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Consider for example the role of American legislation and consumption in the drug trade and the resulting immigration and criminal crises throughout the continents.
And remember that each coup "masterminded" by the USA has found more than willing accomplices in each country, every time. (And one could argue that in many cases, if the US didn't do it, the USSR would have - but I recognize with honesty that does not apply to 100% of the cases, Chile especially).
Maybe it is time for those countries to take a good hard look at themselves.
Really? You mean every time we've tried to overthrow a foreign government we've been able to find locals who were willing to give us a hand if they could personally benefit from the arrangement? That's amazing! What are the odds?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silenc...
It's insidious because it equates supporting a winner with interfering.
Morales is a poor example given the, uh, extrajudicial circumstances.
* The ousted President had just claimed a victory in an unprecedented and unconstitutional 4th term election, after a judicial decision overruled both the constitution and the results of a failed referendum to amend the constitution to allow Morales to remain in power.
* The claimed victory in that election was widely deemed fraudulent, including by OAS (if you care what OAS thinks).
* Morales fled the country along with much of the constitutional line of succession, leaving the 2nd Vice President of the Senate to assume the presidency in the standard line of succession.
* That new president, unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later --- despite COVID.
* Those elections restored MAS, the Morales party, to power, and the transfer of power occurred peacefully.
* The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since, in an action that has been pretty much universally condemned by the industrialized world.
Arce has abused his power, Anez has abused her power, Morales certainly abused his power, none of this is appears new, there are people on HN that are far more authoritative about Bolivian politics than I am, the US with respect to South America sucks ass, but I doubt very much that there is any simple story to tell about what's happening here.
Not sure what you mean by that.
> unconstitutional
Not according to their Supreme Court.
> including by OAS (if you care what OAS thinks)
I don't. No one should.
> unapologetic right-winger Jeanine Anez, promised prompt new elections and then delivered them less than a year later
She had no choice as the alternative by that point was a total overthrow of most major institutions of government, in which chaos she and her allies would have fared even worse than they did.
> The new MAS government immediately had Jeanine Anez arrested for the "coup" in 2019, and has imprisoned her ever since
As they should have. She was responsible for many deaths.
> pretty much universally condemned
Not universally.
Not only was Morales final term unprecedented and unconstitutional, but it followed an attempt by Morales to amend the constitution via referendum, which failed.
Bolivia has notoriously pliant judiciary; that judiciary was used not just by MAS but also by Anez and by Morales predecessors to suppress dissent. Human Rights Watch is one place to go for analysis of the problems of the Bolivian judiciary, which does not function like that of the US or European states.
I understand you you might not care what OAS thinks, but Morales did: he ordered the OAS audit and conceded its results.
Anez assumed power after 3 layers of the Morales constitutional line of succession, all MAS party members, resigned in protest, thus assuring that the MAS opposition would assume power. It was a spectacular own-goal for MAS, and despite it, Anez' Democratic Socialist party immediately handed power back to MAS after the election that they timely called.
I would be interested in sources from western countries that have defended the imprisonment of Anez. There must be some. Thanks in advance!
I have no expertise in Bolivian politics. I read things, just like everyone else does. My opinions about US involvement in South America was set by the Jesuits in high school, who made us watch Romero and read Eduardo Galeano.
But when I read things here referring to the 2019 coup, I'm going to point out that unlike most of the US-backed coups of the Cold War, there is another side to this story. You might read the European Parliament resolution condemning Anez' imprisonment for another formulation of the same point. That Anez handed power off, almost immediately, to MAS, which then imprisoned her, is pretty dispositive for me. But we don't have to agree.
These things typically play out with layered shell companies, private mercanary contractors, and local bribes - Eric Prince (USofA) was recently taking Saudi pay to "secure" through bribes, corrupt judges, political allies, and occassional force traditional lands in Zambia for food security, his group is now providing security for Chinese transport of copper from there to Angola.
Such is the world we live.
It is a certainty that interested parties (corporations, governments) are seeking to control Bolivian lithium and equally certain that their tracks well be fairly well covered (but not for ever).
On the resources; see:
https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/12/global-rush-lithiu...
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/rapid-growth-of-bolivias-l...
Government of Luis Arce: 2020 - present
On 8 November 2020, Luis Arce was sworn in as President of Bolivia alongside his Vice President David Choquehuanca.[103] In February 2021, the Arce government returned an amount of around $351 million to the IMF. This comprised a loan of $327 million taken out by the interim government in April 2020 and interest of around $24 million. The government said it returned the loan to protect Bolivia's economic sovereignty and because the conditions attached to the loan were unacceptable.[95]
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-china-ahead-in-race-for-bolivia...
https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/uranium-one-expected-...
But it is a complex situation with indigenous people trying to block Lithium extraction altogether so make of it what you will.
The notion that we are not involved somehow is totally ludicrous. That doesn't have to mean that Tony Blinken (or Joe Biden) personally signed off on this, but we are involved. To suppose otherwise is to be naive to the point of stupidity.
This isn't true, the 1953 removal of Mosaddegh wasn't the removal of a democratically elected government. By the time of his removal, Mosaddegh has dissolved parliament, and started ruling directly by fiat, claiming that a fraudulent plebiscite gave him the ability to do so.
The Shah also had the constitutional authority to appoint and dismiss ministers including Mosaddegh at the time, which you can see if you read the constitution from the time or look at diplomatic cables from that time[1].
I haven't gone through the entire list, but if that's the main example that you're bringing up, I suspect many of the others are similarly being reported in a way that doesn't match reality (particularly when the occupation of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are on the list).
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
When you look at the details, i start to go "ehhh...".
The 1953 Iranian coup was against Mosaddegh, who had given himself "emergency powers" for another 12 months, was losing members of his coalition and was becoming more and more unpopular.
The CIA might be powerful, but it can't create crowds of hundreds of thousands of protestors out of thin air. Over 300 people were dead from riots leading up to the coup.
Whether the CIA or MI6 "helped" the coup, Mosaddegh was on his way out one way or another. It's not like Iran would have been a bastion of peaceful democratic bliss if the UK and US had just minded their own business.
If you look into the other "covert attempts at regime change", you realize it's pretty much the CIA aiding one particular group over another in a country that's on the brink of civil war.
It's not like the CIA is rolling into a stable democracy and just overthrowing countries.
One can claim the CIA never should have gotten involved, and sure, that's a reasonable position, but I'd also argue that the world is a community of nations, all with incentives/disincentives to have particular people in power in their peer nations. It's pretty natural that countries will try and influence that.
Not to mention that Allende was far from democratic at the time. He had ignored the Supreme Court, the Senate voted to call his actions “unlawful” in a majority vote.
It was a crisis that would result in a coup whether or the CIA was there. Not to mention the CIA played no role in the actual coup itself. It may have involved itself with dissents, but Allende was leaving no matter what they did.