The ANSWER Coalition is joining with many other organizations across the country and around the world to mobilize against the military coup against democratically-elected Bolivian president Evo Morales and all US intervention in Latin America, including the criminal blockade against Cuba. We are outraged at this U.S.-orchestrated attack on a progressive leader who has stood up for Bolivia’s Indigenous majority and became an international symbol of resistance to U.S. domination.
Demonstrations are taking place across the country in solidarity with the people of Bolivia who are facing the prospect of a military dictatorship.
In Indianapolis, we are protesting:
Saturday, November 16 at 2:00 pm
Lugar Plaza, 200 E. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204
RSVP on Facebook
See a list of other protests around the country here.
The goal of the coup in Bolivia is to restore the absolute authority of the Bolivian elites who rule as clients of the United States. They despise the country’s Indigenous majority and want to eviscerate the rights of the working class.
The coup also has a clear regional significance. Progressive and revolutionary forces have been on the march over the past year. President López Obrador’s new government in Mexico committed itself to non-interference in the sovereign affairs of the nations of Latin America. Venezuela defeated the U.S.-backed coup attempt of Juan Guaidó. An uprising in Ecuador forced the government to flee the capital city and cancel an IMF-imposed austerity package. An ongoing rebellion in Chile has brought historic crowds into the streets and put the right wing government of Sebastian Piñera on the defensive despite vicious repression by the police and military. The right wing government in Argentina was voted out of office in favor of the progressive Alberto Fernández-Cristina Fernández presidential ticket. And immediately preceding the Bolivian coup, wrongfully imprisoned ex-President Lula was freed.
The Bolivian ruling class and their military are following the dictates of the U.S. government, which has worked overtime to turn back the leftwing tide sweeping Latin America.
The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on November 6 to condemn the illegal blockade against Cuba, which it has done every year since 1992. This year, the resolution passed by a vote of 187-3-2 — only Brazil, under the fascist Bolsonaro, and Israel joined the United States in voting against the resolution while Colombia and Ukraine abstained.
November 16 was recommended for an international day of solidarity with Cuba at the Anti-Imperialist Solidarity Conference, For Democracy and Against Neoliberalism, hosted in Havana earlier this month.
Some of the effects of the blockade include, according to Cuban periodical Granma:
- The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the government of the United States of America on Cuba for nearly six decades is the most unjust, severe, and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions ever levied on any country.
- In this past year, tightening the blockade has continued to be the central pivot of U.S. government policy toward Cuba, with increasingly notable effects in its extraterritorial application.
- The blockade is a massive, flagrant, and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cuban men and women. Because of its declared goal and the political, legal, and administrative framework upon which it is sustained, these sanctions qualify as an act of genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and as an act of economic warfare according to the Naval Conference of London of 1909. Moreover, it is in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.
