Bolivia’s police intercepted a weapons shipment sent from the United States to the separatist region of Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz is the hub of fascist opposition gangs that led the violent coup in November 2019 that overthrew democratically elected President Evo Morales, of the leftist Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.
Morales was the first-ever Indigenous president of Bolivia, a country where the majority of the population is of Native heritage.
Internal State Department cables published by WikiLeaks show how the US government has supported far-right separatists in Santa Cruz for years, as journalist Matt Kennard has documented.
A significant number of European fascists fled to the region after losing World War II to the Soviet Union. They then formed paramilitary groups, which regularly use Nazi-style salutes.
Santa Cruz Youth Union adopts Nazi salute after their leader questioned about burning down of MAS party headquarters. Oct 17 video from @diarioeldeber (FB) @markoacl @Pedro_Albornoz_ @OliviaArigho @bretgustafson pic.twitter.com/h1XFHQgtrJ
— AndeanInfoNet (@AndeanInfoNet) October 31, 2019
The extremist Comité pro Santa Cruz (Pro-Santa Cruz Committee) and its youth wing the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Santa Cruz Youth Union) advance an explicitly neo-fascist Christian ideology.
The current governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, who was a main leader of the violent 2019 coup, comes from these far-right groups.
In addition to the violence of the putsch, these US-backed far-right separatists in Santa Cruz also routinely attack Indigenous Bolivians and supporters of the leftist MAS party.
These are the racist far-right separatists the US govt has supported for years in Bolivia (yes, under both Republican and Democratic admins)
State Department cables published by WikiLeaks show the US has long backed Santa Cruz separatism to try to weaken the leftist central govt https://t.co/u609FjPK4b
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 26, 2021
Rafe Husain
2022-02-02 at 00:00
China builds trains and tracks
US builds bombs and bombers
US bombs while China builds
US whines when China wins
Peace better than war
Prince Kapone
2022-02-10 at 20:11
I think it’s important to acknowledge how under General Banzer, then under Luis Garcia Meza, the infamous Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was the de facto director of intelligence in Bolivia as part of Operation Condor. The reactionaries in Bolivia today are the literal heirs of the right wing dictatorships during the Condor period.