Bolivia

by VIJAY PRASHAD Photograph Source: Senado Federal – CC BY 2.0 When you look at your computer screen, or the screen on your smartphone or the screen of your television set, it is a liquid crystal display (LCD). An important component of the LCD screen is indium, a rare metallic element that is processed out of zinc concentrate. The two largest sources of indium can be found in eastern Canada (Mount Pleasant) and in Bolivia (Malku Khota). Canada’s deposits have the potential to produce 38.5 tons of indium per year, while Bolivia’s considerable mines would be able to produce 80 tons per year. Canada’s South American Silver Corporation—now TriMetals Mining—had signed a concession to explore and eventually mine Malku Khota. Work began in 2003, two years before Evo Mo...

Police in Bolivia Pepper Spray Journalist 'On Purpose' During Live Coverage of Anti-Coup Protests "I hate to be the story because we are here to report on what is happening to the people in the amazing country," said Al-Jazeera English senior correspondent Teresa Bo. "I hope it helps denounce that such practices cannot be tolerated. Not here not anywhere." by: Jon Queally, Teresa Bo, a senior correspondent for Al-Jazeera was sprayed directly in the face—clearly "on purpose," she says—while covering anti-coup demonstrators in the city of La Paz, Bolivia on Friday, November 15, 2019. (Photo: Al-Jazeera/Screenshot) Becoming part of the story she was seeking to cover, international news correspondent Teresa Bo was assaulted by Bolivian state security forces on Friday—shot directly...

"State violence in Bolivia." by: Eoin Higgins, Supporters of Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales clash with riot police during a protest against the interim government in La Paz on November 15, 2019. (Photo: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images) Warning... Graphic images follow: Bolivian security forces opened fire on Indigenous protesters Friday in the city of Cochabamba in response to demonstrations against the right-wing regime that forced democratically-elected President Evo Morales to resign on Sunday.  "This is what a dictatorship looks like," said attorney and activist Eva Golinger in a tweet sharing images of police forces opening fire on protesters.  As Common Dreams reported, a mass demonstration movement against the unelected government of interim a...

by OLIVIA ARIGHO-STILEs The sign reads: “RESIGN self-proclaimed President, Jeanine Añez.” Photo: Olivia Arigho-Stiles. La Paz, Bolivia Eight are dead and hundreds injured in a week of bloodshed after Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales was forced to resign from power last Sunday. In this slim window of time, an interim unelected president has been installed, anti-coup protesters have been shot dead by the police and hundreds of foreign citizens have been expelled from the country, including over 700 Cuban doctors and Venezuelan diplomats. In total, 24 have died in a month of protest and turmoil. On Friday 15 November, eight cocaleros (coca growers) were massacred by state security forces as they protested against the new government in Sacaba, Cochabamba...

by JASON HIRTHLER Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair The risible tension between the tailored elitism of the Bolivian bourgeoisie and the restive pueblo of indigenous peasants was memorably captured in the 2005 film Our Brand Is Crisis. The documentary colorfully exposes the sleazy underbelly of American political influence. Yes, the very thing our wizened mandarins in Washington have been raising such a clamor over since the wrong candidate was elected by the dull, unseeing demos. Congressional luminaries like the walleyed Adam Schiff, presiding like a demented pontiff over his carnival of moral outrage, continually effect, with little effect, the most astonished reactions to claims of Russian meddling. (As an aside, it should be noted that ‘meddling’ is the soft...

by W. T. WHITNEY Image Source: Kingsif – CC BY-SA 4.0 Brighter days were ahead for Bolivia in early 2006. Elected overwhelmingly, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, took office in company with Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linare. They’d been candidates of the Movement toward Socialism party and would build a political revolution with socialist characteristics. It ended abruptly on November 10 with their forced removal. It was a coup, and the U.S. government was in charge. The Morales government had nationalized key industries and oil and gas production, carried out land reform, provided constitutional rights for indigenous peoples, and extended education, health care, and old-age security. Women would end up holding more than half the public offices; 68 perce...