On October 17, 2003, Bolivia lost the first – which would ultimately be the last – democratic government of the new millennium. A country that in the 1980s had recovered democracy and controlled hyperinflation, now became a colony of 21st-century Socialism. Castrochavism kidnapped our homeland. That day began the route of national darkness.
But the overthrow of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was only the consecration of a plan that had begun a decade ago. Conspiracy that, in addition, had the support of North American NGOs, FARC guerrillas, Argentine advisers, Cuban intelligence, drug cartels and traitors to Bolivia, Carlos Mesa is the main one. Let’s look at a sequence of events.
Evo Morales began his career as a leader of the coca growers of the Cochabamba Chapare in the last years of the 1980s. At the beginning of his union life, his only speech was: “Let us plant coca. Coca is our source of income.” But it was at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century that the NGOs, Coca 90, for example, recruited the coca grower. The objective was to make Evo the standard-bearer of the new narratives of the regional left.
Pablo Stefanoni, an Argentine journalist very close to Castrochavism, and Morales himself recognize the importance that the organizations of the Argentine left had in romanticizing the fight against drug trafficking. It was these who redesigned Evo’s speech in a Marxist key. It was no longer the defense of a source of income, but the resistance against a new form of American “colonialism.” It was no longer about the demands of the coca growers, but about the defense of the “indigenous” peoples. He was no longer the president of the Federations of Coca Producers of the Cochabamba Tropics, but the leader of the “humble.”
Under that mask, he gained space and sympathy from the Bolivian and international press. Local journalists were the first to criticize the interventions of the anti-narcotics units of the Bolivian Police and to defend Morales when he was arrested for his terrorist actions. They were also in charge of filling the newspapers, radio and TV stations with the speech against “neoliberalism”.
But the lowest blow to Bolivian democracy was ignoring the massacres carried out by Morales and his henchmen. So as not to tire you, I quote two.
In October 2000 there were strong protests by coca growers. Police Lieutenant David Andrade, 26, his wife Graciela Alfaro, 19, in addition to sergeants Gabriel Chambi and Silvano Arroyo, died after being kidnapped by coca growers.
The uniformed officers were in charge of eradicating crops, which generated the reaction of the coca growers, who then tortured and killed them, according to the defendants.
Lieutenant Andrade, before losing his life as a result of blows from machetes and clubs, witnessed the rape and torture of his wife.
In January 2002, Evo Morales organized a blockade of the coca market in Sacaba. During those violent days, Lieutenant Marcelo Trujillo, Second Lieutenant Saúl Coronado Gastelú and police officer Antonio Gutiérrez were cruelly murdered while being evacuated in an ambulance from Sacaba to Cochabamba. Several witnesses, including coca grower Félix García Cáceres, accused Morales of being the intellectual author of the lynching of law enforcement officials. With these tests, several parliamentarians asked for Evo’s immunity, he managed to be expelled from Congress for a short time. However, these cases never came to trial. The accusations were dropped in exchange for peace in the Chapare.
Despite all of the above, the press always sought to portray the forces of order as repressive, racist and fascist. They minimized the criminal actions of the cocalero leadership. They even celebrated the overthrow of Sánchez de Lozada, and proudly shouted that they were friends with the subversives. Whether all of the above was done by accomplices or by useful idiots is something that remains in their private jurisdiction.
In almost two decades of being kidnapped by a gang, Bolivia ceased to be a gas power. Resources like lithium are in the hands of Russia, China and Iran. Prisons are overflowing with political prisoners. The regime has mortgaged the retirement of Bolivians. The only thing we stand out for, apart from drug trafficking, is exporting subversive engineering to neighboring countries.
poor country!
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