Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second U.S. government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgment by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

Lithium Coup

Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who sawafter centuries of oppressionremarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the U.S. embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithiumdeposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

Suspension of Democracy

After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine ez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS)the party of Moralesbegan in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven U.S. senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.

Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of ez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, ez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratgico Latinoamericano de Geopoltica (CELAG) says that ez will get a mere 13.3 percent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 percent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 percent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted.

The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of thisand of the attack by this government on the MAS65.2 percent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of ez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 percent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

CoronaShock and Bolivia

The government of ez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came.

Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the ez governmentMarcelo Navajaswas arrested for this scandal.

Morales

Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!

The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of ez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of ez, backed fully by the U.S. government and Elon Musk.

Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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'We Will Coup Whoever We Want': Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - CounterPunch