 All right, let me pull up my notes. All right, welcome to WTF is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Code Pink Latin America team's weekly webinar. Today, I am joined by Thomas Becker, attorney and activist who has lived in Bolivia for over a decade and one of the co-authors of a report by Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights. The report is titled, They Shot Us Like Animals, Black November and Bolivia's Interim Government. It details the human rights abuses committed in the aftermath of the coup in Bolivia last year. Welcome to the program, Thomas. Thank you, thanks so much. So on October 18th, there were elections in Bolivia, of course, the movement towards socialism, the mass party, won, taking 55% of the vote and hopefully beginning to close the door on a dark chapter in Bolivia's history. The elections have already been recognized by a whole range of actors, including both domestic and international, but there are groups in Bolivia attempting to discredit the elections and calling for the military and police to stage a coup. What's your reaction to the mass victory and how concerned are you about the possibility of another coup? Well, so first, I think, you know, to put it into context, as you mentioned, it's been just an incredibly rough year in Bolivia, arguably, I think over and over and over, we heard people say this is as bad as, if not worse than the dictatorships in the 70s and before. And so, you know, this has been such a repressive year. So the landslide victory, the 55% victory, was incredibly important and really in some ways, you know, like, and this is not to discredit the candidates, Lucho Arce or David Chokewanka, the vice presidential candidate, they certainly brought a lot to the table, but this election was really a resounding rejection of authoritarianism, of racism, of violence. So these were incredibly important elections that the mass party just won and it really was, it came from below. It was people saying, look, we've had enough of this, we are not gonna accept this authoritarian behavior. And, you know, certainly the right has resisted, the right resisted. Last year, the right has been pushing back for, you know, 13, 14 years since Abel Morales took power. And now, you know, there are people in the streets quite literally two blocks away from where I'm at here in Bolivia that are in front of the electoral court, praying for a coup, quite literally on the streets, praying or chanting Faggot Masistas or jump, if not, you're an Indian, all these, you know, racist, homophobic, quite gross things. And so, yeah, there's a concern that the government, wow, we'll see, you know, I think with the 55% win, I think it's a pretty strong position that the mass party is in, but there is certainly resistance. In the Eastern part of the country, there are parastate groups that are actively out in the streets that have been attacking people, same in Cochabamba, kind of in the center of the country. And here in La Paz, like I said, just a few blocks away, there are these groups that are decrying fraud, saying that, you know, there's no way the mass party could have won with 55%, there must have been fraud. Right, and there's, of course, no evidence that there's any sort of fraud, much like last year's elections, which there was also no fraud, of course. No, but at this time around, even, you know, the right and international institutions like the OAS who played such a really nefarious role over the last year, even they said, look, there was no fraud. So it's really like, there's no proof at all. These groups are just really mad that, you know, they're angry that for 13, 14 years, an indigenous person had been in power and now that same party's back in power and they're angry and they can't point to any fraud, but, you know, they seem, they need some sort of narrative to remove this government from power. So they're pressuring the military to quite literally carry out another coup. Days after the election, a mining union leader by the name of Orlando Gutierrez was reportedly attacked by right-wing thugs. He tragically passed away on October 28th. Can you tell us a little bit about who Gutierrez was and shed some light on what happened to him? You know, so I actually can't shed light because it's, we don't know exactly what happened. Orlando was a really powerful union leader with the Cobb, one of the top leaders, union leaders in the country, a miner, a minero, very well respected amongst the social movements, amongst the left, but also, you know, folks in the center, he is a really charismatic guy and, you know, when the Moss won, he was kind of seen as one of the big potential rising stars that could have been a face in this party. And, you know, as far as we know, the official reports are that he was beaten to death. There are peristate groups that have been threatening him and his family. He applied for precautionary measures. I apologize for being kind of boring and lawyerly, but what the precautionary measures are is when people apply for these to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, which just kind of oversees all the Americas. And in theory, you know, if he receives them, then the government has to provide him protections. He had been receiving all these death threats. He applied for precautionary measures, but meanwhile, while this process has been going through, he potentially was beaten to death. We don't know. I was actually with his lawyer, then maybe perhaps it was the first night or the second night trying to get into the clinic to see him. I was with a representative from the Ombudsperson's office and they wouldn't let us in. They were undercover police, kind of harassing us, trying to get information from us, tailing us in an undercover vehicle. And so at this point, truthfully, there's not much more information other than, you know, he was allegedly beaten by peristate groups and we don't know much more and are drastically trying to get more info, honestly. Yeah, and as he said, we don't know yet. And so we might not be able to draw kind of a direct connection between the Anya's government and his passing, but it certainly seems to kind of fit into the pattern of intimidation, harassment, assault and murder that suffered by indigenous leaders, labor leaders, social leaders, mass party officials and others as a result of the Anya's government's rhetoric and policies. And I think you detailed this really well in the report published over the summer. Can you give us a kind of a brief summary of the findings in this report? Sure, so, you know, as I mentioned, I think many, many people think that what took place with this over the last year has been extreme authoritarianism, behavior that we haven't seen since the 70s. And again, in some ways worse, because, you know, a lot of people we spoke to said, look, at least in the 70s, we knew what this was. We could say, yes, this is a dictatorship, whereas this government has some face that's something quite different. I think in the US, we wanna see, you know, there's kind of this racist stereotype of, you know, a mustached Banana Republic dictator driving through the streets in a tank. And Anya's, the interim or the de facto president certainly didn't have that image. So the international community didn't know how to respond, but certainly on the ground, if you were, you know, indigenous left or perceived to be a supporter of the boss party, boy, it's been a rough year. And so just to kind of like, throw a little bit of numbers out there, November, when Anya's took over, it was the second deadliest month in terms of state killing, since Bolivia became a democracy nearly 40 years ago. The first deadliest is a case I've been working on for a decade and a half against Bolivia's ex-president, who was found guilty, reliable for extra-digital killings. His entire military high command was put in jail for genocide, just to put in context of, these are kind of the players, and this is like the magnitude of the killings. And in Anya's first week alone, she deployed the military twice and carried out two separate massacres. The first in Sakaba, the second in Sankata, where literally hundreds were either killed or injured and zero police and zero soldiers were killed or injured. And then the government passed a decree giving immunity to the soldiers. So really once the government took power, they just went on this really human rights abuse rampage, first killing people, but they didn't just use violence against those that kind of expressed discontent with the government. They shut down critical media outlets, including commercial stations, but also indigenous stations, community radio stations. They shut down something like 53 community stations, which broadcast primarily to indigenous communities in Aymara or Quechua. They arrested journalists for sedition, terrorism, even people that literally had WhatsApp groups saying the massacres that took place in Sankata and Sakaba were massacres, that was enough to get arrested for terrorism. It's been quite wild that the domain owner of a website that criticized the government was thrown in jail for, I believe, sedition and perhaps terrorism as well. And the same thing, they went after mass party members just left and right. By the beginning of January, there was something like 600 people being investigated for sedition or terrorism. These are these kind of nebula, just vague charges that they used as a net to cast anybody and pull them in. And really, they've just gone after anybody that's criticized the government. And you mentioned kind of Orlando and these groups that are allied with Anya's. It's been this really complicated thing because on the one hand, their state force is carrying out this violence and arresting people, but they're collaborating with civilians. There are a pair of state groups that work directly with the police, police in civilian clothes or dressed as police, grabbing people, arresting them, torturing them, throwing them in jail and beating people just to give a little context. I've been attacked, while we were doing this investigation, I was attacked multiple times. I'm suing the ex-president of Bolivia. I certainly have enemies here. And in all my years, I've been here for roughly 15 years off and on, never had problems like this. And if they're gonna attack a gringo from an overrated institution with a fancy pants name like Harvard, you can only imagine how they're gonna treat indigenous women or leftists or any form of dissident here. Well, I mean, you don't have to imagine that the statistics show it. They've beaten them, they've thrown them in jail, they've shot them. It's been really tragic over the last year. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Code Pink Electoral Observation Delegation received threats, and that was the first thing that came to my mind as well. If this is how international observers were treated, how are people on the ground treated, and I'm glad- You were invited. You know, you were invited. Exactly, it shouldn't be about us. All the privilege I have is gringo, but just to put it into context, with all the privilege we have, and yet we are still being targeted, it's just drastic, it's exponentially worse for those who don't have the same privilege that you and I have. Absolutely. And so President elect Arsé has repeatedly said that the mass would not seek vengeance while in office, but there's certainly a clamor for justice, especially from below, from the people. Do you expect to see Agnes, Interior Minister Murillo and Defense Minister Lopez indicted for their crimes? How was the mass going to balance this need for justice, which is very apparent, and which I don't see how they can ignore with a desire to restabilize the country and not really seek out vengeance as they put it? Yeah, you know, that's really gonna be a tough balance. I mean, I think during Lucho Arsé's first speech, he said, we are not gonna be a government of vengeance. We want to build bridges with the other side, which I think is really important because Bolivia is so incredibly divided right now. But I think that, you know, we need to distinguish what took place during the Agnes government and the way that they, you know, as one minister told me, the moments before he was arrested in a hospital after per estate groups, you know, surrounded him, but they are collecting them like trophies, is what he said. Now, what the Lucho Arsé government needs to do, in my opinion, is certainly, that's a completely different thing. They are not going after Agnes or Murillo, the former minister of government because of political vengeance. It's because these people were in charge of multiple massacres, where unarmed people were shot dead and tortured. And so, you know, I think there's certainly calls by the international community and by folks on the ground for justice. There have been pushes for what's called a trial of responsibilities here in Bolivia, which Congress just recently approved against Agnes, as well as more traditional processes against Murillo and the other ministers involved in the killings. Whether they advance, you know, we'll see. I think it's going to be an uphill battle. I think, you know, the Moss does not control the Congress or will not be, well, they have a majority, but they don't have a two-thirds majority. And whether the right or some of the center will be willing to do this trial is, we'll see. That being said, you know, as an attorney who's worked on, previously worked on a trial of responsibilities here in Bolivia and has worked on international processes against ex-leaders, the proof is there. There's a whole lot of information. I think the claims are there. And if it doesn't work in Bolivia, my assumption is that the families will seek justice in international fora. Or if, you know, folks escaped other countries, if these countries have more liberal forms of jurisdiction, they'll probably follow them there because they certainly need justice. What role did the US play in the run-up to the 2019 coup and in supporting the coup regime? You know, it's not clear. Certainly the United States has had a pretty tumultuous relationship with Abel Morales. The US has not been a fan and it's been, you know, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have not necessarily gotten along so well with Morales. You know, they've certainly, the United States, the US aid has had a really troublesome history here. The US has funded groups that are generally kind of opposition right-wing groups. You know, there's not kind of like a bread trail to, you know, US government funding going straight to, you know, armed peristate groups or anything like that. But the US certainly has had a hand in this. What took place in last year, the coup, you know, on one level, I think folks didn't really expect it to happen. You know, there was certainly a lead up and the US, again, certainly was not a fan of Morales, but I would say that folks I've talked to on the left and right and international institutions were all kind of surprised that this all culminated and then Abel Morales was forced to step down in the way that he did. Certainly after he did step down, the Trump administration, you know, reached out to Anya to congratulate her, Pompeo, you know, got behind her. There have been leaked recordings of the opposition having allegedly phone calls with Marco Rubio and other right-wing government officials in the United States. And certainly, you know, as Anya has carried out just these kind of almost unprecedented abuses rather than condemning them, the US government has, you know, propped her up as this, you know, wonderful step in the direction of democracy despite, you know, hyper undemocratic behavior. And so, you know, we'll see what the US role will be under Lucho. My assumption is, you know, it will continue to have not the best relationship. The US has always kind of had its hands in things in Latin America and Bolivia is no exception. And what about the relationship between Bolivia and the OAS going forward? I saw that even Lucho Luis Arce, the president of the left, has called for Almagro's resignation, Almagro being the secretary general of the OAS. This is a call that's being echoed throughout the hemisphere, including a Code Pink campaign calling for that. Evo Morales, the Puebla group, a long list of people and institutions have called for his resignation. Assuming that does not happen, what do you see Bolivia doing with the OAS in the near future? Well, just to add to what you said, because I think people like to politicize everything, a lot of groups from the center have also called for Almagro's resignation. I mean, he's his role in what took place last year. Look, the fraud narrative existed six months before the first vote was cast here in Bolivia. And so when the OAS prematurely said, oh, they're all these irregularities, they just doused gasoline on already, like an uncontrolled fire. And Almagro has just been shockingly stubborn over the last year and not budged and actually just kind of gone after political enemies, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, which is kind of under the umbrella of the OAS. It is an independent institution, but it is part of the OAS. The executive secretary, Almagro did not, you know, he basically booted the guy. You know, he did not renew his mandate. This is the first time in the history of the OAS that they do not, that the OAS did not renew the mandate of the executive secretary. And, you know, a lot of folks think it's because of the role he played in criticizing the abuses that took place immediately after the OAS blundered their OAS, or sorry, their election analysis. And so, you know, folks all over the world have called for him to resign. I don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, the U.S. certainly has, provides the majority of the funding to the OAS. And, you know, the OAS as much as it's supposed to be an impartial institution, it certainly is political. And the United States, though it doesn't necessarily respect some of these institutions, still put a lot of pressure on it. You know, who knows what's gonna happen. And I can't predict. I, you know, I think Arsé has certainly said, you know, we wanna cooperate. He's taken a different tone than perhaps Morales was certainly a little more fiery. Arsé's come into this and said, look, we're gonna have an open mind. We're gonna reach across the aisle, both nationally and internationally. So I don't know if they're gonna, yeah, I mean, I'm assuming they'll continue the relationship with the OAS. But under Almagro's leadership, you know, who knows? I think a lot of people don't trust him anymore. And going back to something we touched on earlier in the interview, you talked about social movements in Bolivia. What's gonna be the relationship between the mass and social movements going forward? When I was in Bolivia, I spoke to several social leaders and one of their criticisms, and really they call it self criticisms because they view themselves very much as a part of this process of change in Bolivia that the mass has spearheaded. One of their criticisms was that social movements had been kind of demobilized or bureaucratized, particularly in the run up to the coup last year. So how do you see that interaction between social movements and the new government playing out? I mean, I think you nailed it. One of the main criticisms of the mass is, you know, Bolivia is such a bottom-up country. Really the social movements have been steering the ship for a while. And as the mass got larger and larger, it started to consolidate power and it became more of a, well, on the one hand kind of a top-down movement. On the other hand, things improved drastically. And so people weren't in the streets in the same ways because, you know, the middle class, the lower class, folks were doing a lot better. Even the upper class was doing better. So it did somewhat demobilize the social movements. But I think that there's just kind of this resurgence over the last year, you know, right after the coup, I think part of the reason that Anya's was able to get away with a lot of the stuff she did is because the social movements were a little bit demobilized and a little thrown off. One, not ready for this, nobody kind of expected it. But two, you know, they didn't have the power that they previously had. And in addition to obviously the government quite literally killing social movement leaders and making it, or people protesting, it made it quite hard to go out into the streets. But I think, you know, over the last year, that's changed. I think the thing, you know, Anya's was supposed to be just a interim president, a caretaker, a placeholder. She was supposed to call elections within 90 days and kept canceling them and canceling them. She said she wasn't gonna run for president. We know that, you know, obviously she did. And eventually it really wasn't the Moss Party that forced elections, it was the social movements. In fact, you know, over the summer, there were these widespread mobilizations all over the country. And the Anya's government tried to actually take out the leadership and take out Moss Party officials charging them with genocide, terrorism, sedition. And it didn't work because the people on top weren't really making the decisions. It was the people below, it was the social movements that said, frankly, we don't care if the Moss Fund's elections are not, we want elections. So we're going to the streets. And I think it was this kind of moment of like, okay, we're back and we're ready to go. And I think the Moss has admitted that, you know, like we've made some mistakes over, over the last several years. And I think that they have recognized that they really need to look to the social movements for guidance in how they govern over the next five years or, you know, however many years they stay in power. Slightly related to question. Evo Morales is scheduled to come back to the country the day after the inauguration of Arsene Chokowanka. How do you expect Evo to be received? I mean, I think there's a spectrum of people here. And I would say certainly the right is not going to, you know, invite him in with open arms. There's already mobilizations all over, you know, he's going to enter through Argentina and he's got a path up into, you know, through several different kind of provinces into the Chapare. And there are already groups out in the streets that are blocking the path who've attacked people. You know, so I think it's going to, there could be some serious conflict, you know, next week when he comes in. In terms of folks kind of allied with the Moss, I think that, you know, from what I hear, there's a division. I think some folks think he shouldn't come back yet. Because he is such a polarizing figure and because he's been completely maligned over the last year. And others think, no, he has a right to be back here. He should be back. You know, certainly I think the Moss is going to invite him back. They've said that they are inviting him back. He isn't necessarily going to, you know, play a role in the government, but you know, as a citizen, he should come back. But, you know, frankly, I would be scared if I was able Morales. I mean, I know a lot of officials who, you know, spent most of the last year in hiding or, you know, getting attacked in the streets, you know, I should raise one of the more high profile cases, Patricia Arce, who was the mayor of Vinto, who was brutally beaten, kidnapped, dragged through the streets. They cut her hair and scalp, dumped red paint over her and made her walk, you know, several kilometers through, you know, glass-filled streets until they kind of paraded her in front of cameras and made her denounce the Moss party, which she refused to do. She did, this was last November. Over the last year, she's been repeatedly harassed, not only by pair of state groups who've, you know, threatened to kill her, her family members who've killed her dogs, you know, poisoned her dogs. She's been in hiding off and on, but also by the government who, you know, she received precautionary measures, which I mentioned earlier about Orlando. She received precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission. The government had a legal responsibility to protect her. They refused to do it. And they said, if you tell anybody we're not doing it, you're going to pay. And she did, she told the commission, hey, you know, I've not gotten the protection. I'm still getting, I see my kidnappers in the street. And the government responded by charging her with terrorism, sedition, genocide, self-kidnapping, all these things. I mean, they went after her all year long. And this is the context. I mean, there's still this very angry, violent right that's either part of the government or allied with the government, and you know, that have been targeting officials. I think kind of the lightning rod of all this is Abel Morales. And boy, you know, I think him coming back could be quite and will be very unsafe for him and those around him. Well, thank you so much for your time, Thomas. Very insightful interviewing. And hopefully we'll have you back on in a couple of months as things progress and develop in Bolivia. That'd be great. Thanks so much.