the region, the narcostate in Veracruz, murders of journalists, and the displacement of his language. He was found on Tuesday, December 17, 2019, murdered.

Lengua enredada es mi dialecto,
janga yoshuatray Camnik
jemna nipatkajej townik
nikƗrysh dios nikakminga jujnik
nik jej tan agitkap mokuij.
vamos a trabajar a la milpa
a encontrarnos en el camino
agradecerle a dios porque hubo lluvia
porque gracias a eso tenemos maíz.
Song: “Marap”
Written by: TíoBad
Colectivo Altepee ft. Sector 145
Josué Bernardo Marcial Santos, Tío Bad, rapped in Sayulteca, a language that like all indigenous languages in Mexico has been subjugated, silenced, and displaced. He realized that only “the old folks” spoke it. Young people no longer did. He saw everything his community was losing with the displacement of their language.

Who has heard of Sayulteca, Mixe-Popoluca, Sayula Popoluca, or Tɨkmay? He made it resound on as many stages as he could

He brought back a style of jaranaⁱ playing particular to the people of Sayula de Alemán, where the grandparents were the only ones still singing verses. Tío Bad brought together a healthy group of kids and youth interested in learning and rebuilding the Popoluca culture of Sayula through the jarana.

His rap was a torchbearer for the revival of the Sayulteca or Mixe-Popoluca language. He himself began to speak it through talking with his grandmothers.

He would spend hours sitting in the patio full of trees and flowers, asking them about the words that would later make up his verses. He learned to speak the language that had been denied to him to remind listeners that his people exist.

Josué Marcial Santos, Tío Bad—nicknamed for the love he had for his three nieces—considered himself indigenous. He wore it tattooed on his skin.ⁱⁱ

He usually wore a baseball cap. His favorite, royal blue and emblazoned with the NY Yankees logo, was one he had bought on a jarana tour of the US. In the blazing sun of Sayula, it served him well. It also helped identify him among the different groups of young people there. He wore baggy pants and identified with rap and hip hop culture.

Tío Bad was dedicated to spreading Sayula’s traditional music, through a group that he and a few friends formed called Tzump tuuj (Raindrops, in Sayulteca).

Jarana players at a traditional fandango in Chacalapa, Veracruz. Photo: Daliri Oropeza.

In the last few months, the municipal government had insisted that the group play at patronal celebrations. It had become a reference point for the rescue and popular teaching of the jarana, which is linked to the organizational traditions based in mayordomías of first peoples in the region.

“The fandangoⁱⁱⁱ is the pueblo’s^iv oldest form of organization, for giving thanks or asking for water, rain for the crops. From the person who slaughters the pig, to the one who puts up the tent, makes the tamales, arranges the chairs… All of this is the fandango, a pueblo’s form of organization. Something the pueblos have lost,” he said to an audience of young people participating in the National Indigenous Congress (CNI).

He was an active participant in the Altepee Collective, which is focused on traditional string music as a motivation for political, social, and community participation for young people. Collective members give and receive workshops on string music, instrument-making, audio, video, and rap, which has turned it into an option for youth in a violent area.

Tío Bad served as a delegate to the National Indigenous Congress for his pueblo. He had direct experience with organizational processes that made him conscious of the impositions and threats under which the Popoluca people have lived for hundreds of years.

Tío also knew and practiced the ancient technique of nixtamalization, the process that converts corn into masa flour. He would distribute more than 60 kilos (130 lbs) a day in his village. He rebelled against the migration statistics of youth in Sayula, choosing instead to work on what was intrinsic to his region. In the last few years, he focused more on the cultivation and processing of cacao. That’s what he lived off of.

The violence in Tío Bad’s village

Sayula is a village with serious tears in its social fabric, where aspirations toward city life are always in competition with marginalization. The latter is due to the concentration of economic activity in the nearby petroleum port of Coatzacoalcos. Sayula is divided in half by the trans-isthmus highway, where everything that travels between the ports of Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos must pass. In short, it’s been hit hard by drug trafficking. Territorial fighting among cartels has been on the increase since 2013. It would seem that young people in this region have two choices: migrate, or line up with organized crime.

Tío Bad’s village lies in the narrowest part of the country, in the part of the Veracruzan Isthmus that borders Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Tío Bad getting the fire reading to nixtamalize corn. Photo: Daliri Oropeza

The feeling of insecurity in this region is reinforced day in and day out. There’s a newspaper whose copies are sold street by street, advertised through a loudspeaker on a motorcycle. The man riding it wears a mask. He rides through every neighborhood, announcing murders, deaths, robberies. As if everything were happening close by, the region’s murders are shouted out, but they don’t say exactly where.

This was the context for Tío Bad’s own murder. First he was disappeared and his kidnappers demanded a ransom. Then, they killed him and abandoned his body on the highway.

Collectivities

The Altepee Collective allowed Tío Bad to get closer to his own indigenous identity. This empowered his art, string music, and the use of jaranas in traditional celebrations by the peoples of southern Veracruz, where he was sought after to perform in as many parties, gatherings, homages, and fandangos as he could. That’s how he got to know the entire isthmus region.

He enjoyed learning and teaching the tunes and verses of the music. He was a person who always lent a hand to whoever needed one.

Rap workshop in Acayucan, Veracruz, led by Tío Bad. Photo: Daliri Oropeza.

Tío Bad began rapping in the public square in the center of Sayula. He was the youngest rapper there—most were older than 15 and he had just turned 12. They started a crew called Sector 145. That’s how he met the Altepee Collective, after a rap workshop given by Mare Advertencia Lírika, with whom he shared his creations and projects, in Acayucan, the closest city to Sayula. He traveled through Mexico and the United States with this collective, which is dedicated to the preservation of traditional string music from southern Veracruz. Tío Bad asserted that “Hip Hop has changed my life, and it saved me from crime.”

In his village, he was always stigmatized as the “stoner,” since he used marijuana to explore his creative side.

Through modes of narrating and sharing emancipation, with the simplicity of a beat that guides or challenges one's rhythm, Tío Bad’s rap became a nascent expression in public spaces and gatherings. That’s what the youth in his village, as well as among the mestizo elite, liked about it. Through the messages in his songs, Tío helped empower the recovery of indigenous pueblos—his own just as much as wherever he sang. He kept the demands of the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) and the CNI close at hand. He read the entirety of the San Andrés Accords and the Zapatista communiqués derived from them. In Tío Bad’s life, rap was first—making rhymes, making a crew—and then, giving voice to protest. Just like hip hop’s origins in the Bronx.

Walking through the winding streets of his village, he would always sing out loud.

“Through music, we try to hold these values, above all to unite people, so that from there we can defend the land, we can inform people. That is our work.”

—Tío Bad

Tío Bad had no choice but to experience firsthand the fear for the continued existence of indigenous peoples in Mexico. He was a participant in the discussion, and that’s why he presented himself as a Popoluca from Sayula. How to place value… how to make sure the language would not be forgotten, he wondered.

Tío wrote about topics relevant to communities around him, like fracking. This message got across well to young people—it was easily transmissible through rap, because the medium is interesting. The theme of the Sayulteca language was always present in these spaces.

“Over there in Veracruz, the violence is finishing us off, as are the megaprojects. We asked, ‘how do we confront this with music?’ That’s where rap comes in: it describes it just like it is, very directly. As the compañero said, what they’re doing with full dominion ownership destroys the ejido.^v They buy people off to frack the land. 224 wells, and more are coming—it’s worrying because the people don’t know; the TV, the newspaper, the radio don’t talk about it, so we said, well, we gotta write a song about fracking so that people know what it is,” Tío Bad said in a CNI meeting in Chilpancingo.

This is the song he composed against fracking, for which he was censured and kicked out of the Sayula Technical Secondary School [Translator: lyrics left in Spanish to avoid doing injustice to Tío Bad’s rap]:

Fracking, palabra que va a conocer el pueblo
Fracking es abrir la tierra para acercarnos al infierno
y si no me equivoco un proyecto de gringos locos
y si no me equivoco un proyecto de gringos locos
que ya tienen al planeta tan caliente como un foco
No te lo dijeron, no te lo comentaron
quieren nuestro petróleo porque el suyo se lo acabaron,
consumen tanto, pues nunca se imaginaron
que se les iba a acabar, solo porque tienen el baro
2010, geofísica, tucu tu tu tum tum, se que escuchan explosiones
estaban empezando, eran exploraciones,
tres meses después y ¡que se vienen los temblores!
Pónganse a pensar, eso apenas es el comienzo
no somos mensos y nos pusimos a investigar y vimos que…
al pueblo nunca se le ha hecho un consenso y
en México esta práctica la están por licitar,
El Estado involucrado dispuestos a tratar
unas tierras a las cual no las habido el trabajo
para enamorar gran dinero te han de dar
pero no quieren tu terreno, quieren lo que hay debajo
debajo
hay oro negro, y lo quieren a costa de todo
no importa que nos vean revolcados en el lodo
o que todititos nuestros paisanos quedemos muertos
Fracking es fractura hidráulica y quieren fracturar la tierra
es por eso que con gráfica decidimos hacerles la guerra
gases que se fugan por las grietas nos contaminan el aire,
es por eso que con métrica explicamos lo que no te explica nadie
750 sustancias químicas contaminan el agua,
es por eso que con lírica defendemos lo que más hace falta
Fracking es fractura hidráulica y quieren fracturar la tierra
es por eso que mediante el Hip Hop venimos a ponerte alerta
Analizando nos preguntamos ¿Cómo carajo
van a perforar la tierra 3 mil metros para abajo?
11 mil pozos asignados a Veracruz,
esa cifra la hizo decir ¡Jesús!
Y es que por pozo, se necesitan dos hectáreas,
¿acaso todas esas tierras serán necesarias?
llevando la vida diaria, poquito a poquito
pues por pozo se ocuparán 29 millones de litros
de agua y de agua sufrimos un desbasto
los ríos se están secando, no creas que es un mito,
todos debajo se contaminarán los mantos friáticos
y por arriba se prenderá el agua que sale por tu grifo,
Compañero te soy sincero, la verdad no sé si me explico…
lo único seguro es que nuestro futuro está en manos de unos cuantos ricos…
pero todo eso cambia si nos informamos,
pero todo eso cambia si nos organizamos,
pero todo eso cambia si como pueblos nos juntamos.

i Translator: a traditional string instrument from Veracruz that looks like a small guitar.

ii Translator: Definitions, delimitations, and self-identifications around indigeneity can be considerably different in Mexico from how they are often conceived or discussed in Anglo America.

iii Translator: “In Veracruz, Mexico, a fandango is a party where people get together to dance, to play and to sing in a community setting.” (Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandango).

iv Translator: Pueblo doesn’t have a very good English equivalent. It often means people just as much as it means village or place. In these cases, I have elected to leave it in Spanish.

v Translator: Ejidos are an important part of land use and ownership law in Mexico. They are a form of collective property that has been threatened in the last few decades by NAFTA, international mining interests, and other capitalist projects.

The Case of Indigenous Yaqui Land Defender and Political Prisoner, Fidencio Aldama Pérez

Por

Aldo Santiago

11 December, 2019

This audio comes from Maria del Carmen García Vázquez, the partner of
Indigenous Yaqui land defender and political prisoner, Fidencio Aldama Pérez.
It speaks to the context of Fidencio's arrest, his current legal situation and
the necessity of solidarity in helping free Fidencio Aldama Pérez. The text of
the audio in both English and Spanish are below.

Hi Everyone.

My name is Maria del Carmen García Vázquez. My husband is Fidencio Aldama. He is a political prisoner of the Yaqui Tribe, from the town of Loma de Bácum, Sonora. We, the town of Loma de Bácum, are opposed to a gas pipeline that the government of the State of Sonora—the government of Claudia Pavlovich Arellano—wants to build.

On October 21st, Yaquis from the eight Yaqui towns arrived in our community. These Yaquis receive money and new cars from the government and from the pipeline company, Sempra Energy. These Yaquis came to attack our traditional guard, and to attack our community, as a means to impose their authority and move forward with the gas pipeline project. For unknown reasons, we as Yaquis and as Catholics, we say it is metaphysical; that day October 21st, they arrived and attacked our traditional guard and our community. Unfortunately, in that conflict, Cruz Huitimea Piña was shot and killed. As the result of bad luck, or due to destiny, Fidencio Aldama Pérez was accused of the murder. That day Fidencio Aldama Pérez was working as part of the traditional guard, what they call community security or community police in other Indigenous communities. He had a 45-caliber weapon. Cruz was assassinated with a 22-caliber weapon. You all can see the difference there. Fidencio had a 45-caliber weapon and Cruz was killed with a 22-caliber weapon.

On October 27th, 2016, a week after, or six days after, the prosecutor’s office asked our Indigenous authorities permission to interview or take statements from the people that were there part of the traditional guard the day of the conflict. They asked to speak with Fidencio. At the moment Fidencio got into the automobile, darkness took over. They took Fidencio, alongside the compañera, Anabella Carlon, and a lawyer named Merardo, to Obregon. There he was taken to the attorney general’s office, where they made him sign papers and where he was given an arrest warrant. At that moment, Fidencio said he wondered why his arrest warrant wasn’t given to him in front of the traditional guard, in front of the traditional authorities and the people of the community. He asked why he had to sign the papers. The investigating state police told him that everything would be fine. He thus signed because he didn’t have any other option.

After Fidencio signed the paperwork, he was taken to prison in Ciudad Obregon. Since October 27th, he has been there, deprived of his freedom, innocent. After four months, Fidencio had a hearing. There, witnesses were present who said he is guilty. A year later, the trial was held. During the trial, the witnesses they brought forward were people they had paid off. They were the same people who arrived and attacked our town on October 21st. They brought these witnesses as a means to keep Fidencio in prison. This would help to pressure the authorities to sign the passage of the gas pipeline. Fidencio was eventually sentenced to fifteen years and six months in prison.

Fidencio remains in prison. His words support and nourish us. He tells us to stay together, to continue fighting for our territory. He says if he has to be there imprisoned, that is not important. What is important is that we continue the struggle. However, there are days that he says to me, when I talk to him or visit him in prison, he says to me that he can’t continue there, that he doesn’t want to be there. “I want to leave, I want to be with my children. I want to be in my home,” he says. I want this all to end, but what can I do. All of this makes me very sad, but I can’t do anything.

Right now the lawyer, David Guadalupe Valenzuela, has submitted an appeal in the Court of Hermosillo, Sonora. They have three months or ninety days to resolve the appeal. Those three months end in June. Supposedly the lawyer also went to talk with the federal government—with the secretary of government—because there was the possibility of the Senator Nestora Salgado helping release political prisoners. However, it turned out that the case of Fidencio is in the hands of the Ministry of Interior Affairs; they have the case of Fidencio.

Just yesterday, the lawyer, David Guadalupe Vanzuela, sent me a message saying that the president’s office was going to take a look at Fidencio’s case. The president’s office has solicited all of the paperwork related to the case of Fidencio saying they were going to give priority to the case. We don’t know how honest that is.

I only ask those that listen to this audio, that you help me to get Fidencio free. If you can share this audio, or if you can help us with this struggle, I would be so grateful.

His children need a father. The pain is so powerful that sometimes it is impossible to endure. Either way, we are here and we continue the struggle. Thank you all for the support and hopefully you can share this audio to help free Fidencio Aldama. I send you all greetings and blessings. ESPAÑOL:

Hola a todos,

Mi nombre es Maria del Carmen Garcia Vazquez. Soy esposa de Fidencio Aldama preso político de la tribu yaqui del pueblo de Loma de Bácum . Nuestro pueblo de Loma de Bacum se opone y nos oponemos a un gasoducto que nos quieren poner el gobierno del Estado de Sonora, el gobierno de Claudia Pavlovich Arellano.

El día 21 de octubre llegan yaquis de los ocho pueblos a los cuales el gobierno les dio dinero, la empresa del gasoducto, Sempra Energy. Les compro carros nuevos , ellos llegan a atacar nuestra guardia tradicional, a nuestra comunidad para poder imponer su autoridad y que esa autoridad firmará el paso del gasoducto. Pero por causas que desconocemos y que nosotros como yaquis que somos y como católicos que somos…nosotros decimos que es un milagro .Ese día el 21 de octubre, ellos llegan, atacan nuestras guardia tradicional y nuestra comunidad y pues desgraciadamente en ese conflicto asesinan y le disparan a Cruz Huitimea Piña y pues por mala suerte o por cosas del destino pues….Fidencio Aldama Pérez lo culpan de ese asesinato. Ese día Fidencio Aldama Pérez le tocada la guardia tradicional, como dicen le tocaba la vigilancia o policía comunitaria , como ustedes le llaman en otros pueblos indígenas, y pues traía un calibre 45, y a Cruz lo asesinan con un calibre 22 entonces como ustedes pueden ver es mucha la diferencia, un calibre 22 a un calibre 45.

El 27 de octubre de 2016, una semana después, 6 días después, nuestra autoridad le pide la fiscaleria que vengan hacer entrevistas no declaraciones a esa personas que estaban ahí en la guardia a las personas que estuvieron el día que fue el conflicto del 21. Le mandan hablar a Fidencio. Al momento que Fidencio sube, a un (Auto)móvil que se llama Hercules, apagan las luces y apagan todo y se lo llevan con la compa Anabella Carlon y con un abogado se llama Merardo, se los llevan en Obregon bajan a la abogada a la compa Anabella y al abogado Merardo de ahí se lo llevan a la procuraría de justicia en donde lo hacen que firme papeles y le dan la orden de aprensión. En ese momento, Fidencio dice que el piensa por que esta orden de aprensión no me le dieron en la guardia tradicional, enfrente de mi autoridad tradicional enfrente de la gente de la comunidad, pero el solo lo piensa, no lo dice. Lo que si les dice el es que por que firma esos papeles, y lo que le dicen esos agentes de la PI, de la Policía Estatal investigadora es que todo va a estar bien. que firme y que todo va a estar bien, pues el firma por que no le quedo de otra.

Ya que firma y todo, le hacen ese papeleo lo llevan al reclusorio, Cuidad Obregony desde el 27 de octubre ahí esta recluido, privado de su libertad, siendo inocente. A los 4 meses le hace la audiencia a Fidencio Aldama, y ahí es por donde llegan los testigos, y reiteran que el es el culpable. Al año, se le hace el juicio, y en el juicio igual los testigos que ellos llevan son testigos que ellos mismos compraron. Los que llegaron y los atacaron el 21 de octubre. Ellos los compraron para que Fidencio estuviera recluido ahí privado de su libertad y para que esto ayudara para presionar a la autoridad para firmar el paso del gasoducto. Entonces lo sentencian, a 15 años y 6 meses.

Fidencio sigue ahí, el dice y nos da apoyo a nosotros, nos da aliento. El nos dice que no nos dejemos, y sigamos en la lucha ,y sigamos luchando por nuestro territorio, que si el tiene que estar ahí recluido privado de su libertad que no importa pero que nosotros sigamos luchando, pero si hay días que el me dice cuando me hablo cuando voy a visitarlo, el me dice que ya no puedo, ya no quiero estar aquí. Yo quiero irme, quiero estar con mis hijos yo quiero estar en nuestra casa. Yo quiero que ya se acabe todo esto, pero yo que puedo hacer. Me da mucha tristeza todo eso pero no puede hacer nada yo. Ahorita el abogado que se llama David Guadalupe Valenzuela el metió un amparo en del Colegiado de Hermosillo Sonora. Le dieron 3 meses, 90 días para la resolución del amparo, ahorita esos 3 meses terminan ahora en junio parece que si en junio. Y se suponen que también el abogado fue con el gobierno federal, con el secretario de gobierno, por que también paso un caso de que la senadora Nestora Salgado, ella saco a presos políticos, entonces dio una lista, en esa lista esta Fidencio Aldama Pérez, pero resulta el caso de Fidencio lo paso la secretaria de gobernación entonces ahorita esta en la secretaria de gobernación el caso de Fidencio.

Ayer exactamente ayer, el abogado David Guadalupe Valenzuela me mando whats diciendo que ya iban a empezar a ver el caso de Fidencio en presidencia. La presidencia mando pedir el caso Fidencio a todos los papeles para verlo por que ya le van a dar prioridad a el. Pero sabes si será cierto o no.

Yo solo le pido a los que escuchen esta audio que me apoyen con la libertad para Fidencio. Que si pueden difundir que si nos pueden ayudar con eso les daría todo las gracias del mundo.

Por que le hace falta el papa a sus hijos. Es algo muy fuerte entonces que a veces no se puede aguantar pues ni modo aquí estamos seguimos en la lucha. Yo le doy gracias a todos para el apoyo que nos dan y ojalá que puedan difundir este audio para pueden ayudar a Fidencio Aldama con su libertad. Les mando muchos saludos y bendiciones.

The former School of the Americas in the U.S. has trained 4,211 Bolivian soldiers

Por

Santiago Navarro F

8 December, 2019

60,397 Latin American soldiers have received training from WHINSEC. A large number of them remain active in the militaries of various countries in the region. Only 4,211 soldiers are from Bolivia.

Translated by Leif Johnson

Published 21-11-2019

The credibility that Evo Morales' government had held for 13 years quickly exhausted itself, as he twice violated the constitution he himself had promoted and continued with the same extractivist model as previous governments. This is the background of what today is considered a coup d’état.

In February 2016, Evo Morales had called for a referendum to extend the limits on reelection. Although the referendum failed, he was nominated once again and won the elections – giving him a mandate to govern Bolivia until 2020. This year, he did the same and put himself forward to govern Bolivia until 2025. However, he was accused by the Organization of American States (OAS) of having committed electoral fraud.

In the presidential elections that took place on this past October 20, 2019, after a system outage that lasted several hours, the Supreme Electoral Court of Bolivia announced that Evo Morales had won 47.07% of the vote, followed by Carlos Mesa with 36.51%. This difference was greater than the 10% necessary for an electoral victory in the first round.

Sometime after, observers from the OAS presented a report, dated November 10, 2019, pointing out what they described as “fraud” carried out on behalf of Evo Morales which resulted in his reelection. Alongside the report, dozens of "civic" protests began all over the country. Additionally, several military commanders refused to recognize the results. This was when Morales resigned, following the "suggestion" of the commander of the Bolivian military, Williams Kaliman Romero.

"Everything started when the civic [groups] from Santa Cruz started their blockades, attacking and humiliating women in racist and discriminatory ways. They started this strike to try to take out the MAS government. It happened the same way in Cochabamba and other areas", argued a mother of four from El Alto who wished to remain anonymous.

Immediately following Morales's resignation, Kaliman Romero assumed control of the country and gave a public statement that, because of the increased number of protests and the fact that the police were outnumbered, the military would take action against protesters. "Our Bolivian police has been overwhelmed, and in compliance with our constitutional mission, military command has arranged for the armed forces to engage in joint operations with the Bolivian police in order to avoid bloodshed and grief for the Bolivian family", he announced on November 11.

"I thank the President of the Republic of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, for the recognition of my government".

Two days following the announcement of military presence in the streets, on November 13, the former news broadcaster and opposition senator Jeanine Áñez Chávez proclaimed herself interim President in a ceremony in which the commander Kaliman Romero symbolically passed the presidential sash to her.

Amid intense protests, the principle responsibility of the self-proclaimed interim president of Bolivia, following Evo Morales’ resignation, was to call new elections. However, she did nothing of the sort and instead attempted to justify repression. Áñez decided to declare that the use of force by the police and military would be exonerated, assuring on November 15 that they would be "exempt from legal responsibility when, in compliance with their constitutional function, they act out of legitimate self-defense or necessity, in observance of the principles of legality, absolute necessity, and proportionality, in accordance with Articles 11 and 12 of Penal Code 1760, and the Code of Penal Procedures".

The results were that by Monday, November 18, according to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, 23 people had been killed and 715 had been injured by firearms exclusively used by the military and police.

"The total is that at least 23 people are dead and 715 are injured since the beginning of the political and institutional crisis", reported the ICHR on social media.

"As constitutional president of Bolivia, I invite you to designate the new ambassador of Venezuela in Bolivia, who will be immediately recognized by our government".

On Tuesday, November 19, three deaths were reported during a brutal joint operation by the police and military which attempted to dissolve the blockade maintained by Morales supporters around a fuel plant in Sankata, 40km from La Paz.

However, Argentine journalist Fernando Ortega Zapala, who covered the repression, affirmed on social media that there were more deaths than reported. "Today I saw 10 dead, four of whom died right in front of me. All were young people. I lost count of the wounded. My hands and clothes are stained with blood", he shared.

From Mexico, in a press conference, Evo Morales affirmed that there are "30 dead, more than a thousand people with gunshot wounds, and more than a thousand arrested".

"Since taking on the position, the supposed president has given free rein to the police and military, who have started to massacre the people. Regrettably, they have snatched people up and taken them away. There are several former leaders of the MAS who have been arrested and whose whereabouts are unknown. This is happening in El Alto, but it's worse in Cochabamba", stated María.

The Military Legacy

The most important link that holds a State together lies, in the first instance, in its legitimacy before the people, as well as in the structures of its military. These structures were inherited by progressive governments in Latin America, militaries that later turned their backs on them. Commander Kaliman Romero, the head of the Bolivian military, who was appointed by Evo Morales in December 2018, justified the use of force following the resignation of the president, assuring that it was directed "against the acts of groups of vandals who are causing terror among the population, reminding the population that the military would never open fire against them". In reality, tension is growing day by day, and repression is out of control.

The military figure who took the reins of this South American country did not emerge from nowhere. Commander Kaliman Romero, like thousands of other Latin American soldiers who have been trained in U.S. military doctrine, is an alumnus of the "Strategy and Defense Politics" course in the former School of the Americas. He also took Commando and Chiefs of Staff courses, from 2003 to 2004, at the same school, which has since been renamed.

In February 2001, following accusations that the school was training soldiers in “torture techniques and how to carry out coups,” the School of the Americas was renamed as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) -- the same institution where Commander Kaliman Romero took several courses and where he also shared his experience as a professional military education official.

One of the last events that Kaliman Romero attended was the Conference of American Armies in 2013, also at WHINSEC, located in Fort Benning, Georgia. According to a report by the institution itself, Kaliman, as the commander of the Bolivian military, reunited with old classmates he had taken courses with, such as the Mexican Colonel Federico San Juan Rosales and Peruvian Colonel Aldo Domínguez Peralta.

The Architecture of a Coup

From 1949 to 2004, the former School of the Americas, which has continued as WHINSEC, trained 4,211 Bolivian soldiers. Among Latin American countries, Bolivia has the fifth greatest number of soldiers trained by the United States, following Colombia (10,446), El Salvador (6,817), Perú (4,559), and Nicaragua (4,529). Bolivia has sent more soldiers to the school than Chile and Venezuela, according to the information provided by the school on soldiers graduated from the institution.

Training received by these soldiers range from courses on Military Intelligence, Interrogation, Communications, Peace Operations, Human Rights, Joint Operations, Psychological and Leadership Operations, Civil-Military Operations, Anti-drug trafficking and Counter-insurgency operations, among others.Among these 4,211 Bolivian soldiers, at least five were exposed in a series of 16 audio tapes released November 12, 2019, including conversations and plans for destabilization before the October 20 elections. Kaliman Romero was among them.

In the leaked conversations, it is possible to identify the soldiers involved, who gave their names to other soldiers in order to give instructions on the operations they were directed to carry out. Among them are: Oscar Pacello Aguirre, Remberto Siles Vásquez, Julio C. Maldonado Leoni, Teobaldo Gardozo Guevara, and Manfred Reyes Villa. These five are also graduates of WHINSEC, as evidenced by a check of the database of Bolivian soldiers who have participated in the school.

Oscar Pacello Aguirre (Honors Graduate): Took the Military Intelligence Course for Officers from February 7 to April 18, 1994. Attended the Commando and Chiefs of Staff Course for Officers, January 24 to December 14, 2000.

Remberto Siles Vásquez (Distinguished Graduate): Took the Combat Arms course for Officers from January 6-June 2, 1992.

Julio C. Maldonado Leoni: Took the Commando Instructor and Chiefs of Staff General Officer courses between January 15, 2001, and January 15, 2003.

Teobaldo Cardozo Guevara: Took a course on Basic Foreign Training in November, 1974.

Manfred Reyes Villa: Attended a course in Basic Combat Arms in 1976.

Among the strategies laid out in the recordings, their goal was to attack the homes of supporters of the Movement towards Socialism party (MAS), in order to provoke fear and tension among the population, with the goal of creating a scenario where the coup would not only be justified, but would even obtain popular support.

In the audio tapes, it is also evident that they had obtained backing from the evangelical Church, as well as the Brazilian government, in particular through a supposed confidant of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, advisor to an unidentified Bolivian presidential candidate.

In the recordings, Colonel Maldonado Leoni expresses that the plans for attack are aimed expressly at the government. "There's a blockade at the Cuban embassy, the Consulate, and the ambassador's residence. A blockade around the residences of the Cubans who are living in Bolivia. The Civic Committees did it. This is all against the government right now -- why? Because who is really governing this country? It's the Cubans", he is heard stating in tape no. 8. https://bit.ly/37jYnoB

In tape no. 14, (https://bit.ly/2O0noxu), Colonel Oscar Pacello Aguirre introduces himself to the other soldiers, indicating that no resistance would be permitted to the plans or strategic actions to take place between July 23 and October 21, the day of the election. "What are the key moments?" asked the colonel. "August 6 and 7", he answered himself. "Because the 6th is the Civic Patriotism ceremony, and the 7th is the military parade".

Tape 14 continues, indicating that on the chosen dates, there would be a demonstration before the Chiefs of Staff, with placards calling for the military to uphold the constitution. "Because Evo Morales wants to gain legitimacy from these elections", continued Colonel Pacello Aguirre. At this moment, they called Maldonado Leoni via telephone, who stated "We have great hope - more than hope, we have faith in our civic movement [...] conditions are calling out for the youth to direct a whole movement for this country".

For María, it was this very scene which was used to disguise the coup. Since they first allowed for the elections to be carried out, in order to later fail to recognize them and, as so, take to the streets with the patriotic committees to cause destruction in the name of the MAS. "There are demonstrators in the streets who are saying they're from MAS, but they're twisting the discourse for foreign media. As for local media, they've paid them off so that they won't say anything against the self-proclaimed president Áñez", said the resident of El Alto.

Southern Command

Of the 60,397 Latin American soldiers who have received training through WHINSEC, the majority are still active in the militaries of their respective nation-states. WHINSEC also finances trainings in which military units take part in joint exercises directed by the Southern Command of the United States (SOUTHCOM).

The Southern Command is one of nine U.S. military command regions. It includes the southern area of the American continent, Central America, and the Caribbean. Based out of Miami, Florida, SOUTHCOM works with WHINSEC to strengthen relations with associate nations in the region, in particular through a program called "Siempre Listos" ("Always Ready"). This program focuses on three principle areas: an ethics program, a program in democracy and human rights, and the Field Studies Program (FSP), in support of their arms training.

In a classified statement from the Commander of SOUTHCOM, Craig Stephen Faller, dated February 7, 2019, the commander assures that "we work every day to gain the confidence of our partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are friends and neighbors, united by shared values and shared participation in our common future".

Following the commander's statement, the document states that relations in the region have improved, especially relations with Brazil, Colombia, and Chile, which are to be considered "forces for regional and global security".

The reinforcement of allied countries has come through "institutional capacity, exchanges of information and intelligence, education, personnel exchanges, and joint exercises. In the past year, we have improved the quality, depth, and frequency of information and intelligence exchanges with our partners, producing joint results on transnational issues of mutual interest", the document announces.

According to the commander of SOUTHCOM, the majority of the nations in this hemisphere share "democratic values - including respect for human rights and adherence to the rule of law - and are interested in the development of democracy and the struggle against radical ideologies".

When the leaders and training documents from SOUTHCOM refer to "radical ideologies", they are explicitly referring to countries that have established relations with six actors: "Russia, China, Iran, and their authoritarian allies in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela", the SOUTHCOM commander declares.

These are interconnected threats, such as the establishment in Bolivia of Evo Morales' government, because they "challenge the security of our partners in the region", states the SOUTHCOM document.

However, the commander also maintains that their alliances are not only vital, but also a security goal for the United States and its allies. As such, he recognizes the success that has been obtained in building trust between allies and partners, "working with and through our inter-institutional partners such as the Department of State, USAID, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice".

One of the individuals who worked as an advisor for SOUTHCOM since 2017 is Liliana Ayalde, the former director of USAID, who took on a variety of civilian duties in the institution, particularly focusing on foreign policy.

In 1982, Ayalde joined USAID through an International Development Internship in USAID - Dhaka. In 1985, Mrs. Ayalde joined USAID-Guatemala during a period of governmental transition. Later, she was sent to Nicaragua, where she led assistance programs through the 1990s. In 1993, she was the Deputy Director of the Office for Central American Affairs, part of the Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. She became the director of USAID in 1995, during the peace processes in the region. She returned to Nicaragua as the Deputy Mission Director for USAID in 1997.

Ayalde was named Mission Director for USAID – Bolivia during the period from 1999-2005. Following this, she was assigned to Colombia until 2008.

From 2008 to 2011, Ayalde made the jump to the position of Ambassador in Asunción, Paraguay, during an electoral process there. According to information published through Wikileaks, the coup that took place against Fernando Lugo was planned by the U.S. Embassy in Asunción, which was headed up by Ayalde at the time.

Following this, and amid tensions between Brazil and the U.S. resulting from accusations of spying in Brazil by the National Security Administration (NSA), Ayalde was named Ambassador to Brazil. The central accusation against the president at the time, Dilma Rousseff, was that she broke fiscal rules, covering up a budget deficit. She was removed from office soon after.

The silence of the U.S. government when it comes to the numbers of deaths caused by the Bolivian military is interesting, but why should call more attention is the immediate statement by the president of the U.S., Donald Trump, who not only celebrated Evo Morales’ resignation, but also claimed that it was a strong signal to "illegitimate regimes" in the Western Hemisphere, among which he included Nicaragua and Venezuela:

"Yesterday's resignation by Bolivian president Evo Morales represents a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere… The U.S. applauds the Bolivian people for demanding their freedom, and the military for keeping their promise to protect not one person, but the Constitution of Bolivia", Trump announced in the White House.

What is clear in this process is that effectively, the Morales government arrived at a point of exhaustion as a result of its long period of governance and the continuation of the same economic policies put forward by previous governments, albeit with a larger portion of public spending, which benefited vulnerable populations. But it is also clear that U.S. military doctrine has a presence in Bolivia, taking power and imposing a self-proclaimed interim president through a coup d’état.

Indigenous Colombians Escalate Fight to Rescue Ancestral Lands

Por

Santiago Navarro F

1 December, 2019

^{Photos by Santiago Navarro F}

The Nasa are one of 102 Indigenous peoples of Colombia who were pushed up into the mountains by European conquest in the 16th century, and later by massive sugarcane plantations. Since 2015, they have been carrying out direct actions in which they cut down cane fields, plant organic crops in their place, and allow the native vegetation to cover additional areas within the same reclaimed lands. They call this action “the liberation of Mother Earth,” an initiative that has cost them at least eight lives and approximately 600 evictions by Colombian state security forces trained by the U.S. Southern Command, according to people interviewed.

“They arrive as if they were going to war, with armed state forces,” a member of the Liberation of Mother Earth Movement (Movimiento de Liberación de la Madre Tierra), who asked to remain anonymous for their safety, told Avispa Mídia. “They’ve killed eight of our comrades. They have repressed us heavily.”

People work their way through a farm — Liberated territory in the Third International Encuentro of Liberators of Mother Earth.By Santiago Navarro F

One part of the Nasa people’s ancestral territory is located in the north of Cauca, a department (the Colombian equivalent of a state) in southern Colombia. This region is covered by 250,000 hectares (approximately 617,000 acres) of sugarcane, destined primarily for ethanol production, which is later mixed with other fuels for use in automobiles.

According to the Nasa people’s own research, this giant operation is fed by more than 25,000 water sources that come from the mountains and 2,000 wells that were drilled in the surrounding areas. It consumes 25 million liters (6.6 million gallons) of water per second. This ecological travesty has pushed the Nasa to recover their ancestral lands.

“Modelling for sustainability assessment in the Bioethanol Supply Chain,” published in 2017 by Danny Waldir Ibarra Vega, argues that bioethanol production in Colombia has increased exponentially from 100,000 liters per day in 2006 to more than 200,000 liters per day in 2017.
“The time came to liberate the land,” said one activist, who introduced himself only as José for security reasons. “The mining, petroleum and monocrops … are businesses that benefit a few people. And it must be liberated because the Earth has one purpose, which is to generate life and not death.”

A person with a covered face walks through the brush — A Nasa woman teaches participants how to cut cane. By Santiago Navarro F

“The goal of this action is to let the land return to nature, because that’s how diversity will return, the birds will return, the microorganisms and the plants that were considered [the cane planters’] enemies. The trees will return,” José told Avispa Mídia.“The time came to liberate the land. It must be liberated because the Earth has one purpose, which is to generate life and not death.”

In addition to reclaiming their ancestral lands, they are also regaining their food sovereignty. They have carried out another direct action with the planted and harvested crops: freely giving out food in the poorest neighborhoods of the cities of Cali, Medellín, Manizales and Bogotá. They call this initiative the “Food March,” whose goal, they say, is “a meeting of the dispossessed.” Since the march, dozens of youth collectives and working-class neighborhoods have decided to break up the cement ground and start growing food.

Mirrors

In 2017, the Nasa people convened a first meeting with other people from Colombia and around the world involved in similar actions related to climate change and the reconstruction of territories razed by extractivism, monocrops and the real estate sector.

From August 8 to 11, 2019, hundreds of people arrived in the north of Cauca to participate in the Third International Meeting of Liberators of Mother Earth (Tercer Encuentro Internacional de Liberadores y Liberadoras de la Madre Tierra). They patiently sharpened their machetes as they exchanged knowing looks. With a ceremonial rod, the traditional Nasa leaders danced in single file — together with collectives of anarchists, environmentalists and others who had made the journey — a ritual by which they prepared themselves to cut down one more sugarcane plantation.

Machete in hand, Fabián Serrano from the Imprenta Comunera collective answered the call. “Liberation must also come from thought and from what’s practical. That’s why we’ve come: to nourish ourselves and learn from these practices, but above all to learn to organize ourselves,” Serrano told Avispa Mídia. “Because we have to take up other actions from our own places, we have to see each other as we see ourselves, like a mirror. Because it’s in the cities that the climate catastrophe has started to be felt with greater intensity.”

Ana María Carlón belongs to the Urban Collective of Mother Madness (Colectivo Urbano de la Madre Locura). “Mother Earth is also in the cities; she’s just covered in cement. But in practicing urban agriculture and taking the cement off of her, we are also liberating her,” María Carlón said. “Beyond this, though, there is excessive consumption in urban areas, which I consider one of the worst forms of killing Mother Earth, because the metabolism of the market functions to the extent that we consume, and Indigenous peoples’ territories are destroyed correspondingly.”“The liberation of Mother Earth is not up for negotiation.”

A woman prepares plantains — A Nasa woman cooks foods grown in liberated territory. By Santiago Navarro F

During the event, participants shared their expertise in education, health and traditional medicine, as well as knowledge and experience that have helped the Nasa self-organize and resist. “Indigenous peoples are showing us how to combat climate change and let the land heal by letting it live. We reaffirm that the principal culprit of this ecological imbalance that we are living through today is, first of all, the form of life that has been imposed on us, namely, capitalism,” said María Carlón.

The Foundation of the Regional Indigenous Council of the Cauca (CRIC) was created in 1971. The CRIC decided to recover and expand its territories, strengthening self-governments and refusing to pay taxes to landowners. However, 21 indigenous people who had recovered their lands in the Nile, a municipality of Caloto, were killed in what is known as the Nile Massacre of 1971. “Since this proposal, more than 130,000 hectares (321,000 thousand acres) have been taken back,” according to José. “The government betrayed us more than once with agreements they didn’t follow through on. Today, those of us who take up the mantle of liberators don’t negotiate with the government and we want nothing to do with them. We seek to strengthen our own autonomy with the knowledge that our ancestors have left us. The liberation of Mother Earth is not up for negotiation.”

A woman stirrs beans in a pot over an open flame — A Nasa woman roasts coffee grown in liberated territory. By Santiago Navarro F

Attendees of the meeting last August unanimously supported remaining outside of state institutions and moving toward other forms of resisting the devastation wreaked by industrial sugarcane production.

“What we’re living through is a crisis of civilization,” said Nadia Humaña, from the Dialogue Commission of Southern Bolívar, Central and Southern Cesar (Comisión de Interlocución del Sur de Bolívar, Centro y Sur del Cesar). “It’s not just economic or just social or just environmental. Everything is connected.”

“Our challenge,” said Humaña, “is to think about these problems in an integrated way, confront them, and come up with strategies that take aim at the central points of this system. It’s also necessary to rethink the role of the state and to consider if it’s possible to reverse this destruction.”

A person plays a metal instrument — Nasa musicians initiate a ritual for cane-cutting direct action. By Santiago Navarro F

Assassinations

The process of liberation has not been easy. While the Third Encuentro of Liberators of Mother Earth was taking place from August 8 to 11, 2019, in northern Cauca, the assembled fell silent upon learning that two members of the Indigenous Guard from the San Francisco reservation in the municipality of Caloto had been killed by an armed group. Five people were also wounded, among them a 7-year-old boy.“The government says that these lands have to join in the development of capitalism. We don’t want to join; we want to liberate the land and live simply.”

“Who did it? It’s an armed group that’s trying to control and manage the drug trade and this has us very concerned, because the threats continue to be very frequent in our territory,” said one of the traditional leaders of the Nasa people, who spoke anonymously for security reasons.

Murders of Indigenous Nasa people have increased exponentially since the peace agreement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) and the government. “So far in 2019,” said Alberto Brunori, representative of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, “The Office has received information on the homicides of 36 members of the Nasa people in the north of Cauca, approximately 53 death threats and eight attacks. In comparison with the previous year … today at the same date (August 2018) there are nine more homicide cases.” But these figures have risen by nearly a dozen in recent months. On October 29, 2019, alone, five indigenous authorities of the community of Tacueyó were killed by FARC dissident groups.

Two elsers talk while holding a gourd — A traditional leader shares a drink called Chicha with participants in a direct action. By Santiago Navarro F

The Indigenous people who live in the north of Cauca attribute this violence in part to the war that has dragged on for more than 50 years between various governments and the FARC. “For 50 years, the government has told us that we’re FARC collaborators, and the guerrillas have said the opposite,” José said. “Both sought to justify their actions and, in this attempt at justification, murdered many of our brothers and sisters. But we didn’t fall into this game of war, because we see that it’s a business. That’s where the murders began. With this peace agreement, the dispute over our ancestral lands has intensified.”

Since the signing of the Peace Agreement between FARC and the government, the United Nations Security Council in Colombia had verified 226 murders through March 2019.The accord led to the formation of armed dissident groups that splintered from the FARC, including right-wing paramilitary groups like The Black Eagles (Las Águilas Negras) — a decade-old moniker adopted by many disparate groups to spread fear — and an increased presence of organized crime groups, who “are fighting over territory for marijuana and poppy cultivation,” said José.

In 1991 a new constitution was enacted in Colombia that included Indigenous peoples’ rights, but according to the Nasa peoples’ documentation, between 1991 and 2005, “15 massacres were carried out in those years, with more than 500 dead.”“We’re taking the chains off of the land, but also from our hearts and minds. We’re building autonomy and rebuilding life.”

A homestead is seen in the distance — People gather in the liberated territory known as Albania. By Santiago Navarro F

The state of the land itself also comes into conflict with interests that are incentivizing other monocrops, such as the Territories of Opportunity, Program of Cooperation project (Territorios de Oportunidad, Programa de Cooperación), which is expanding avocado, coffee, cacao and livestock production. Helped by resources from the United States Agency for International Development, this program “seeks to strengthen the capacity of rural communities affected by the armed conflict,” according to the government of Cauca.

The Nasa and the Liberators of Mother Earth believe that with these development policies, Indigenous people will continue to remain repressed. “The new government says that they’re not going to buy even one more meter of land for Indigenous peoples and they will neither create nor recognize more collective territories for Indigenous peoples,” said José. “On the contrary, the government says that these lands have to join in the development of capitalism. We don’t want to join; we want to liberate the land and live simply.”

Diana, a young Indigenous woman who introduced herself only by her first name, is responsible for the political education of the young people in this village of liberators. “We’re on maximum emergency alert because they’re killing us, and it’s so painful that this is happening in the north of Cauca,” she told Avispa Mídia. “Their development policies — and the planting of illicit crops that the government supports — are destroying our way of life.”

Two boys play pipes — Young Nasa musicians participate in a cane-cutting action ritual for the first time. By Santiago Navarro F

According to Diana, those who have died in this struggle are mainly youths — the same people who have taken charge of strengthening the organizational process of their community and held firm in the liberation of Mother Earth. “The community cries for its dead, its wounded, and the destroyed crops, but they return and rise up with strength to keep cutting cane and planting food,” she said. “Because when we do so, we’re taking the chains off of the land, but also from our hearts and minds. We’re building autonomy and rebuilding life. We’re harvesting dignity.”

Nasa activists are taking direct action to liberate the land, cutting down cane fields and growing native vegetation. — Young anarchists and people from other political tendencies participate in the Liberation of Mother Earth action. By Santiago Navarro F

A version of this report was published in Truthout

A chronicle of Evo Morales’ fall and the complexity of the rebellion in Bolivia

Por

Avispa

13 November, 2019

by Djamila J. Chasqui and Javier Abimael Ruíz García

translated by David Milan

From the current circumstances that Bolivia is passing through and the different interpretations emerging around the “coup d’etat,” a few reflections that, far from “backing any government,” demonstrate the inherent contradictions of states, and in this case, expose the complexity of the events in progress in this Southern Cone country.

Translator’s addendum: In the 36 hours between the publication of the Spanish original and this translation, Jeanine Añez Chavez, of Bolivia’s tiny white oligarchical class, has assumed the Bolivian presidency. She is horrifyingly racist against indigenous people, as evidenced by this tweet from April 2013: “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals; the city is not for the Indians, they must leave for the altiplano and the chaco!” It is very uncertain how the conflict will continue to unfold. This article was written before these events and the writing and translation reflect that.

Comrades, chacha warmis of the communities, your vote has been respected. Your vote isn’t the problem. Red ponchos, green ponchos, they want to see you as imbeciles, as stupid peasants. Why? Because “the president of the peasant communities,” Evo Morales Ayma, wants to stay in power. The tirant who has ordered, who has declared, “go surround them, go and kill.”

Mama Gavina Condori Nina, Aymara woman from the Soras Nation

A disputed race for the 2020 to 2025 presidential seat took place in Bolivia. The elections were conducted with apparent calm on October 20, 2019, but that same day, after registering more than 86% of the rapid vote count, the TREP (Transmisión de Resultados Electorales Preliminares, Preliminary Electoral Results Transmission) and news reports were suspended for 23 hours.

Up until the moment before the suspension, the voting trend presented by the TREP as well as exit polls carried out by institutions like the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and the ViaCiencia company (the only one with state permission to release preliminary election results) confirmed an imminent second electoral round between incumbent Evo Morales and Carlos Mesa (Bolivia’s 63^rd president, in power from October 17, 2003 to June 9, 2005). Shortly before the counting ended, though, Morales said that since the votes still left to be counted were from rural areas, he was going to achieve the 10% difference needed to win in the first round.

That’s how, after the data started being released again, Morelos, from the MAS (Movement for Socialism), won with a 10.54% lead over Mesa, from Comunidad Ciudadana (Citizen Community, the “opposition” party). This meant Morelos didn’t have to go to a second round and attracted the attention of the Organization of American States (OAS), present as an election overseer, which released a statement.

Images, videos, and messages circulated through Whatsapp and Facebook, speaking of irregularities in the electoral process, miscounted votes, vote count documents signed without official delegates, etc., as a study conducted by engineer Edgar Villegas would later confirm. The study reported vote counts with irregularities that weren’t voided, people who signed as delegates from two opposing parties, and dead people who appeared as registered voters, among other things. The publication of this data on the University Channel’s “Jaque Mate” (“Check Mate”) program fueled the flames of discontent. Villegas himself, as well as the program’s host Ximena Galarza, received threats.

In the street, the first targets of groups that didn’t accept the election results were the departmental electoral courts. Many of them were burned and pelted with rocks in the departments (states) of Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, La Paz, Potosí, and Chuquisaca. Meanwhile in the city of La Paz, the seat of the Supreme Electoral Court (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, TSE)—the highest body governing electoral processes—crowds gathered to demand the judges’ resignation.

Little by little, the conflict intensified. The repression, and attacks by groups in opposition to the state institutions, increased. Days later CNN gave a new platform to Villegas, who said he had gathered more proof, making the so-called fraud increasingly tangible, undeniable, and close at hand.

The presence in the streets of the nine departmental capital cities was overwhelming. Public and private universities, the health sector and teachers—both historically opposed to the Morales government—held vigils, marches, and meetings. At the same time, in the neighborhoods, especially in the central and southern areas of La Paz, groups of neighbors started to block the streets, complementing a national civic strike called by the CONADE (Comité Nacional de Defensa de la Democracia, National Committee for the Defense of Democracy) and the Comité Pro Santa Cruz. The latter is headed by Luis Fernando Camacho, a businessman and lawyer whose figure as a civic leader, appealing to a religious discourse, has grown with the progression of the mobilizations.

After days of the same—marches, blockades, meetings—councils began to be called in the department capitals, with enormous attendance. They asked for a repeat election and the resignations of Morales and the judges of the Supreme Electoral Court, among others.

By that point, judges from several departments had already resigned. Statements from NEOTEC, the company that sold the special software for the election, showed evidence of irregularities in the technical processes that determined the election result.

The protests

MAS rallies and marches fell onto the councils convened by the civic committees of several cities. Some of the councils were aligned with Comunidad Ciudadana or other parties, and some displayed unchecked expressions of party electoralism and similar forms of conceiving of politics. In turn, accusations circulated of MAS dressing public employees up as miners and paying people to attend the marches (there are even some videos of payments and readings of lists of names and sums of money in accordance with their participation).

Drunk on power and alcohol, the shock groups defending Evo Morales, called by Evo himself to encircle the cities that observed the strike, to defend democracy and the rural and indigenous vote, unleashed cruel and indiscriminate violence on the elderly, women, and youth at the entrance to La Paz. Among the people injured was a well-known social fighter, involved in vigils for the victims of the dictatorships, who they left sprawled on the ground in spite of his ailments and advanced age.

To date, there have been three confrontations that led to fatalities. The first occurred in Montero, Santa Cruz, where a 55-year-old and a a 41-year-old were shot and pronounced dead at the hospital. The 41-year-old was a militant with the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Cruceñist Youth Union, UJC. Cruceñist or Cruceño refer to people or things from Santa Cruz, a Bolivian department heavily backing the anti-Morales opposition), a renamed shock group that takes direction from the Comité Pro Santa Cruz. The 55-year-old was a neighbor who got wrapped up in the altercation and later died.

Then in a demonstration by the Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Bartolina Sisa (Bartolina Sisa National Women’s Confederation) in Cochabamba, a 20-year-old man died in the middle of massive clashes that included paid protesters. The demonstration left 90 wounded and institutions burned in the town of Vinto, just outside Cochabamba, in actions claimed by the Resistencia Juvenil Kochala (Kochala Youth Resistance), a regional shock group.

Lastly, on November 10, caravans full of miners from Potosí, students, women, and others were attacked on the Oruro-La Paz highway. Men and women were humiliated, the men beaten, the women made to undress. Five people were wounded by gunfire, one of whom died, as the accusations report.

Across the country almost 400 have been reported wounded as of November 10, many of them seriously. There have been more than 200 arrests. Police repression comes and goes; it has varied widely. Sometimes they launch massive amounts of tear gas without consideration, as occurred the night of October 31 in El Prado, La Paz, where there were many children out with their families. Sometimes they just look down from the balconies, like when the miners from Huanuni entered the capital city and detonated sticks of dynamite at the feet of uniformed forces. And sometimes they protect those opposing Morales’ victory from the MAS’s shock groups, as long as the former outnumber the latter, as was the case in the city of Oruro. Here and there, demonstrators chant: “The police have two paths, unite with the people, or be their murderers.”

In the middle of this climate of clashes and tension, a heavily questioned OAS has deployed a panel of experts to audit the Bolivian electoral process, backed by the MAS and the Supreme Electoral Court and faced with an angry populace’s demand that they all leave, because what this populace wants is new elections, which one of the TSE’s judges has declared unconstitutional.

There doesn’t seem to be any agreed upon way out of the conflict, as events like those that occurred on November 5 demonstrate. On that day in the El Alto airport, MAS members surrounded a group of mostly young people that was there to make sure that Luis Fernando Camacho could get into La Paz to demand Evo Morales sign a letter of resignation. This letter has become a symbol of the demonstrations and been photocopied and put up on walls in the city center and on houses of publicly demonized members of parliament, judges, and ministers.

None of the government agencies could offer Camacho much guarantee of safety due to the huge crowd of MAS members waiting for him, so he opted to turn around and fly back to the city of Santa Cruz. On November 6, when he did succeed in entering La Paz, he was accompanied by a massive security detail that looked like a military operation.

The anti-Camacho crowd was there for his second arrival, and although he managed to avoid it, the 500 or so youths who had come to protect the Cruceño leader were forced to enter the airport and stay there for hours before an effort to evacuate them could succeed, as MAS shock groups clashed with police and destroyed convention centers and the El Alto Mayor’s office.

The unrest has also led to price increases, scarcity, and opportunism in central markets all over the country. There is generalized distrust as to which side anyone is on, if you are blockading the street in your neighborhood or if you’re marching with the MAS. Regular people are fighting one another, and the buttoned-down shirts of Camacho and Morales aren’t even specked with blood or the ashes of the Chiquitanía (a region in Santa Cruz department), with which their hands are stained.

They stand before their audiences, spotless, and never cease with their disguised incitements to violence against one sector or another, curiously enough within the framework of the same discourse, in which one denounces the racism of the other, without recognizing his own.

Anti-Morales and pro-Morales groups burn the houses of important figures from one side or the other as well as the headquarters of coca federations and workers’ and peasants’ unions that are loyal to the government.

November 10 and the so-called coup d'etat

Accusations by the “progressive” sector and their solidarity with Evo Morales in the face of a coup d’etat didn’t take long to roll in, and they began to spread far and wide. “Here before the international community and the Bolivian people, we denounce and condemn the fascist coup for its violent acts by irregular forces, who burned down the governors’ houses in Chuquisaca and Oruro, where they also burned down my sister’s house,” the president stated on Twitter the night of November 9.

At midday on November 10, in a press conference, commander of the armed forces Williams Kaliman suggested to the president that he abandon his post and to the opposition that they stop the violence, after which police forces around the country mutinied and the OAS concluded that new elections should be held. Around 4 PM, Morales announced on national television that he was “renouncing the presidency so that the opposition ceases the violence against their family members, union leaders, and the people who supported the MAS,” as the wave of resignations of representatives, ministers, and others surpassed 40 and grew by the minute. Leading the opposition, Camacho burst into the Bolivian government palace, placed a bible over the Whipala flag, and said, “Pachamama will never return to this palace. Bolivia belongs to Christ.”

A motley crowd went out into the streets, some to celebrate by tearing down symbols of the MAS and the indigenous movement, from clearly classist and racist perspectives, rejoicing in Bolivia’s liberation from a leftist dictator.

The aggressions didn’t only come from the opposition, though. It was very painful to watch MAS sympathizers forcing an Afro-Bolivian Cruceña woman to her knees, as the UJC had done in the past to the Collas (an indigenous people) in Sucre and Santa Cruz. It makes tears well up to see the valiant red ponchos of Achacachi, that nearly two decades ago overthrew the murderous Sánchez de Lozada during the Aymara insurgency, converted into a group of mercenaries at the service of power, at the same level as the fascist shock groups of the Civic Committees.

This is not about who takes power, whether one tyrant is less bad than another. And while feminist collectives and women from all over the country have proposed stepping away from the imposed polarization and war logic, up to this point no other alternative has been clearly put on the table for general discussion. So this situation seems to trend towards a resolution that preserves colonial and paramilitary logics, a stark constant of the states in this region of the globe.

Ancestors, apus and achachilas (spirits and revered elders, approximately, in Aymara) seem to be sending us coded messages to this plane of existence. Clouds of flies shield the MAS marches, a giant t’aparaku (black butterfly) alights on a wall of the government palace; all bad omens in the Andean cosmovision. Nothing would have surprised another eagle flying over the government palace, emissary of the lightning bolt that decrees the fall of the leader, as happened with Goni (a prior Bolivian president) during the gas war, but this time, Morales’ resignation was broadcast on video from another city.

What is certain is that we don’t know what will happen. We don’t accept any of the options that they’re offering us: for Morales to stay, for Mesa to come to power, for Camacho to bring the bible to the presidential palace. Nevertheless, the indigenous peoples gathered in the Court of Indigenous and Peasant Justice recently raised the idea of going on the march. The Kuraka of the Qhara Qhara nation, tata Mario Chincha, said in a declaration: “We, the original peoples, are busy in sowing seeds, in agricultural activities; this is what sustains our subsistence. We believe that looking at the situation that the country is going through, we as original peoples have seen the necessity of joining the mobilizations that the government has provoked through the elections.”

The civic-corporate-police alliance, showing a younger and more attractive face of the most rancid conservatism, is an obvious exercise in political marketing. It capitalized on the generalized discontent of a society without more concrete demands than the resignation of Evo Morales and the defense of the vote and democracy, in which people argue whether or not to call this a coup. Meanwhile, regular people fight against each other in the midst of dynamite explosions, broken windows, dam sabotage, water shutoffs, fear, and the stench of frustration.

Qullasuyu, Potosí, Bolivia, November 10, 2019

Indigenous Munduruku in Brazil Say They Are Ready to Resist the War of Dispossession

Por

Avispa

2 October, 2019

Brasilia 2015 Photo by Santiago Navarro F

The indigenous Munduruku of the Amazon, in Brazil, denounce that there are traitorous politicians, daydu as they call it, who seek to justify illegal mining in their territory by co-opting indigenous people to promote its legalization. But they deny this position, assuring that there are “some brothers and sisters, blind because of the brightness of gold, who are playing dirty games to the daydu”, who publicly assume that the Munduruku people are in favor of garimpo and mining.

Various Munduruku peoples, in a public statement, have said that no politician represents them for not representing their way of doing politics and for not being part of their traditional organization. “They can’t talk about our sacred places, they can’t negotiate on behalf of the Munduruku people”, the statement says, referring to politicians who intend to legalize illegal mining in the Amazon.

Attached to agreement 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on indigenous rights and culture, the Munduruku appeal to their autonomy and their right to decide internally on the projects contemplated in their ancestral lands. In relation to illegal mining, they certainly assume that they do not want it because it is dividing their people, and it is also “bringing diseases, contaminating our people with mercury, bringing drugs, drinks, weapons and prostitution”.

These people are known as fire ant warriors and they announce that they are prepared to resist against all the projects planned for the Amazon. “We are ready for war and we want to warn you that here, in our territory, in the Mundurukânia, occupied centuries ago by our ancestors, where all the parts of the Tapajós find the traces and signs of Karosakaybu and Muraycoko, nobody is going to enter to exploit, destroy and transform everything into merchandise and money”.

Full release

The misgovernment of Brazil does not speak for the Munduruku people

Bolsonaro, in his speech at the UN, says that we indigenous people are “cavemen”. He defines us for what he is. Bolsonaro does not represent us and his words are empty. Our boys and girls have more wisdom than him.

We have gathered village chiefs, warriors, warriors, shamans, singers and teachers from our village Munduruku of the Middle and Upper Rio Tapajós and the lower Río Teles-Pires. We talk about all attacks and threats to indigenous peoples in Brazil, our territories and our rights.

We bring our word.

We know that the daydu - which is what we call treacherous politicians - are making laws to end the process of demarcation of indigenous lands. They want to free our land for mineral exploitation, hydroelectric construction, waterways and for the railway project called Ferrogrão.

They want to end indigenous peoples, destroying our forests, rivers, and sacred places. We are against garimpo* and mining in indigenous lands. The garimpo is dividing our people, bringing diseases, contaminating our people with mercury, bringing drugs, drinks, weapons and prostitution. And greed.

All this affects all indigenous peoples, traditional peasant communities, such as Montanha e Mangabal and mainly our Munduruku people who have lived and protected the rivers and jungles of the Tapajós River basin for hundreds of years. There is no dialogue with those who want destruction. We do not negotiate our lands and we will prevent any organization that serves these purposes from entering the Tapajós.

Some brothers and sisters, blind by the brightness of gold, are playing the dirty game of the daydu and publicly claim that the Munduruku people are in favor of garimpo and mining. We will repeat it: their words are full of daxpim - full of hate and lies.

These Mundurukus who are sitting at these tables in Brasília with you are sick. They let garimpo teams destroy our land, they do not represent us and they are not the majority.

No municipal councilor represents the Munduruku people, because it is not part of our politics and our traditional organization. He cannot speak about our sacred places, he cannot negotiate on behalf of the Munduruku people.

We are more than 14 thousand people and we have our resistance movement and our associations. We have a consultation protocol that they have to respect as a law, and we have the right of veto.

No law can say how the consultation of the peoples should be. Convention 169 already exists to say that it means free, prior and informed consultation and our protocol says how it should be done. They are not consulting us about any law or project they want to do in the Tapajós River region, which is our home.

We have the right to autonomy, to have our organization and decide on our future, as you wrote in the Federal Constitution of 1988 and in ILO Convention 169.

We are building our good living with the wisdom of women, generators of life, of our shamans, spiritual guides, of our warriors, of our leaders and also of our children, and we are ready to rip all these laws and projects that distribute death.

We want to warn you that we are a warrior people. We learned to war with the great Karodaybi in the silences of the early morning, and that is why other people know us as fire ants.

We are ready for your war and we want to warn you that here, in our territory, in the Mundurukânia, occupied centuries ago by our ancestors, where all the parts of the Tapajós find the traces and signs of Karosakaybu and Muraycoko, nobody is going to enter to exploit, destroy and transform everything into merchandise and money. The government has been slow to comply with the laws that you wrote and to expel the invaders from our lands. We denounced more than 20 years ago the performance of pariwat (non-indigenous), loggers and garimpeiros and we always act alone.

But we are not going to stop, or give up. We never lost the war and we have already cut some enemy heads. Is it possible that we have to re-cut enemy heads? We know how to act, based on our policy and our traditional organization.

Munduruku Ipereg Ayu movement, Associação das Mulheres Munduruku Wakoborun Associação Indígena Pariri (Médio Tapajós) Associação, Dace (Teles-Pires), Associação Wuyxaximã, Pusuru Indigenous Association, Associação Kurupsare, CIMAT, Sawe

*Mining of immediate exploitation, generally superficial and mostly illegal. There is a legal possibility to regularize the garimpo in previously determined areas, on an individual or cooperative name, by environmental permit and for certain types of minerals.

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