11/14/2019 What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me | Nick Estes | Opinion | The

stes | Opinion | The Guardian

What the coup against Evo Morales means to

indigenous people like me
Nick Estes
The indigenous socialist project accomplished what neoliberalism has repeatedly failed to do:
redistribute wealth to society’s poorest sectors
Thu 14 Nov 2019 07.00 GMT

E
vo Morales is more than Bolivia’s first indigenous president — he is our president, too.
The rise of a humble Aymara coca farmer to the nation’s highest office in 2006 marked
the arrival of indigenous people as vanguards of history. Within the social movements
that brought him to power emerged indigenous visions of socialism and the values of
Pachamama (the Andean Earth Mother). Evo represents five centuries of indigenous
deprivation and struggle in the hemisphere.

A coup against Evo, therefore, is a coup against indigenous people.

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11/14/2019 What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me | Nick Estes | Opinion | The Guardian

Evo’s critics, from the anti-state left and right, are quick to point out his failures. But it was his
victories that fomented this most recent violent backlash.

Evo and his party, the indigenous-led Movement for Socialism (MAS in Spanish), nationalized key
industries and used bold social spending to shrink extreme poverty by more than half, lowering
the country’s Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, by a remarkable 19%. During
Evo’s and MAS’s tenure, much of Bolivia’s indigenous-majority population has, for the first time
in their lives, lived above poverty.

The achievements were more than economic. Bolivia made a great leap forward in indigenous
rights.

Once at the margins of society, Indigenous languages and culture have been thoroughly
incorporated into Bolivia’s plurinational model. The indigenous Andean concept of Bien Vivir,
which promotes living in harmony with one another and the natural world, was written into the
country’s constitution becoming a measure for institutional reform and social progress. The
Wiphala, an indigenous multicolor flag, became a national flag next to the tricolor, and 36
indigenous languages became official national languages alongside Spanish.

Evo’s indigenous socialism has become the standard bearer for the international indigenous
community. The esteemed Maori jurist, Moana Jackson, once referred to Bolivia’s 2009
constitution as the “nearest thing in the world to a constitution that has come from an Indigenous
kaupapa (a communal vision).”

The indigenous-socialist project accomplished what neoliberalism has repeatedly failed to do:
redistribute wealth to society’s poorest sectors and uplift those most marginalized. Under Evo
and MAS leadership, Bolivia liberated itself as a resource colony. Before the coup, Evo attempted
to nationalize its large lithium reserves, an element necessary for electric cars. Since the coup,
Tesla’s stocks have skyrocketed. Bolivia rebuked imperialist states like the United States and
Canada by taking the path of resource nationalism to redistribute profits across society.

This was Evo’s crime.

“My sin was being indigenous, leftist, and anti-imperialist,” Evo said after being coerced into
resigning this week.

His replacement, Jeanine Añez Chávez, agreed. “I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous
rites,” the opposition senator tweeted in 2013, “the city is not for the Indians who should stay in
the highlands or the Chaco!!!” After Evo’s departure, Chavez declared herself interim president
while holding up a large bible, though she failed to get the required quorum in the senate to do so.

Next to her stood Luis Fernando Camacho, a member of the Christian far-right. After Evo’s
resignation, Camacho stormed the presidential palace, a flag in one hand and a bible in the other.
“The bible is returning to the government palace,” Camacho announced in front a camera while
bowing before a bible and flag that he placed atop the presidential seal. “Pachamama will never
return. Today Christ is returning to the Government Palace. Bolivia is for Christ.”

In places where the opposition is strongest, Wiphala flags, symbols of indigenous pride, were
lowered and burned. Police officers cut the flags from their uniforms. What were symbolic acts
quickly escalated into street-level violence.

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11/14/2019 What the coup against Evo Morales means to indigenous people like me | Nick Estes | Opinion | The Guardian

MAS members’ houses were burned. Evo’s home was ransacked. Masked armed men began
rounding up suspected MAS supporters and indigenous people in the streets, loading them into
the back of trucks. A handful of protesters have been killed. The same social movements that
ushered Evo and MAS into power have taken to the streets to defend the gains of their indigenous
revolution.

Amidst the chaos, anti-indigenous race-hatred has gripped the country since Evo’s October 20 re-
election. While left critics continue to rail against Evo, paradoxically blaming him for the coup
that overthrew him, no evidence has emerged of election fraud. The Organization of American
States cited “irregularities” without yet providing documentation. A report by the Center for
Economic and Policy Research, however, found no irregularities and no fraud.

To appease critics, Evo even agreed to re-elections but was forced to resign under orders from the
military and escalating rightwing violence. No one resigns with a gun pointed to their head.
Clearly, it was a coup.

Fearing assassination, Evo fled to Mexico where he was granted asylum and greeted by a cheering
crowd.

The future of Bolivia is currently marching in the streets, the millions of people who voted for Evo
in the last elections, the 47% whose voices and votes were stolen by the violent return of the old,
colonial oligarchy.

Other critics still contend that Evo’s 13-year tenure was too long. They mention Evo losing a
referendum to amend constitution but failing to note the Supreme Court ruling that allowed him
legally to run for another term. For our indigenous president, after five centuries of colonization,
13 years was not long enough.

“We will come back,” Evo recently assured supporters, quoting the 18th-century indigenous
resistance leader, “and we will be millions as Tupac Amaru II said.”

Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an Assistant Professor in the American
Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. In 2014, he co-founded The Red Nation, an
Indigenous resistance organization. He is the author of the book Our History Is the Future:
Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous
Resistance (Verso, 2019)
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Topics
Evo Morales
Opinion
Bolivia

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