 Bolivia's first indigenous president, Ivo Morales, who is an incredibly successful and popular left-wing socialist president became the latest leader in Latin America to fall victim to a military coup backed by, you guessed it, the United States government. Now, you wouldn't necessarily know that that was the case if you only tuned in to mainstream media who isn't giving people the full story. For example, this headline from the New York Times reads, Bolivian leader Ivo Morales steps down. The CNN headline reads, Bolivian president Ivo Morales steps down following accusations of election fraud. This video from CBS News says, Bolivian president Ivo Morales resigns after election fraud and protests. This headline from Time Magazine reads, Bolivian president Ivo Morales announces resignation amid protests. So based on these headlines, you'd assume that an unpopular president who was fraudulently elected is simply resigning due to public pressure. But that's not the case. What this is, is a military coup. It's a military coup by far-right opposition to Morales who was emboldened by the US government. Now, as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams reports, Bolivia socialist president Ivo Morales was forced to resign Sunday under threat from the nation's military police forces and violent right-wing protesters who have burned and ransacked the homes of members of Morales' party, assaulted supporters of the president and kidnapped a Bolivian mayor. So let's be crystal clear and call us what it is. This is a military coup. Now, the reason why we are seeing a coup happen in Bolivia is largely due to the far-right, as I alluded to, being emboldened by the United States government. Now, how they were emboldened is explained to you in this nation article by Mark Weisbrout, who explains on October 20th, Bolivians went to the polls to choose their president and Congress. Ivo Morales, the country's first indigenous president in a country with the largest proportion of indigenous people in Latin America, was on the ballot for re-election. His main opponent, former president Carlos Mesa, is vastly preferred by the Trump administration. Since Morales was elected in 2005, the US government has been hostile and Bolivia has not had ambassadorial relations with the United States since 2009. Morales is one of the last remaining members of a cohort of independent left presidents who have been opposed and in some cases removed with the help of the United States. When the official tally was done, Morales had 47.1% of the vote with 36.5% for Mesa in second place. This meant that Morales had won the presidency without going to a runoff because the rules allow for a first round win for a candidate that gets at least 40% of the vote at a 10 point margin over the closest competitor. The opposition cried foul long before the votes were counted. Mesa had already indicated that he would not accept the decision of the electoral authorities if Morales were to win. What is more surprising and disturbing was the press statement from the OAS the day after the election. It expressed to quote deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard to explain change in the trend of the preliminary results after the closing of the polls, but it did not present any evidence for its questioning of the election results. Hours before the OAS press statement and even longer before the votes were counted, Senator Marco Rubio stated falsely quote in Bolivia All credible indications are Evo Morales failed to secure necessary margin to avoid second round in presidential election. He also alleged without evidence that there was some concern He will tamper with the results or process to avoid this. Trump administration officials followed with similar statements the potentially violence promoting claims of the OAS which echo those of Rubio and the Trump administration Have driven much of the media's coverage and serve as an anchor for those who want to discredit the election Now the organization of American states the OAS This is a multilateral organization who is ostensibly impartial So whenever they say something whenever they declare the results of any given country's election as legitimate or illegitimate The media just tends to accept what they say just accept their word because you know This isn't just the united states who is issuing this declaration They view them as a neutral arbiter and most of the time they're okay Although not always they have undermined elections as you're going to see now the problem with the OAS is that the united states government Has a disproportionate level of influence. Here's one example in the 2000 national election in Haiti The OAS at first decided that it was a great success for the Haitian population Which turned out in large and orderly numbers to choose both their local and national government But the OAS later changed its position as washington sought to destabilize and topple the government there So this organization does the bidding of what the u.s. government wants oftentimes because the u.s. government Has again a large amount of influence a large amount of sway within this organization Now what makes this especially suspicious is what they're Saying is fraudulent with regard to the morales election for those who bothered to look at the data It was clear that the increase in the share of morales votes in later returns Was simply a result of geography in other words Morales support is much stronger among rural and poorer populations whose votes came in later Such a geographically driven change in vote margins is not that uncommon in elections As anyone who has watched election returns on television in the united states knows And this change wasn't even that big of a shift But that's really what they're basing their fraud claims on And we just had an election in seattle where there was a city council race Where shama sawan who's a socialist was behind and then all of a sudden she caught up and ended up winning Because the mail-in ballots came in and she was heavily favored among those people Who are mailing in their ballots? So i mean this really is nothing new if you are a neutral observer and you see this Then there's a perfectly reasonable and rational Explanation for it and the fact that this is what they're viewing As fraudulent or calling it to question the legitimacy of Shows that something fishy is going on here, right? This stinks. Something's not right Now the problem is that once a narrative takes hold it's really difficult to undo it So the narrative became election fraudulent the media ran with that the right wing the far right in bolivia was emboldened And then the rest was history morales was ousted once the military Asked him to resign and they only asked him out of courtesy because if he didn't agree to resign They would have removed him forcefully now in an interview with democracy now mark weisbrot Explained how the media really fueled the flames of regime change by not being diligent enough And i think it's really terrible the way it's been uh presented Because from the beginning you had that oas press release the day after the election Which hinted or implied actually very strongly that there was something wrong with the vote count And they never presented any evidence at all. They didn't present it in that release They didn't present it in their next release. They didn't present it in their preliminary report And there's really nothing in this latest So-called preliminary audit That shows that there was any fraud in this election But it was repeated over and over again in all the media And so it it became kind of true and you know if you look at the media, you don't see Anybody you don't see any experts for example Saying that there was something wrong with the vote count. It's really just that oas observation mission Which was under a lot of pressure of course from senator rubio And the trump administration To do this because they wanted they've wanted for some time to get rid of this government In terms of the trump administration you can look at Tweets and statements from marco rubio right before the votes were even counted Saying that there was going to be fraud And uh, you know making it clear that they didn't want this government to be there And so yeah, I think that I mean it's very obvious that they supported the school and it's very obvious that they pressured the oas Where you know the united states supplies 60 percent of the budget and you know, this is the problem the media treats this Oas as though it's really an independent arbiter here and they do have electoral missions and most of the time They're clean, but they are not always and uh, you know in in hady in 2011 for example They reversed the results of a first round presidential election without any statistical test recount or any reason It was completely political and in 2000 They reversed their position their report on the election when the united states as you know, and you've reported on this show Wanted to cut off all international aid to hady and Spent four years preparing for the coup of 2004 So the oas played a major role in that by changing their report on the election in hady and so I think This is this is a kind of a classic military coup Supported by the united states. So mark wisebrot. You have the cian involvement in coups in bolivia in 1952 in 1964 1970 1980 would you add? 2019 to that list I would add it to the list. I mean, we don't have the hard evidence of what they did You know, it's not like 2009 in on Doris where hillary clinton wrote in her memoirs that she worked In the oas too to prevent The elected president Who you've had on this show? From coming back to the country and to the presidency But I I think we'll probably find out more later, but it's it's just it is it is very obvious That they supported this coup. So, I mean there you have it if you are familiar with the united states' History, well, this isn't surprising like this is just Another chapter in a very long story of the us doing what we want in a region of the world That wants autonomy, right? We don't like the results of their election. So what do we do? Well, our government acts to change it by undermining the legitimacy and support of said legitimately elected government And we have installed brutal dictators before iende was elected in chili. And who did we put in place? We backed agosto pinot shea Who was an absolute monster? He was a totalitarian leader who created a police state. This was our doing So we keep doing this over and over again We keep lobbying for regime change in latin america and then once we undermine these regimes Then we claim that you know socialism and these socialist regimes They don't work but the thing about eva moralis is he's been really successful at driving down poverty in bolivia and driving up Bolivia's gdp. This is someone who is the real deal So he talked about how he was disappointed in obama because he thought that obama was the change candidate I'm paraphrasing of course and he even endorsed bernie sanders for president saying we congratulate brother bernie sanders Who according to the press moves forward the us presidential nomination? We are confident this progressive leader will have a strong support from the people of the us democratic revolutions are built upon democratic elections Now on top of that he challenged the united states and their hegemony In a very direct way to donald trump's face The united states could not care less about human rights nor justice If this were the case it would have signed the international conventions and treaties for the protection of human rights It would not have threatened The investigation mechanisms of the international criminal court nor would it promote the use of torture Nor would it have walked away from the human rights council And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families nor put them in cages few latin american leaders Have done that Because they're probably afraid Of the repercussions if you challenge the united states you are challenging a behemoth Who could very easily undermine you and potentially overthrow you? so this is absolutely um just I want to say that it's shocking but this really isn't surprising This is what the united states have been has been doing look at this tweet from zack carter Who he really goes through the list of how many times the united states? Has backed a military coup in latin america and we've done this again And again and again and this is just what we've come to expect as the norm in the united states We back coups whenever there is a president in place that we don't like this is what we do It's unacceptable now. This is someone who is a socialist who's actually been successful At ameliorating poverty at making sure that he puts the interests of his country first And he's not cowtowing to the united states as many latin american leaders feel inclined to do Now i want to share the reaction from some political leaders in the united states and abroad because i think that they have some really useful and important insight Bernie sanders tweeted i am very concerned about what appears to be a coup in bolivia Where the military after weeks of political unrest intervened to remove president eva morales The u.s. Must call for an end to violence and support bolivia's democratic institutions Ilhan omore tweets there's a word for the president of a country being pushed out by the military It's called a coup. We must unequivocally oppose political violence in bolivia bolivians deserve free and fair elections Labor leader in the uk jeremy corbin tweeted to see eva morales who along with a powerful movement has brought so much Social progress forced from office by the military is appalling I condemn this coup against the bolivian people and stand with them for democracy social justice And independence so when we talk about this, let's be very clear This is a military coup and we have to educate people since the mainstream media in the united states Isn't doing their job if they knew that this was another attempt at regime change by the united states government They probably wouldn't be too happy about that So what the media does is they kind of reframe the situation they coat it They hide things that they don't necessarily want you to see and maybe this isn't even deliberate Maybe this is something that they're just doing unwittingly But we have to be clear and speak out. This is a military coup This is an attempt at regime change successfully so thus far And it's unacceptable anyone who cares about ending regime change wars ending us backed military coups Has got to condemn this because this is something that cannot keep happening We say we believe in democracy We say that we believe in you know the freedom to choose your elected leaders So we have to actually respect that for once And allow the people of bolivia To um make their own decision. We saw the same thing happen in venezuela, right? Where you had a far right opposition Challenge the left wing government Now what the right wing individuals in these countries know is that if they truly don't like a left wing leader All they have to do is lobby the us government to get involved And they can have the us government take out their political opponents for them So we have to be very very careful here when we talk about this We have to make sure that we're clear and we don't mince words. This is a us backed coup We believe in self-determination for the people of bolivia and anyone who's not speaking out against this Needs to do so fast because this is completely unacceptable