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The Irish campaign taking on EU cooperation with Israeli security forces

The Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign is working to end EU complicity with the Israeli Ministry of Public Security


26/01/2021

Interview with Kevin Squires (National Coordinator, Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign – IPSC)

 

Hello Kevin, could you start by briefly introducing yourself?

My name is Kevin Squires, and I’m the National Coordinator of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Ireland’s oldest and largest Palestine solidarity organisation who will be marking 20 years of existence later this year. On the European level, we work closely with the more than 40 groups that make up the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP), including great colleagues in Germany and I’d like to pay respect to them in particular for keeping up the struggle for Palestinian freedom in very difficult political circumstances.

What have developments in Israel and Palestine got to do with us in Europe?

Well, first there’s the fact that the legacy of European imperialism and colonialism is responsible for much of the political quagmire that the Middle East has been engulfed in since the First World War, and I believe that there should be a general interest in what happens in the region amongst European citizens.

But speaking specifically to the Palestine-Israel region, we must recognise that today Israel is virtually – in all but name – an EU member state. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and Israel avails of tariff-free trading privileges with the bloc. Israeli entities receive EU technical and scientific research funding, along with funding to implement institutional twinning. Israel is even a trusted partner in data sharing programs, and its military has just been given the green light to take part in joint operations with PESCO, effectively the EU Army-in-waiting. Israel’s link with the EU is perhaps best summed up in the words of the 2005 ‘EU-Israel Action Plan’ which outlines the development of “an increasingly close relationship, going beyond co-operation, to involve a significant measure of economic integration and a deepening of political co-operation.”

Of course, all of this is occurring despite Israel’s atrocious human rights record and flagrant disregard for International Law. Indeed, Israel is in constant violation of the EU-Israel Association Agreement (which grants it privileged access to EU markets), Article II of which states that ongoing relations “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which … constitutes an essential element of this Agreement”.

Palestinians have suffered decades of oppression, dispossession, occupation, colonisation, mass incarceration and war crimes at the hands of the Israeli state – yet rather than act to help the victims of these injustices, the EU engages in an ever closer embrace with the perpetrator. EU Member States will not act without pressure from below – and that is why everyday people, the ordinary citizenry of Europe, should not only care, but take action to help end the oppression of Palestinians and the EU’s complicity in it.

The European Union has repeatedly condemned Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in the West Bank and Golan Heights. Is this enough?

The evidence tells us it is not. Israel has been building these illegal settlements for five decades, and condemnation has evidently not stopped them. In fact the pace of settlement building has quickened as Israel has developed ever deeper ties to the EU since the 1990s. These settlements are not merely ideological, they have practical economic benefit for Israel – and by continuing to allow trade with them the EU is not only economically and politically bolstering them, it is in violation of its own duty to non-recognition and non-assistance to serious violations of international law.

If the EU is serious about its commitment to the rule of law then it must act to ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements. If that does not have the desired effect, then it should look at implementing other lawful sanctions to ensure Israel complies with international law. In fact it should be doing this anyway, especially looking at an arms embargo. Israel acts with impunity because it has never faced serious sanction for decades of violations – to ensure compliance with international legal norms, that impunity must end.

Tell us about the ROXANNE Project

ROXANNE is an acronym that stands for ‘Real time network, text, and speaker analytics for combating organized crime’, and is an EU-funded framework project that purports to research how advancements in technology “can help track and uncover criminals and terrorists” using “voice recognition, language and video technologies” using artificial intelligence.

Due to run until August 2022, ROXANNE is coordinated by the Idiap Research Institute in Switzerland. There are 24 other participants including private companies, universities, and police forces and security ministries from over a dozen different countries, including INTERPOL. Of great concern to human rights activists is the inclusion of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security.

This is the Ministry responsible for both the Israel National Police, including the notorious Border Police, and the Israel Prison Service. It oversees the routine commission of serious human rights abuses and international law violations against the Palestinian people, and racism and violence directed at minorities within Israel.

We have produced a report that takes an in depth look at the role of this Ministry and its institutions. It is a litany of violations and abuses – scrupulously documented by international, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations and international institutions like the UN and the EU – which include brutal killings, the torture and imprisonment of children, medical negligence of political prisoners, home demolitions, the persecution of human rights defenders, violent racism, and the entrenchment of Israel’s illegal settlements.

These abuses and violations committed by the Israel National Police and the Israel Prison Service under the watchful eye of the Ministry are not ‘abnormal’ or cases of ‘bad apples’, but are a vital, calculated, routine, and systemic part of the Israeli state’s wider system of oppression of the Palestinian people. It is a system widely referred to as Apartheid, including last week by Israel’s leading human rights organisation B’Tselem. Incredibly, the Ministry itself is even based in a settlement in Palestinian East Jerusalem – yet the EU deems it a suitable partner for this project.

Isn’t it good to combat crime?

Any collaboration with this Ministry by European institutions should be unacceptable, regardless of what project is being worked on– and in the past, Portugal’s Ministry of Justice and Belgium’s University of Leuven both withdrew from a similar EU project called LAWTRAIN due to the presence of this same Ministry.

However, that ROXANNE’s aim is to “help track and uncover criminals and terrorists” is deeply worrying on its own terms; As we know, Israel already considers virtually all indigenous Palestinian resistance to its occupation and illegal colonisation to be ‘terrorism’, and views all Palestinians as ‘potential terrorists’. It is obvious that the Israeli state will use any technological innovation to which it has access to help entrench its occupation, illegal annexation, colonisation and apartheid policies. It will use it for racial profiling and racist policing practices, to assist in the arrest and torture of political prisoners and children, and in the killings of anti-occupation activists.

The inclusion of the Israeli Ministry of Public Security sends a clear message that, to the EU, none of these crimes, these horrendous human rights abuses, this base racism and denial of basic freedoms matter – and it is all being paid for by EU taxpayers money!

What is the IPSC doing about ROXANNE about this, and what can we do?

Unfortunately here in Ireland the police forces of both the southern and northern jurisdictions, the Gardaí and the PSNI respectively, are ROXANNE participants. Both police forces make claims to upholding the highest standards of human rights and dignity – yet their participation in a project alongside such a racist, human rights abusing and international law violating ministry makes a mockery of these assertions.

We have been campaigning for both police forces to follow the examples of the Portugal’s Ministry of Justice and Belgium’s University of Leuven, both of which withdrew from an EU project called LAWTRAIN due to the presence of this Ministry a few years ago.

This has involved public campaigns aimed at both the heads of the police forces, the respective Ministers for Justice north and south, and politicians connected to justice and policing. Unfortunately, so far, our pleas for our police forces to listen to the public outcry and to cease cooperation with a Ministry that persecutes Palestinians on a daily basis have fallen on deaf ears, both of them dismissing concerns out of hand, with the Gardaí noting that the Israeli Ministry “must adhere to the highest ethical and research integrity principles.” This statement is worth looking at more closely, because they are basically passing responsibility to the EU, and the implication is that if the Ministry has been accepted as a partner at EU level, then it must, ipso facto, adhere to these ethical principles – something that, our reports shows, it demonstrably does not do.

Indeed, this statement stands at odds with even the view of the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Michéal Martin, who acknowledged in a parliamentary debate that there are “unacceptable” issues “around the performance of the Israeli police … in terms of human rights abuses in Palestine and towards Palestinians”. Yet, incredibly he too tried to downplay the significance of this collaboration and stated that the Gardaí will continue participation in ROXANNE because “there are always balances to be struck in situations like this”. It seems in the delicate balance between Palestinian lives, human rights and international law on one hand, and EU research access on the other, there’s only one winner…

Meanwhile, in the north, the Justice Minister Naomi Long simply fobbed off campaigners concerns by stating that participation “is an operational matter for the Chief Constable,” while the PSNI states that it “remains satisfied that there is a legitimate reason to continue its involvement in this project”.

Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and associated restrictions, we have been unable to take to the streets as we would normally do, but we will continue to campaign and raise public awareness on this issue – and we are hopeful that other European campaigns will develop too. It is worth noting for your audience that there are three German partners involved, including Saarland University and the Leibniz University Hannover and we would welcome any campaigning on that front.

How can people contact you for further information?

All these details, including the report cited above and actions people can take are located on our website at www.ipsc.ie or you can follow us Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

But really, I would urge interested people in Germany to get involved with groups like KOPI, DPG or BDS Berlin. Germany is in so many ways the real political and economic centre of the EU, and one of Israel’s closest allies and enablers, so it’s important that the solidarity movement there grows to be able to challenge this alliance, which has been such a tremendous disaster for the Palestinian people and their aspirations for freedom, justice and equality.

The 100 year struggle to legalize abortion in Argentina

Abortion is finally legal in Argentina following a long campaign that began in 1921


In Argentina, the debate on the legalization of abortion was promoted and sustained by organizations of women, feminists and LGBTIQ+ people, in a unique network that converged, centrally, with the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion.

The Campaign, which has a strong territorial anchor throughout the country, brings together political, social and union organizations and movements; human rights, academic and scientific organizations; associations and other groups in the fields of health, culture, entertainment and communication, among other sectors.

The long social path that is intended to be embodied in the current bill is synthesized, with the most resonant milestones, in this chronology:

1921: In the Penal Code of Argentina, article 86 establishes the cases in which the termination of pregnancy should not be punished “when the life or health of the woman is in danger, when the pregnancy was the result of rape or an attack against modesty committed on an idiot or insane woman ”

This version, after legislative twists and turns, is the one in force until today. That is, a law established almost 100 years ago.

2003: For the first time in a National Meeting of Women (ENM), in its 17th edition in Rosario (Santa Fe), a workshop, an assembly and a march are held calling for the legalization of abortion and to consider advocacy strategies. The green handkerchief that identifies the Argentine struggle worldwide for access to the right to choose arises; this was contributed by Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD).

2005: On May 28, the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion is launched, this campaign gathers signatures that will be delivered in the Congress in parallel with a large march of people from all over the country with the slogan “Sex education to decide, contraceptives not to abort and legal abortion not to die”, which is maintained until today.

2006: The Campaign formulates its bill for the first time.

2007: The Campaign symbolically presents, for the first time, a bill to legalize abortion that does not achieve parliamentary status.

On May 17, Ana María Acevedo dies. She was a young woman with an early pregnancy who was diagnosed with jaw cancer. The treatment was incompatible with the continuation of her pregnancy, so the woman asked for an abortion to save her life. Doctors at the Iturraspe hospital in Santa Fe refused to do it and Ana María died. She is one of the women who, with her death, highlights the need to legalize the practice.

2008: The bill is formally presented and it obtains parliamentary status with the signature of Socialist deputy, Silvia Augsburger. From then on, every two years (when the possibility of treatment in the Congress premises is exhausted), the Campaign presents its bill.

2011: The United Nations Human Rights Committee condemned the Argentine State for not having guaranteed, in 2006, access to an abortion to LMR, a young woman with a disability who was pregnant as a result of rape. Despite having a ruling from the Superior Court of Buenos Aires, the practice could not be carried out in a public hospital and, thanks to the mobilization of women’s and feminist organizations, it was accomplished in the private system.

The Committee considered that the obstruction of abortion allowed by Criminal Law constituted a violation of the young woman’s human rights and ordered the country to provide her with “measures of reparation that include adequate compensation” and to “take measures to prevent similar violations from being committed in the future.”

The act of reparation took place in 2014. The situation of LMR shows how the absence of specific legislation affects the lives and health of women.

2012: The Supreme Court, in its ruling in the “FAL” case, determines that women who were victims of rape could have access to legal interruption of pregnancy, without going through a judicial process, and urged every Argentinian province to sanction protocols that facilitate the practice. “No victim of abuse has to have a child without consent, she does not have to go through a judicial odyssey like me,” FAL told Télam, in February this year, in the only interview she gave to the press.

2018: The Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of the Argentine National Congress) voted in favor of the bill, with 129 votes in favor, 125 against and 1 abstention. The bill was then rejected by the Senate (the upper house of the Argentine National Congress): there were 38 negative votes, 31 positive votes, 2 abstentions and one absence.

2019: The Protocol for the comprehensive care of people with the right to legal interruption of pregnancy obtains legal status.

The Campaign re-presents the bill that currently has parliamentary status.

2020: On November 17th, the President, Alberto Fernandez, sent the bill for the Legal Interruption of Pregnancy to Congress. It was sent together with another initiative, the bill for Attention and Comprehensive Health Care during Pregnancy and Early Childhood – better known as the Law of 1000 Days-. The latter aims to lower mortality and malnutrition, in addition to preventing violence and protecting early ties. On the 11th of this month, the lower house gives half a sanction to both bills.

On Tuesday, December 29, the Senate after a long debate, where the positions in favor and against were transversal to the different party blocs, finally approves the bill. There were 38 affirmative votes and 29 negative; a majority for prioritizing the right to decide of pregnant women over their own bodies and making it clear that it is a Public Health issue over dogmatic and religious positions.

Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy IS LAW.

Cynthia García is a Journalist and feminist activist

The View from Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project Launch

The former UK Labour Party leader launched a new project during a well-attended online event last week


25/01/2021

The formation of the Peace and Justice Project was first announced on Twitter by Jeremy Corbyn MP on 13th December 2020. Not long after his removal as the Labour whip (Corbyn is not currently allowed to sit in Parliament as a Labour Member of Parliament) by the new Labour leader, Corbyn let his supporters (and critics!) know that he was working on a new project.

According to its mission statement, the project aims “to bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights, in Britain and across the world…and back campaigns, commission reports and develop progressive networks in Britain and across the world.”[1] As a disillusioned former member of the Labour Party, socialist, and supporter of Corbyn, this news was music to my ears.

The launch was chaired by Baroness Christine Blower, former General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers and current Labour peer (hence the ‘Baroness’ although I’m not sure why anyone on the left would publicly use the title Baroness). The first speaker was a young climate activist, Scarlett Westbrook. Scarlett spoke passionately and articulately about the need to tackle the climate emergency and disaster capitalism and the importance of a Green New Deal. Other speakers included Ronnie Kasrils (a minister of Nelson Mandela’s government), Len McCluskey (General Secretary of the Unite Trade Union), Zarah Sultana (left-wing Labour MP), Yanis Varoufakis, Noam Chomsky and, of course, Jeremy Corbyn himself.

Corbyn spoke halfway through the launch and revealed more details regarding the aims and focus of the project. The project is to have four main areas of focus:

  • Economic Security – Pandemic Solidarity This project will focus on organising solidarity in communities across the UK as the impact of austerity, the pandemic, and the new recession.
  • International Justice – Vaccine Equality This project will campaign for wealthier countries to use their power to support a swift COVID-19 vaccine rollout and economic recovery across the world
  • Climate Justice – Green New Deal This project will be campaigning to radically decarbonise and restructure the economy for more sustainability. The aim is to form a network with other organisations to develop and campaign for a Green New Deal.
  • Democratic Society – Media reform This campaign is focussed on fighting for a more just, free, and accountable media. It plans to commission research, support grassroots actions, and campaign to create a media system that is fit for the 21st Century. This system will support journalistic freedom, speak truth to power, and give voice to the voiceless. [2]

Personally, I found Zarah Sultana particularly inspiring. She spoke of her own political journey and Corbyn’s role in it, and of the importance of recognising and building solidarity on our shared human interests. Her dig at the current Labour leadership of “we don’t just need a competent, forensic government; we need a socialist government”, provoked a wry smile.

Yanis Varoufakis was also impressive, and realistic, when he spoke of the defeats suffered by the Left and the efficient exploitation of racism and sexual misconduct allegations by our opponents in order to neutralise the threat we pose. Yanis said that capitalism has morphed into techno-feudalism, highlighting the power of the big tech giants such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google. He made the important point that progressive politics are not guaranteed to prevail, and that we need to internationalise the struggle through movements like this in order to have a chance of success. Noam Chomsky spoke of the vital importance of overcoming the environmental crisis and the threat of nuclear war internationally, or else “the human experiment is over”.

A left wing Labour member who attended the launch had this to say about it: “the strength of the meeting for me was not just the exhortations to continue to build movements, but the call for unity and solidarity both locally and internationally…it was uplifting to be among comrades where there wasn’t spurious censorship of subject matter and where there was broad agreement on the nature of the challenges facing us.”[3]

I felt similarly. It was inspiring to see the enthusiasm for fighting the big global challenges we are collectively facing. After being so focussed on internal Labour Party struggles, it feels positive to look forward to what we can accomplish through movements and international solidarity. I have hope that the Peace and Justice Project can help link our various struggles so we can unite and overcome them, and in the closing words of Jeremy Corbyn, “create a society that is fit for the next generation.”

 

Footnotes

1 https://thecorbynproject.com/mission-statement/

2 For more information on the projects, including how to get involved: https://thecorbynproject.com/projects/

3 Anonymous Labour Party member, Personal correspondence

Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen: What can non-Germans do?

Non-Germans can’t vote in Berlin’s September referendum on expropriating big landlords but there’s still plenty they can do


Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen (Socialize Deutsche Wohnen & Co, DWE) is a ballot initiative campaign which aims to take the residential property holdings of the largest corporate landlords into democratic public ownership. The strategy for this is to use Berlin’s legal mechanism of a Volksbegehren to call a referendum on the matter by means of gathering large numbers of signatures.

The first round required 20 000 signatures: the DWE proposal proved so popular that the campaign gathered 77 001 of them! This should also be credited to the campaign’s excellent level of grassroots organisation. It consists of both local groups in each neighbourhood, and thematic citywide working groups. The second round will require the collection of 170 000 signatures within four months, beginning on 26th February this year. The local groups will form the backbone of this effort to ensure that DWE’s demand makes it onto the ballot in September.

One newly-formed citywide working group, Right2theCity, is focused on reaching out to the non-Germans who make up about a quarter of the population of Berlin. As many of us have experienced in cities around Europe and around the world, housing has been subjected to unprecedented financialisation and levels of speculation. This has made housing into an investment product to squeeze for profit rather than homes for people.

This mass privatisation has caused a dramatically increase in rents since 2008, funnelling ever more of the tenants incomes into the profits of these corporations. We non-citizens often bear the brunt of it in terms of high rents and lack of respect for our rights. But 85% of Berlin’s residents are tenants – there’s power in that, and DWE has found a way to channel it. Whatever your interests, skills, and level of German, you’re welcome to get involved if this all sounds good to you!

Specifically, the goal is to buy back the housing stock that is owned by real-estate companies with over 3000 apartments in Berlin. This would decommodify the housing, ensuring that rents are set at a level that covers only actual costs of maintenance and improvements, not profits. As for administration, it would also give us much more of a say over how the buildings we live in are managed.

As long-time campaign member Thom McGath puts it, “we are not just pushing for public housing; we are creating a renters’ commons of a sort, democratically managed by the people who live in the apartments. It represents a clear break from housing dominated by finance, speculation, and alienation.” Be a part of this success story – write to us at: right2thecity@dwenteignen.de

Even if you don’t have time to personally get involved, you can still help out by donating to our campaign:

Another initiative within DWE, is that of Tech Workers Coalition. A tech working group is forming, aiming to help the campaign with different tech aspects. At the moment, the focus is Data Collection and Analysis but there is room for other topics. If you have basic tech skills, you’re welcome to contact the coalition at dwe@techworkersberlin.com

Ian Clotworthy represents the Right2TheCity group on DWE’s coordinating group. The next meeting of Right2TheCity is on Wednesday, 27 January. Contact right2thecity@dwenteignen.de for more information

The Bolivian Left in Berlin

Movimiento Wiphala Alemania on the 2019 coup, indigenous resistance and building solidarity for Bolivian activists in Germany


24/01/2021

Translation by Ian Perry

 

How did the Wiphala group in Berlin come about, and what do you do?

The group’s members are Bolivians living in Berlin. It came about to unify the migrant community after the November 2019 coup in Bolivia. Our objective is to organise a united front, in order to:

  • Denounce the oppression that took place after the coup.
  • Demand the emancipation of the indigenous nations, whose resistance is based around the Wiphala, the indigenous symbol which was trampled on by the fascists.
  • Inform the German people and friends of Bolivia about the Wiphala through educational workshops.
  • Provide information regarding the injustices, abuses of power, violations of human rights, racism and media repression which our country was suffering.

Specifically, what has the Bolivian group been doing in Berlin and how do you support each other?

Our objective was to make ourselves visible, especially in Bolivia, using online videos to support the struggles of our compatriots in the cities and the countryside, through:

  • Demonstrations in front of the embassy and in symbolic settings, and cacerolazos (protest actions beating pots and pans).
  • Solidarity actions, such as holding cooking events to raise funds for the victims of the massacre of Senkata. We also collected money for the “Hunger is not a crime” programme for the poor of the city of El Alto during the Covid-19 lockdown.
  • Working collectively with other organisations in Europe though online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook (“Wiphalas across the World”). We held successful education sessions discussing important political themes, with the participation of social movement leaders, and Deputies and Senators of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). Such sessions went viral on social networks.
  • Building parallel struggles in different European countries, following the same forms of organisation and action across the continent.

In your experience what do Germans and others living in Berlin know about MAS, Evo Morales and the situation in Bolivia?
The information Germans have greatly depends on whether they have been to Bolivia. If they have visited as tourists, the great majority will know of Evo Morales as president. Those who have lived or live now in Bolivia also know that Morales was the first indigenous president, that he is a leader who arose from the social movements and that together with the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the political party which he represents, he had a major political impact over the last 14 years. As these years saw stability and growth in Bolivia this has created a generally positive image.

How would you describe the coup and the recent election in Bolivia to non-Bolivians living in Berlin?
Presidential elections were held on 20th October 2019. After a preliminary announcement of a MAS victory, the opposition groups, supported by the Organisation of American States (OEA) and its president Luis Almagro, claimed electoral fraud and rejected the results, calling on the population to revolt. This resulted in days of high tension and chaos in the country; electoral and state institutions, MAS campaign offices and the houses of MAS activists were attacked and burned down, and MAS political leaders kidnapped. This political and social persecution showed that a coup had taken place (months later a study of the election results by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab found no evidence of fraud).

On 10th November Evo Morales, together with state vice-president Álvaro García Linera, resigned his position while denouncing the coup, in order to stop the continuing violence in the country.

The second vice-president of the Senate, Jeanine Añez Chávez, announced that under the constitution she was entitled to assume the state presidency. The conservative sectors behind the break with democracy presented Áñez’s accession to power as a straightforward constitutional succession, and their mass media supporters omitted all reference to the context in which Morales and other MAS state office holders were forced to resign. This façade was presented to the international community, with the USA among the first to recognise the de facto government, followed by the European Union and the German Foreign Ministry.

The de facto government, wanting to silence the population, ordered the armed forces to stop the protests, and issued a decree that the military could not be prosecuted if they killed anyone. This led to the massacres in Sacaba (in Cochabamba) and Senkata (in El Alto, by La Paz). 37 people died, more than 800 were injured, more than 1500 arrested and tortured, and dozens disappeared, plunging the Bolivian people into grief. The killings stopped after protests from international human rights organisations.

The de facto government started to crack under its own weight after a few months, since all the participants in the coup which had criminally taken over the state institutions and enterprises were immediately embroiled in corruption scandals. This started with corruption in the acquiring of medical supplies to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, and ended with the flight of directors of state enterprises, with suitcases full of money, to the United States.

Añez had said on taking power that her objective was to call new elections after 3 months, but this did not happen. Instead the date for new elections was postponed on more than 3 occasions in the course of 2020, provoking a social and political crisis, with the de facto government using the excuse that the conditions were not right. After months of patience the social, indigenous and trade union movements, coordinated though the Pact of Unity, became the main force which forced the October 18th 2020 date for the new elections and drove the reestablishment of democracy in Bolivia.

Añez put herself forward as a candidate for the presidency in the elections, which increased the divisions within the conservative bloc. In the run up to the elections the political parties (the majority of them right wing) attempted to create an alliance that could beat MAS at the polls. They made no effort to investigate those behind the massacres and persecutions that had followed the coup.

On 18th October the elections saw a huge turnout in a calm atmosphere. The results gave a massive MAS victory, with MAS candidate Luis Arce winning the Presidency and MAS gaining a majority in both chambers of the legislative assembly.

I’ve read a lot of very critical portrayals of Morales in the liberal US and European media over the past few years. How does it feel to see those as a Bolivian living abroad?

Many people who previously supported Morales and MAS became disenchanted over mistakes which damaged the image of the party over the course of the years. And the rich families who were used to running the country became sick with fear of losing their power and privilege, leading them to use violence to sow chaos in the country.

The mass media in the USA and Europe are enemies of the peoples’ struggles in Latin America, and they used their hegemonic position to promote lies about the reality in Bolivia, demonising Morales as a leftist follower of Castro and Chavez, and contributing to the destabilisation of the continent.

In spite of this, the progress that was made in the last decade is recognised across the world. The mass media’s ideas are now challenged via the internet and alternative media, so that people have access to more information from which to develop their own views.

Bolivia is a country with an indigenous and multicultural majority, but from its foundation it was ruled by big landowners and then by neoliberal capitalists. Under the governments led by Morales, for the first time in history the indigenous people took power through elections.

It wasn’t an easy task to raise up a country that was largely broken and privatised, while trying to guarantee a better quality of life for the whole population. MAS government measures included:

  • Nationalising various businesses, with the state resuming the power of administration and redistribution of profits, thus combatting poverty.
  • Implementing literacy programmes, issuing identity documents, providing food and improving nutrition.
  • Redistributing land, with public consultation via a referendum.
  • Implementing programmes to improve education, providing modern teaching materials, technology and new infrastructure.
  • Guaranteeing a system of universal free healthcare.
  • Supporting national production and exports, and offering incentives to small businesses.
  • Coming to new agreements with international business, making Bolivia attractive for foreign investment. This state policy enabled an important rate of economic growth, the highest in Latin America in recent years.

What do you think will happen in the coming months and years in Bolivia?
The initial challenge is to achieve justice for the massacres in Senkata and Sacaba, and in the process ensure that all groups (including the right-wing political parties, military leaders, and elements of the police) acknowledge that what took place in 2019 was a coup. It’s important that the forces of the left and the indigenous peoples use their first years in power to resolve this dispute with the military and right-wing sectors. Meeting this first challenge will provide more stability and security for the Bolivian social forces, which have renewed energy after the 2020 national elections.

Also, the eruption into the political sphere of new forces with structural demands, such as feminist and environmental movements, will create areas of debate and political action to which the government will have to respond.

In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, nature itself has legal rights within the constitution. The government seeks to achieve development in harmony with nature, respecting and accepting its conditions, alongside promoting collective well-being (the concept of Buen Vivir) and respect for the culture and languages of the indigenous nations. The challenge is how to move beyond regulations and declarations, and turn proposals into a tangible reality. How can state action enable moving beyond capitalism and patriarchy?

Collective authorship: Wiphala Movement Germany

We are people from all layers of society and fervent supporters of democracy, justice and harmony. We represent a network of friends inspired by the Wiphala symbol. We defend the emancipation of the indigenous people. We are against the abuse of power and the oppression and exploitation of the Bolivian people.

Links

Movimiento Wiphala Alemania

https://www.facebook.com/112673237095875/videos/3467901229962228

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_nZ6zc6LM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzWe19H1rgU&t=7s

https://www.facebook.com/WiphalasacrosstheWorld