 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America Code pinks weekly webinar of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean We broadcast every Wednesday at 9 a.m. Pacific 12 p.m. Eastern on code pinks YouTube channel Today we are broadcasting in partnership with coho council on hemispheric affairs DMV Bolivia Solidarity and the International Committee for Peace Justice and Dignity and we are pleased to have back with us today Ollie Vargas. He is an English and Bolivian journalist He's been live on reporting live on the ground from Bolivia since December post Fall 2019 Presidential elections in Bolivia and the subsequent OAS coup. So thank you, Ollie for joining us This this afternoon on what the F is going on in Latin America. Again, it's great to welcome you back And I want to share a video some reporting that you have done from Bolivia I'd like to share that clip with the audience now and then and then let's start our conversation shortly thereafter Kausashua news is the English language service of radio Kausashua and coca the official outlet of the six federations of the tropico Who are the Chipari Campesino unions leading the fight against the US back regime? Que sería en este momento en el país el único medio Que pretende hablar desde las bases campesina desde las áreas rurales y que busque dar informacion real Radio Kausashua and coca has become the most important media outlet providing a voice to the indigenous and worker movements throughout Bolivia The movements have been persecuted since the November 2019 coup This service in English reports from the tropico of Cochabamba and was created because the social movements demand that their struggles And the human rights abuses they face be heard on an international level The regime must be aware that the world is watching them to shine a light on the situation in Bolivia Is to shine a light on how the US maintains control of the global South? Bolivia's indigenous campesino movements are now fighting to save Bolivia's natural resources from colonial plunder While fighting to restore the popular indigenous democracy Which has been built while demanding fair elections in order to do away with Washington's puppet regime The question is, to the authorities, are you always going to receive threats, are you always going to have someone looking at you from a distance or pointing at you with the weapon to turn off your media Or to intervene, this happened in these days of conflict, every day we would receive threats, saying that we turned off the radio, saying that they were looking at us, they were listening to us As Bolivia's regime desperately tries to cling to power and cancel any elections, they're looking to shut down media outlets like ours Just a few days ago, Interior Minister Arturo Murillo said that Casaschuan should be shut down for promoting so-called sedition Follow Casaschuan News on Twitter and Facebook So Ollie, welcome back, we're so pleased to have you with us And today we're going to ask Ollie to give us an update on how Bolivia is proceeding towards the election set for September 6, am I correct? That's right, September 6 And then we'll also discuss the recent IMF loan that the Bolivian government has agreed to And so we'll talk politics and economics and include how COVID-19 is affecting the people in the economy as well So Ollie, I'm so pleased to be talking with you again this morning, welcome back And why don't you give us a little update on, well there's a lot happening with the OAS right now, isn't there? That especially the New York Times has even agreed that wasn't the best and fair coverage of the elections from that body So why don't we start with the OAS? Yeah I think as many of you may know the New York Times released a report showing the flaws in the OAS report that said that there was fraud in Bolivia's election Obviously the New York Times aren't the first people to say this, the Washington Post wrote a similar report a few months ago And then months before that when this was actually happening when it actually mattered, the Centre for Economic Policy Research showed, you know, said what these outlets are saying now Showed that the OAS report had been manipulated, was deeply flawed, but of course when they published their findings in November to November December time When it could have meant something, I think the international media outlets didn't want to give it much coverage Obviously within Bolivia it was deliberately ignored, but now some sections of America's mainstream media has caught up with it Now I think internationally people are much more aware about how the OAS manipulated the situation to create the ground for the coup and for the destabilization of the country I think within Bolivia there's an interesting discourse among mass supporters who obviously the largest section of society, the largest party in the country, the largest number of voters They see this as confirmation of what they thought before, but the pro-coup sections, right-wing sections of the country are trying to portray this as a Venezuelan Chavista plot They say that the New York Times and the Washington Post have sold themselves to Chavisma, have sold themselves to the Centre for Economic Policy Research Which is obviously absurd, the Washington Post and the New York Times virulently anti-Venezuelan coverage throughout the past 20 years of the Bolivarian Revolution They certainly know Chavistas, they just stated some fairly simple and obvious truths about Bolivia and for that they're being labelled as Madura agents The sorts of discourses that all right-wing Latin American governments use to put down any kind of social discontent, any kind of criticism of their failings or their incorruption They say, oh well, Madura is responsible for all this, so it's becoming more and more ridiculous I think the CEPR's report along with the Washington Post and the New York Times, although the other two outlets have come extremely late after repeating the reports around the period I think it will help mass supporters on the ground to sort of show, just to be able to cite these sources and say look, there was no fraud, everyone knows there was no fraud Even you're in supporters in the international media know there wasn't any fraud, and I think that will be useful I think come election time So, you know, I just want to, your comments about this is a Venezuelan plot and Madura's responsible, you know, we're hearing a lot of that here in the states with the Black Lives Matter uprisings Particularly in Miami as you can imagine that, you know, everything's a Venezuelan plot, everything is Maduro and that's the only line they seem to have Here and abroad, it's really, it's quite, it's pretty ridiculous and overwhelming, but a lot of people unfortunately believe it So let me ask you about what the conditions are like on the ground right now in Bolivia leading up to election day, what sort of things are you seeing? I mean hopefully as you mentioned the New York Times giving some credibility to the SEPA report last fall that in fact the OAS observations did in for their lack of prudent observations did help lead to the right wing government we now see in Bolivia What are we seeing, what are you seeing on the ground now among the different voter demographics leading up to September? Well it's an incredibly difficult situation in certainly electorally in terms of the fact that the government originally wanted to sort of ban, suspend all elections indefinitely Elections were supposed to take place on May the 3rd, that got suspended because of coronavirus, I think all the parties including the mass have accepted that But there was, we began to see and sort of the end of May was a number of protests, not organized by the mass, sort of spontaneous protests in working class areas of the big cities and in many rural areas demanding elections They began as protests demanding food because during this whole lockdown people have been left with almost nothing but they grew into sort of political protests demanding elections, free and fair elections and demanding that the authorities set a date So after a lot of sort of negotiation and a lot of compromise from the mass, September the 6th was agreed on as a date between all of the main parties except one and crucially with the country's official electoral council So that should have been the end of the story, however the regime, Agnes decided that this is too soon, September they were using the excuse of coronavirus saying that there's a risk contagion That will be the worst month for coronavirus, three months time is going to be the worst even though we've already been living with coronavirus for three months at the moment But eventually she sort of gave in, had to listen to the growing protest movements that were happening all around the country and she agreed to sign the law before September the 6th However since then, since she signed the law, we've seen a number of, keep my senior figures, her vice presidential candidate, her interior minister who sort of runs the government essentially And a number of running protest movements essentially come out saying that no, September the 6th is too soon Using the excuse of coronavirus to say that elections should be postponed indefinitely, how can we set a date for elections when there's this pandemic etc So I think everyone is very worried that the president, Agnes, the self-declared president is going to say okay I accept elections but maybe these sections, mobilizing sections to our right to sort of pull it into a direction that would end with the elections being banned once again So I think people aren't feeling very sort of comfortable with this new date because we know that they're right to want to ban the elections, we know that Agnes is third in the polls She has no chance of winning even in the second round So there's no way that they're going to want to go to the polls, there's no way they're going to want to go to the polls when by September the economy is going to be destroyed When they haven't finished privatizing the country's natural resources yet, they haven't found buyers for the lithium, they haven't finished destroying the organized social movements and union movements So all of the things that they were sort of installed to do, they haven't finished yet So I think while they're not going to win democratically, they're not going to go to elections at least until this project of theirs is finished Maybe then they'll accept elections and accept leaving power peacefully Wow, so I have to say I'm really pleased to hear you so overtly frame the Agnes government this way that they were installed to do a certain project in Bolivia And that project being the privatization basically of the entire economy, particularly in natural resources Can you touch just a little bit on the lithium since that's been such the controversial resource since the elections? I mean at first that contract under the Morales government was with the Germans then canceled then with the Chinese and now back with the Germans Has it not been sold to anyone at this point? Well under the Morales government there was a deal with the German company The deal with the German company was focused on the industrialization of lithium So the idea of Morales government was to not only extract lithium and sell it off somewhere to be made in other factories But to actually create lithium products, batteries, medicines, cars and stuff within the country And of course that's a very expensive project and they brought in the German company to have sort of minority state to provide the investment But the Bolivian government nationalized company called YLB would have a majority control over the whole process So I think I've spoken to a number of unions as well in that region where the lithium is which is south of what you see And they say that there are certainly things that maybe could have been improved But overall it was a good deal that provided public control over the natural resources Provided the majority of the revenues would have allowed it to come into the public purse rather than foreign companies However as soon as the coup happened that contract was cancelled and the whole project of industrializing lithium has been completely paralyzed The factory's closed, it hasn't been sold off yet but the whole work that was going on is, you know, tools have been down To put it that way, just like a number of other big economic development projects in the country But we already know that the economy minister of the new regime has said that part of the sort of economic reactivation after lockdown would have to include inviting He said numerous foreign companies into exploit the lithium and Agnes is a VP candidate, one of the richest men in Bolivia Over Twitter he sort of tagged Elon Musk asking him to come to Bolivia and set up a Tesla battery factory for electric cars By the way Elon Musk didn't even reply to it, that's the sort of level of grovelling which the blooming government is willing to do And which they're not even getting respect from their own allies on these issues So that's the situation with the lithium, we know that it's going to be sold off at some point Of course it's incredibly complex and expensive project so it's not going to be an easy process sort of starting it up But we know that that was a key part of why the coup happened and it's a key project that they still need to complete And as I said earlier they haven't done it yet, so are they going to go to elections if they haven't done it, if they're going to lose then they haven't done it Yeah I think this is really important for our viewers to understand that you had a prior government who still was involved in the extraction industry But using those natural resources to develop the nation from within, infrastructure for the nation's own people Whereas now you're looking at a coup government who's using the natural resources in what we would call perhaps a neocolonial manner Where the natural resources are extracted and sent out of the country with no further benefit to the actual citizens of Bolivia regardless of political affiliation So this is the project that's not finished yet is the complete privatization and so you and I were talking before we went on the air about the recent IMF loan That has been taken by the Anya's government, let's talk a little bit about that and how that is one more step to indebtedness and privatization and this project that hasn't been completed yet Yeah so they've taken out a huge IMF loan that's $327 million, they've been trying to do this for about a month and they haven't been able to because under Bolivia's constitution Those sorts of moves have to be approved by the legislature and of course since that's an elected body, the mass has a majority because it's the largest party in the country They've rejected it because you know we all know how the IMF works, we all know how the IMF indebted countries and then requires them to privatize industries The industry requires them to make huge sort of cuts, public spending cuts to key services, health education, a number of other things And so there was a kind of deadlock for about a month and then finally the Anya's issued a supreme decree which essentially bypasses the democratic procedure And then just to allow the loan to take place and now Bolivia's indebted to the tune of over $300 million to the IMF And what we're going to see is a number of cuts to key public services, just at the time when the health services have already collapsed We're going to see that situation become even worse, we know how the IMF has worked in Argentina for example during the last four years The macro government where Argentina lent billions, sorry the IMF lent billions to Argentina and it triggered an almost total collapse of the economy, hyperinflation We can see in Ecuador now a number of, well the government to meet its requirement meets its obligations with the IMF They've had to introduce a number of laws, stripping workers' rights, closing down a number of government services, nationalized industries They've even closed some embassies, that's the level to which the state just has nothing left after indebting itself to the IMF So I think Bolivia's going to be following the same path, obviously a long time ago I think we could have said that it was to do things like this that the coup took place It was to put Bolivia in this position, that was a key reason for why the coup took place Because for 14 years the government had rejected the IMF, rejected the IMF and the World Bank had an economic strategy that was based around It was a developmentalist through public investment, building nationalized industries that could provide revenue for the state that can then be invested in education and health In infrastructure, Bolivia had no infrastructure 15 years ago and now has some of the best in the region That was the model that has been destroyed at the moment and I think in four years in Argentina they destroyed the economy So I think in one year they're going to do more or less the same in Bolivia which is why people are so keen that elections take place as soon as possible Before they can do even more damage before the deaths of the World Bank and the IMF get even worse So I would argue and I think you would agree that this project is taking place all over the world I mean we've seen this massive privatization of all public institutions and infrastructure and pretty much being replaced by corporations, transnational corporations and global capital Specifically we're seeing the results of privatization here in the states and how our inability to respond to COVID-19 Because the healthcare system is almost completely privatized and so few people have financial access to it So it's everywhere and we're really watching it rapidly and quite horrifically unfold before our very eyes in Bolivia So Ollie what can we do here in the states and across the world as Bolivian solidarity people What can we do between now and September to raise the voices of the Bolivian people and to make sure the elections do take place on September 6 Well I think you provided some of the answers just now you said it's important to raise the voices of Bolivian people I think that's the most important thing to do and people hear social movements, trade unions that I speak to all the time are desperate for Their message to be heard outside the country as well as inside the country The government is very sensitive as well to the coverage they get abroad and they know that you know the more eyes there are on Bolivia The less likely they are to be able to just disappear people or lock people away in a way that they'd want So I think if you know it's important that the regime know that people haven't forgotten about Bolivia Because if they think that people have forgotten about Bolivia then they'll feel that they have a free hand So yeah I think it's important to amplify that message, amplify the voices of the Bolivian social movements That's something that we're trying to do here, the radio I'm speaking to you from Radio Kalsachukoka Which is a media outlet based here in Tropicoca, Cochabamba We have an English page of Kalsachuk news which is doing the same sort of in English So I think you know spreading that message is hugely important I think as well as we get closer to the elections it'd be important as well to have international observers in Bolivia I know Code Pink when it was the old election day it made a third Code Pink was planning to come to help out with that And we were sort of going through the processes of making that official and formal Unfortunately that's been suspended now But I hope that Code Pink and other organisations can do that I think there's some conversations that the UK, some representatives from the UK Labour Party might be coming I think that would be very important because we know that if elections do take place They won't necessarily be free of vet, they probably won't be free of vet So it'd be very important to have international observers there to catch them out committing real fraud this time But maybe even the presence of international observers that are friendly to the country's social movements Maybe just the very presence will scare them off from committing fraud in the way that they would want to So I think one of that is very important I think something that everyone can do is just to not forget about Bolivians Keep spreading the message and ensure that the attention is still here Because it's become incredibly important as we get to the elections Well it's a big project and yes you're right we had a delegation put together to come Observe the May 3rd election day but also a pre-election day delegation And I would argue that's probably even more important because before election day is when all the intangible activities happen Right? All the things that the activities that the government puts in place to prevent people from actually participating on actual election day Fear, reduction of poll sites, all those games that governments play to discourage people from voting So maybe we can do two, I would propose One before leading up and then definitely be there on election day So we're still working on that, I would let you know that, that we are still working on that and I would let our viewers know that as well And so in closing Ali is there anything else that we should talk about before I let you go back to your important work there? I'm so happy to have a few minutes of your time this morning No no thank you for having me on, it helps to spread the message about what's going on, to shine a light on what's going on And as I said before I think it's incredibly important that people don't forget about what's going on here because Bolivia is not just about this country I think Bolivia is an example of what happens in Latin America when the US intervenes, when the US installs a puppet regime This is what happens persecution, privatization, economic crisis, racism and discrimination on a mass scale, unseen for many years This is how the US controls Latin America, this is how the US governs in Latin America So I think by talking about Bolivia you gain an insight into the struggle against imperialism in Latin America And what it means to be under US rule, US intervention in this region So I think all of that is incredibly important And thanks for having me on again Oh thank you so much and let's stay in touch and let's try and talk again between now and election day It'd be great to keep hearing from you with regular updates, really important Thank you so much for your time, great to talk with you again And stay safe and be well Thank you Okay, bye bye Bye bye