Americas
Silence reigns on the US-backed coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia | Mark Weisbrot
The Organization of American States had a key role in the destruction of the country’s democracy last November
Bolivia has descended into a nightmare of political repression and racist state violence since the democratically elected government of Evo Morales was overthrown by the military on 10 November last year. That month was the second-deadliest in terms of civilian deaths caused by state forces since Bolivia became a democracy nearly 40 years ago, according to a study by Harvard Law School’s (HLS) International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights (UNHR) released a month ago.
Morales was the first indigenous president of Bolivia, which has the largest percentage of indigenous population of any country in the Americas. His government was able to reduce poverty by 42% and extreme poverty by 60%, which disproportionately benefited indigenous Bolivians. The November coup was led by a white and mestizo elite with a history of racism, seeking to revert state power to the people who had monopolised it before Morales’ election in 2005. The racist nature of the state violence is emphasised in the HLS/UNHR report, including eyewitness accounts of security forces using “racist and anti-indigenous language” as they attacked protesters; it is also clear from the fact that all of the victims of the two biggest massacres committed by state forces after the coup were indigenous.
The OAS has to answer for its role in the Bolivian coup
We call upon the Organization of American States to retract its misleading statements about the election, which have contributed to the political conflict
We the undersigned call for Bolivia’s democratic institutions and processes to be respected.
The Trump administration has openly and strongly supported the military coup of 10 November that overthrew the government of President Evo Morales. Everyone agrees that Morales was democratically elected in 2014, and that his term does not end until 22 January; yet many outside of the Trump administration seem to accept the Trump-supported military coup.
Ha-Joon Chang, director of the Centre of Development Studies, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
James Galbraith, The University of Texas at Austin
Thea Lee is the president of the Economic Policy Institute
Mark Weisbrot, co-founder, co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Oscar Ugarteche is an economist at the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Jayati Ghosh is an Indian development economist. She is the chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Stephanie Kelton is a professor of Public Policy and Economics at Stony Brook University
The IMF is hurting countries it claims to help | Mark Weisbrot
The fund’s loan agreement with Ecuador will worsen unemployment and poverty
When people think of the damage that wealthy countries – typically led by the US and its allies – cause to people in the rest of the world, they probably think of warfare. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from the 2003 invasion, and then many more as the region became inflamed.
But rich countries also have considerable power over the lives of billions of people through their control over institutions of global governance. One of these is the International Monetary Fund. It has 189 member countries, but the US and its rich-country allies have a solid majority of the votes. The head of the IMF is by custom a European, and the US has enough votes to veto many major decisions by itself – although the rich countries almost never vote against each other.
Why Dilma Rousseff could win Brazil’s presidential election | Mark Weisbrot
The country has widely reported problems, but improvements in income and conditions for many workers mean a lot of Brazilians have done well over the past decade
When challenger Marina Silva pulled ahead of incumbent Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff in the polls a few weeks ago there was a lot of excitement in the US business press, and Brazilian financial markets.
Rousseff’s Workers’ party (PT) has been in power for 12 years, and a lot of rich and powerful people were ready for a change. Fortune seemed to favour them: the Brazilian economy, having slowed considerably over the past few years, officially went into recession this year – something that would spell the end for many incumbent presidents. Before that, there were street protests over the rising cost of public transport and government spending on the World Cup, and the event itself ended in disaster with a humiliating 7-1 defeat for the national team at the hands of Germany.
US foreign policy in Latin America leaves an open door for China | Mark Weisbrot
America's 'pivot' to Asia along with decades of heavy-handed policy give China an opportunity to rebalance global powers
In the last week or so much of the international business press has been focused on the problems of financial stability in developing countries, some of whom have recently become more vulnerable to capital outflows. The main cause is that investors are trying to get the jump on possible moves by the US Federal Reserve to allow interest rates to rise, which will draw capital from developing countries and cause their borrowing costs to rise.
Argentina has gotten some of this attention, as it allowed the peso to fall by 15% in one day and increased some access for Argentines to dollars on the official market. Venezuela is not as affected by these market developments, but is always negatively portrayed in the international media, and more so since its exchange rate system problems have caused its inflation to rise to an annual rate of 56% over the past year.