U.S.’ lack of criticism of the Bolivian coup is hypocritical

With the memory of Jan. 6 fresh in the minds of Democratic lawmakers, loyalists of Jair Bolsonaro — the former president of Brazil — received immediate condemnation by the Western media after a pathetic attempt at seizing power in Brazil. Though it was closer to Woodstock ‘99 than posing any serious threat to seizing control over Brazilian institutions — with one palace employee even claiming “the whole place stank of urine and beer” — it is still important to call out the Brazilian fascists who stormed the capital. We should just make sure we don’t forget to mention what happened in Bolivia. There are many apparent similarities between major coup attempts in Bolivia and Brazil. In both cases, a democratic election result was contested on the grounds of fraud that was ultimately disproven, and a Christian fundamentalist tried to seize power. There is one key difference, however — in Bolivia, it worked.

In 2019, Evo Morales was re-elected as Bolivia’s president, defeating Carlos Mesa by a large enough margin to avoid a runoff.

Allegations of voter fraud followed the results, irresponsibly questioning the legitimacy of the Bolivian democratic process. Morales, the nation’s first Indigenous president, is a socialist and founder of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) political party, and rose to prominence as a warrior for the Bolivian coca farmers, or cocaleros. He challenged outside influence in political and economic processes, and confronted the long-neglected racism that plagued Bolivia. Populist and Indigenous activism being transformed into a political apparatus was seen as both a threat to foreign influence in Bolivia and its domestic political economy.

When fraud allegations gained traction, the Bolivian police and military did what the ruling class desperately wanted — they forced Morales to resign, allowing right-winger Jeanine Añez to assume the presidency. Had Morales not been a socialist and instead been an ally to the neoliberal economic agenda, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine an otherwise passive response.

Instead, the Organization of American States (OAS) claimed there was voter fraud present, and there was also very little condemnation of the coup from the West. In fact, the opposite is true — American media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post repeatedly spread the flawed OAS findings despite groups like the Center for Economic and Policy Research pointing out its many discrepancies.

A white, Christian, rightwing politician assuming the presidency was a sigh of relief to the international capitalist class, which saw Añez as an end to the intersectional socialism on display in Bolivia. With the Bolivian right not being outwardly riotous and lawless, like in Brazil or the United States, there was no hesitancy to back up the undemocratic attack on Bolivia’s left-wing government by Añez. She made a point of declaring Bolivia a Christian country after Morales introduced secularism. In the end, socialist Luis Arce and the MAS party regained control of the presidency in 2020, and Añez was imprisoned for her role in the coup. The story would have had a much grimmer ending if not for the resiliency of the Bolivian people.

Besides Morales’ socialist politics, another reason for the sparse criticism of the Bolivian coup was the natural resources that could be made available by a United States-friendly government. Bolivia sits on the largest lithium reserves in the world, which the United States business class was well aware of. Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter after the insurrection, writing, “We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it!” Surely it was no coincidence that Tesla vehicles rely on lithium batteries and that United States control over Bolivian lithium mines would result in a drop in global lithium prices. Not giving enough attention to the crisis of democracy in Bolivia revealed the widespread lack of principles in the political and media sectors. Coups rely on under-coverage in Western media because most people in Western liberal democracies would not view such anti-democratic behavior as acceptable. The United States has a long history of bipartisan support for proxy wars and insurrections across Latin America, so it is no surprise to see corporate media enable the Bolivian right-wing. The difference now, however, is the obsessive coverage in the aftermath of Jan. 6. The media is no longer minimizing coverage of coup attempts but is instead selecting which ones should be discussed. Until prominent liberals end their silence on Bolivia, they have no authority to lecture anyone about what a threat to democracy looks like.

Nathan Sommer is a sophomore majoring in history.

Track and field competes at non-scoring meets

The Binghamton men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in a pair of meets over the weekend. The Bearcats came out of both the Cornell/Kane Invitational and the Penn State/Sykes & Sabock Challenge with several individual winners and new personal bests on the day.

“Everyone did really well today,” said Binghamton head coach Mike Thompson. “But [junior Penelope Paldino] was probably the highlight — she had a huge PR on the hurdles. [There were] some other small performances, but it was kind of a low-key meet though, so just kind of a tune-up for the conference in a couple of weeks.”

Paldino’s new personal best of 9.08 on the 60-meter hurdles was good enough to see her finish sixth in the event. Also at Cornell, a quartet of Bearcats was able to take gold, with the singular winner on the men’s side being junior Brandon Love, getting his second consecutive victory in the pole vault event with a height of 14-08.00 feet. For the women, senior Mallorie Turner took the triple jump with a leap of 36-05.50 feet, along with freshman Alyssa Armitage and sophomore Lucciana Robertson — who won the pole vault and high jump, respectively. Armitage earned a height of 11-01.75, while Robertson jumped 5-06.00 feet.

At Penn State, the winning persisted for the BU women’s team in particular — once again. In the 4x400 relay, graduate student Stephanie Cassens, senior Sophia Morone, freshman Angie Mesa-Espinosa and sophomore Hillary Abankwa combined for a winning effort. The quartet clocked in a time of 3:50.06. For the men, the sole Binghamton winner was senior Mark Scanlon, who posted a time of 1:21.30 in the 600 meter event.

“I thought the quartermile women ran really well,” Thompson said. “The [4x400] ran well, and they also had some good individual performances. [Cassens] in the 600, [Abankwa] in the 400.”

A standout performer for the Bearcats was junior Jenna Chan, who broke her own record in the 60-meter hurdle event twice during the meet. After grabbing a time of 8.54 in the trials — breaking her previous record of 8.55 — Chan stepped in the finals to clock in a time of 8.51, a new school and personal record.

“It was great,” Thompson said. “[Chan’s] been running consistently well all year, and with consistency comes the personal best performances. And that’s exactly what she did.”

After next weekend’s Valentine Invitational, the Binghamton men’s and women’s track and field teams will head to the longawaited America East (AE) Conference Championships. Chan and Cassens were among five BU students to receive individual honors in last year’s championships, helping their team to a third-place finish of 10 participants.

“What I hope to see is everybody have great performances like [Paldino] did and [Cassens] and [Chan],” Thompson said.