The Overthrow of Bolivia’s Evo Morales Takes Us Back to Latin America’s ‘Dirty Wars’

Jeremy Kryt. Daily Beast. December 27, 2019

CALI, Colombia—A firebrand president stands accused of bucking constitutional limits so he can run for another term. At last his enemies see their chance. The military drives him not just from the presidential palace but into exile. Then his right-wing rivals name the successor of their choice, without due process, violating the nation’s charter yet again. The White House vows to recognize the successor despite mass protests and international outrage and—bang, zap, just like that!—the coup is legit.

Such was the script used by far-right oligarchs and generals to take down the democratically elected president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, in 2009. And those same events played out in eerily similar fashion in Bolivia this November, when the military and wealthy opposition leaders deposed President Evo Morales, labeled him a “terrorist,” and forced him to flee the country fearing for his life.

In fact, this is a very old pattern in Latin America, where the far right and its allies in the military high command seize power with Washington's blessing because, to paraphrase a line attributed to President Franklin Roosevelt, they may be sons of bitches, but they are our sons of bitches. The result in the 1970s was a series of “dirty wars” that involved massive human rights abuses by military regimes with or without civilian facades.

Morales himself called the move against him a “cunning and nefarious coup,” while the perpetrators tried to frame it as a “democratic transition,” even as the country descended into chaos.

“When the military intervenes in the politics of their country and forces an elected president to resign two months before his term was over, that is a military coup,” said Jake Johnston, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), in an email to The Daily Beast.

“That Morales was barely able to leave the country and avoid arrest or worse, and only then due to the intervention of the Mexican government, makes clear the gravity of the situation,” Johnston said.

Bret Gustafson, an expert on Bolivia at Washington University in St. Louis, called the military’s actions “absolutely horrific.”

“Can you imagine if [General] Mark Milley, the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went on television and suggested that Trump resign? We might like the sound of that, but that’s still a coup.”

As was the case in post-coup Honduras, Bolivia has been swept by protests and counter-protests and military and police violence in recent weeks. In all more than 30 people have been killed, many of them in “massacres by state security forces,” according to Johnston, who also cites human rights groups reports of “threats and attacks on journalists, arbitrary detentions and judicial abuses.”

Nevertheless, President Donald J. Trump has backed the de facto government throughout the crisis—just as President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did when Zelaya got booted—and as recently as this week Trump doubled down on his support for the new regime.

“The Trump administration is terrible on this,” said Adam Isacson, director of the Defense Oversight Program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

“If the government in question is right-wing, the White House congratulates it when it politicizes the military, for instance when putting down protests. If the government is left-wing, as in Venezuela, the White House urges it to act in a politicized way against the civilian regime,” Isacson said.

Perhaps most concerning of all is that the events in Bolivia are not isolated, coming at a time when military force has been used against peaceful protestors in several countries in Latin America, leading to questions about a pattern of regressive militarization reminiscent of the region’s violent past.

So What Caused the Coup?
Morales was Bolivia’s first indigenous president in a country where indigenous peoples make up more than 62 percent of the population, and he won his first election by a landslide in 2005.

The first several years of his presidency were an unquestioned success, as he sparked the economy by nationalizing the oil and natural gas industries. Poverty rates fell by almost half, GDP skyrocketed, and health and educational opportunities improved. Native peoples in long-neglected rural regions were suddenly enfranchised by a leader who felt like one of their own.

But he also made enemies along the way. He encouraged the production of coca leaves, which are the prime ingredient in cocaine, but also a traditional indigenous staple. And he openly criticized U.S. foreign policy and the Drug War, which won him few allies in Washington.

At the same time, Bolivia’s non-indigenous minority—which had long considered itself the rightful ruling class—resented both his ethnicity and his tendency to share the nation’s wealth. This led to violent clashes in 2008, and diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show the U.S. Embassy in La Paz had prepared for a coup or assassination attempt against the president at that time.

Morales weathered that storm, and won the presidency for the third time by a wide margin in 2014. But Bolivia’s constitution would have prevented him from running for a fourth term. When a plebiscite failed, a controversial court ruling allowed him to run for office again in 2019, but also set the stage for his final downfall.

“Morales made a political calculation and it did not play out in his favor,” Gustafson said. Part of his decision to run again might’ve been driven by a fear of Bolivia’s old order returning to power without a charismatic candidate to oppose them.

“Nobody would have been able to cultivate unity like Evo,” he said.

And he almost pulled it off. When the election results were announced on Oct. 24 Morales was declared the victor. But the Organization of American States (OAS), which was monitoring the vote, complained of “serious irregularities” and accused the government of “intentional manipulation” of the election.

Since then, some observers have questioned those claims, and four members of the U.S. Congress also sent a letter to the OAS demanding answers and accountability. (The OAS declined to comment for this article.)

CEPR’s Johnston authored a paper calling the OAS report “biased and misleading” and “full of serious inaccuracies.”

“It’s obvious there were problems with the elections,” but the OAS’s final report presents “no evidence that the results themselves were systematically manipulated or altered and they obscure or discard evidence that runs counter to their narrative,” Johnston said.

Guilty or not, Morales did offer to hold elections all over again. But by then it was too late. His approval rating had sagged in the wake of his decision to run a fourth time, even some indigenous groups had turned against him, and his long-time enemies on the right saw their chance.

By early November, he had gone into hiding, after armed intruders broke into his home. Increasingly radicalized opposition forces had taken to burning his supporters’ houses, and Morales tweeted that the police were hunting him. A few days later, under pressure from the military and fearing for his life, he announced his resignation on television from a secret location.

Hours after that he was on his way to asylum in Mexico, in a plane that country provided, even as analysts warned of “civil war” in Bolivia

‘Pinochet’s Children’
In the wake of Morales’ departure, the Bolivian military “made the tragic choice to use lethal force with live-fire ammunition to put down protests and blockades” by his supporters, WOLA’s Isacson said.

During that time, the White House released a statement that “applauds” the Bolivian military’s actions, calling Morales downfall “a significant moment for democracy.”

Unfortunately, such a democratic “moment” seems unlikely.

Morales successor, interim president Jeanine Añez, declared herself president before a largely empty congress, without a quorum to ratify her claims, while air force jets buzzed the city in a show of force.

Añez’s conservative party had won just 4 percent of the vote in the most recent elections. Yet she was also aligned with the same far-right groups who had sought to overthrow Morales in 2008, and enjoyed the full support of the military and police.

An op-ed signed by Noam Chomsky and other prominent intellectuals accused her of having “taken advantage of the power vacuum created by Morales’ ouster to consolidate control over the state.”

Añez also has a history of public racism, including mocking and demonizing indigenous groups in now-deleted tweets, one of which referred to ethnic peoples as “Satanic.”

Her family has also been linked to drug trafficking, as her nephew was arrested in Brazil in 2017 while attempting to smuggle more than half a ton of cocaine. By contrast, when the first lady of Venezuela was found to have a couple of “narco nephews” of her own, Trump’s White House slapped her with stiff sanctions. 

“The reality is that ‘friends’ of [Trump] are treated differently than ‘enemies’—look no further than Honduras, where the president of the country has been implicated in drug trafficking and yet continues to be feted by U.S. government officials, including President Trump himself,” said Johnston of CEPR.

Añez ally and opposition leader Luis Camacho is another potential threat to restoring democratic order in a divided Bolivia, according to critics. Camacho, a wealthy businessman with a background as a member of an ultra-right paramilitary group, was also a leader in the 2008 plot against Morales.

“Añez and Camacho are Pinochet's children,” said Yale history professor Greg Grandin, making a reference to the notorious Chilean dictator. “Everything about them seems a throwback to the 1970s, except that they feel no compulsion to disguise their racism, and their dedication to plunder.” Grandin added that “for the class they represent, [power] is a right exclusive to white Christians.”

He characterized the nation’s ongoing strife as a struggle “between the forces of a battered but still existing left and an empowered but resentful, revanchist right.”

Washington University anthropologist Gustafson agreed:

“Both Añez and Camacho represent the oligarchy” and “have a long history of racism and paramilitarism, so the fact that they are now in charge is certainly frightening,” he said. “They are using their time in office to reorient state economic policy in ways that will privilege the interests of the wealthy elite.”

CEPR researcher Johnston also suggested  Trump's “moment for democracy” was not at hand,  saying the interim government has already demonstrated it’s “not a regime that is concerned with the interests of Bolivia's majority.”

Morales flew into Argentina this week, where he at last named a couple of candidates to replace him as the face of his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, if and when an electoral run-off takes place. But that might not be anytime soon.

“The Añez government took power with ostensibly one goal: the holding of elections. More than a month on, however, and no new date for elections has been set. As repressive efforts continue and the de facto government consolidates its own power over state institutions, the likelihood of this regime organizing truly free and fair elections continues to dim,” Johnston said.

The Military Leash
Isacson, of WOLA, recently authored a report that sets the Bolivian coup—as well as other democratic setbacks and crackdowns in Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, and Honduras—against the backdrop of an ongoing trend toward militarization in the Americas.

In the report, Isacson warns that the “pendulum is swinging back fast” toward the days when many nations were ruled by military juntas or thinly disguised, right-wing regimes with close ties to the armed forces.

Economic growth in Latin America has stagnated over the last decade, as has faith in political systems tainted by corruption and drug money. That means politicians often end up ceding control to the military as they deploy troops to quash mass uprisings, using soldiers “to ‘defend’ against their own people, viewing them as national security threats,” according to Isacson’s report.

“The problem is that the military continues to hold elected civilians on a leash, which they yank back when they think the civilians have gotten out of hand,” Isacson told The Daily Beast.

“Leaders need to strengthen civilian democratic institutions so that they can break free of the leash” and not “co-opt the military” to provide “political support for the regime," he said.

Yale’s Grandin also said the Bolivian crisis could have far-reaching implications, perhaps setting a dangerous precedent for the region’s future.

“The coup's effect will ripple out beyond Bolivia, in ways that we can't yet know,” he said, “but increased militarization is a fairly safe bet.”

Bolivia Expels 3 Diplomats in Tiff With Mexico and Spain Over Morales Aides

Anatoly Kurmanaev and Raphael Minder. New York Times. December 30, 2019

Bolivia’s interim government expelled three senior Spanish and Mexican diplomats from the country on Monday, dramatically escalating a diplomatic spat caused by the downfall of President Evo Morales.

Bolivia’s caretaker president, Jeanine Añez, gave Mexico’s ambassador and Spain’s chargé d’affaires and its consul in La Paz, the nation’s main city, 72 hours to leave, accusing them of breaking diplomatic norms by aiding former officials linked to Mr. Morales.

“This group of representatives of the governments of Mexico and Spain have gravely damaged the sovereignty and dignity of the people and the government” of Bolivia, Ms. Añez said Monday at a news conference.

Spain’s government responded by expelling three Bolivian diplomats on Monday. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry called Bolivia’s move “political” but did not immediately retaliate.

The surprise expulsions by Bolivia were the latest and most drastic step taken by Ms. Añez to reshape foreign and domestic policy since succeeding Mr. Morales in November. Mr. Morales fled to Mexico last month, after stepping down under pressure from street protesters and the military. He later traveled to Argentina.

Since assuming the presidency, Ms. Añez has kicked out hundreds of Cuban workers, halted formal recognition of Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s president, begun a legal crusade against top officials under Mr. Morales and brought religious symbols back into the ceremonies of the explicitly secular state.

Her critics say these measures go well beyond her self-professed mission as a caretaker to oversee new elections early next year.

Ms. Añez’s shake-up of diplomatic ties could have lasting political and economic consequences for the next president. Of particular concern would be any political fallout with Spain, a significant investment partner whose government helped broker Ms. Añez’s ascension.

“Frankly, there’s very little for Bolivia to gain from this over the long term,” said Filipe Carvalho, a Washington-based risk analyst with the Eurasia Group, a consultancy firm. “These measures are counterproductive.”

Ms. Añez’s diplomatic saber-rattling instead serves a short-term political goal, he said: mobilizing Mr. Morales’s staunch opponents ahead of elections. “This is a very polarized country, and some here really want to get back at the people who held power for 14 years” under Mr. Morales, Mr. Carvalho said.

The recent diplomatic tensions have centered around 10 officials from Mr. Morales’s inner circle who sought asylum in the Mexican diplomatic premises in La Paz after the former president fled into exile. The caretaker government has accused three of them of sedition and electoral fraud and issued warrants for their arrests.

Officials in the Añez administration said Mexico had broken diplomatic norms by allowing asylum seekers to conduct political activity and move in diplomatic vehicles. Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, initially drew Bolivia’s ire for granting Mr. Morales, an ally, temporary asylum and sending a military plane to pick him up at his Bolivian hide-out.

The tensions exploded into the open last week after the Spanish government unexpectedly became involved. On Friday, two Spanish diplomatic cars, driven by masked security officers, tried to enter the Mexican ambassador’s residence in La Paz, fueling suspicions that Spain was trying to quietly intervene in the standoff.

In an attempt to diffuse the spat, the Spanish government sent a commission to investigate the episode, without explaining why its officials had covered their faces and refused to identify themselves to the Bolivian police.

Some local residents and politicians were outraged, accusing Spain, a former colonial power, of disrespect and arrogance.

“The times of Pizarro and Cortés are over,” said Jorge Quiroga, a former president of Bolivia who is a prominent commentator. “By these actions, they have thrown away decades of work they spent improving their image in the country.”

Bogota’s New Mayor Takes Office, Defends Right to Social Protest

EFE. January 1, 2020

BOGOTA – Bogota’s new mayor, Claudia Lopez, defended the right to social protest on Wednesday upon taking office, alluding to the demonstrations in the final months of 2019 against the policies of Colombian President Ivan Duque.

“Today, we’re not only echoing it, but rather we’re part of the citizens majorities who have taken to the streets with demands and aspirations that are not at all basic and fully legitimate, of young people, women, civic movements, ethnic groups who are demanding sexual diversity and equality,” Lopez, with the Green Alliance, said after being sworn in.

More than 1,000 mayors and about 30 governors took office on Wednesday in Colombia for four-year terms that will conclude on Dec. 31, 2023.

The new mayor, the first woman elected by popular vote to preside over Bogota’s political affairs and a member of the LGBTI community, emphasized that “today that citizenry comes to the government (of the Colombian capital),” those “thousands of people who spontaneously took to the streets to express themselves with the rhythm of their pot-banging protests, quite apart from political parties and leaders.”

“This city is speaking to us. Every street, every square and every park is speaking, singing, moving to demand the city and the country the citizenry dreams of and deserves for the 21st century,” said Lopez, 49, who went on to emphasize that her government is part of “the environmental and animal-supporting movements” that are demanding changes.

Last November, tens of thousands of Colombians responded to a call from labor unions to publicly demonstrate to demand changes in Duque’s economic and social policies, demonstrations that morphed into a popular movement that for three weeks kept the protests alive in Bogota and other cities.

“We’re not going to let them rob us of hope, we’re not going to let them steal more lives of this new generation that today goes out on the street shouting to ask them not to leave (us) stuck in the same debates and with the same characters of the past,” said Lopez, who broke with the tradition of Bogota mayors taking the oath of office on the downtown Plaza de Bolivar, opting to do so at a picnic ceremony in Simon Bolivar Park, where she arrived on a bicycle.

She also said that “on Oct. 27 Bogota elected change, not only a change of government, of priorities, of style, of leadership, but a change in its history.”

She emphasized that Bogota elected “the daughter of a teacher” who got ahead with the support of her family and who “on the basis or merit, tenacity and collective action managed to make her way in academia and in public service.”

Lopez said that on Oct. 27, Bogota elected “the first woman, a different woman, to be elected to the country’s second most important elected office.”

In mid-December, Lopez married her partner, Sen. Angelica Lozano, and hopes are that her administration will mean an opening in terms of freedoms and civil rights.

She added that the five goals of her administration will be for people to be able to live without fear; to create opportunities, jobs and education that is relevant, free and of high quality; to free up more time for people to spend with their families; to revive the city so that people can breathe, mobilize themselves and live with quality of life; and to make the Bogota Region the best home for Colombians.

Death toll in Chile protests since October rises to 27

AP. December 28, 2019

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s human rights watchdog is calling for an investigation into the electrocution death of a man during anti-government protests.

The death during clashes between police and protesters on Friday raised the number of those killed during protests that started in October to at least 27.

The man who died was 40 years old and was electrocuted after falling into a pit with cables during chaotic street scenes, according to police and local media.

The exact circumstances of the man’s death should be clarified as soon as possible, Chile’s National Institute of Human Rights said.

The death happened during a protest in Plaza Italia, a focal point of unrest in the capital of Santiago. The demonstrations started over an increase in the subway fare and eventually encompassed grievances about pensions, education, health care and other issues.

Demonstrations are frequently held on Friday, and a movie theater burned in the latest clashes.

Demonstrators made way for firetrucks arriving to fight the blaze at the Alameda Cultural Center, which also has been a staging ground for volunteer medics who treat injured demonstrators.

Firefighters said the building was badly damaged and the cause would be investigated.

Chile: was a young woman murdered for photographing anti-government protests?

Charis McGowan and John Bartlett. The Guardian. December 31, 2019

Photojournalists and press freedom activists have called on authorities in Chile to investigate the murder of a young photographer amid speculation that her death may have been linked to pictures she took during violent clashes between riot police and anti-government demonstrators.

The body of Albertina Martínez was found in her apartment in the Chilean capital, Santiago on 21 November, two days after she had been seen heading to a protest nearby. She had been beaten, and a bag containing her camera, laptop and phone were missing.

“The pictures she took that day have vanished,” said her sister, Priscilla.

Sources close to the investigation say the case is being treated as a robbery with homicide, but the timing of the murder has prompted speculation that Martínez was targeted because she had been photographing the protests.

“Chilean authorities should investigate the killing of Albertina Martínez Burgos thoroughly to determine if it was linked to her reporting, and do everything possible to recover her equipment and materials,” said Natalie Southwick from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In more than two months of mass demonstrations against social and economic inequality, thousands have been injured and at least 27 people have died.

No arrests have yet been made over Martínez’s murder, and with the motive still unclear, friends and authorities have urged caution.

Friends from her football team have said she was afraid to attend the protests, but pictures on Martínez’s private Instagram feed from the week before her death show masked protesters shrouded in billowing clouds of smoke.

Martínez moved to Santiago from southern Chile 10 years ago to pursue a career in photography, working at Chile’s main daily, El Mercurio. She then moved on to work as a lighting assistant at a television studio.

“She was clearly happier taking pictures than working at the studio, and she had a good eye for photography, but opportunities in the field can be difficult to come by,” said Sergio López, who worked alongside Martínez at the newspaper.

He had spoken to her the week before her death. “She said she enjoyed taking pictures at the protests, even though she was a little afraid,” he said.

Photojournalists group Frente Fotograficó responded to Martínez’s death by sharing her pictures of the protests, along with the hashtag #JUSTICIAPARAALBERTINA.

“We will not forget her face or her name,” they wrote.

The photojournalism collective Migrar Photo called on investigators for transparency and truth, and warned photographers to “look after one another”.

The group said that police animosity towards photographers has intensified in recent weeks, as coverage of protests has provided evidence of human rights abuses by the security forces. Members of the group have received threats from the police, and have been shot with pellets, teargas and water cannons.

Chile is considered a safe country for journalists, ranked 46th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

But since the unrest began 10 weeks ago, RSF has condemned a series of attacks on the press, including forced detention.

Freelance photographer Giovanny Valenzuela was covering the same protest as Martínez on 19 November, and described a heavy police presence and “strong repression”.

He said news of her death and shaken other photojournalists covering the protests.

“The fact that we are in the middle of a social revolt, and a photographer was found dead without her equipment was very shocking. We feel threatened – and very sad.”

Other attacks on press include an incident in which a BBC team was apparently targeted with teargas rounds, the detention of two photojournalists, and a police assault on an Argentinian journalist who was hit in the face with a baton by officers who then destroyed her camera.

Martínez’s sister Priscilla said she had still not been contacted by prosecutors. “I can’t rule out anything because I don’t know anything,” she said.

Brazilians on Bolsonaro's first year: 'If you disagree, you're seen as a traitor'

Tom Phillips, Dom Phillips and Jonathan Watts. The Guardian. January 1, 2020

It has been a year since a pro-gun, anti-indigenous far-right former army captain took power in Brazil and began sending shockwaves through the country’s government and society.

In those 12 months, Jair Bolsonaro – who is openly homophobic and allied to Brazil’s hardline religious right – has declared war on film-makers, journalists and the environment; put a conspiracy theorist in charge of the foreign service; and greenlit a new era of police repression and rainforest destruction.

Here, six prominent Brazilian voices from the arts, media, diplomacy and the Amazon offer their thoughts on Bolsonaro’s dramatic first year as president.

Djamila Ribeiro, feminist philosopher, publisher and activist
“It has been such a tough year – above all when it comes to public security. We feel really afraid of the intensifying repression of the black population and the increasing militarisation of the favelas. The number of black people being murdered in poor communities has increased, as has the number of indigenous leaders being killed.

“But it’s important to remember how many people have resisted and how many [resistance] movements exist.

“If there’s a positive side to this government, it’s that issues of race and gender have never been talked about so much. This is now a mainstream debate in a country like Brazil – a country founded on the myth of racial democracy that denied the existence of racism for so long. This debate already existed. But now people are discussing and speaking out about these issues like never before.

“Bolsonaro has thrown wide open things that social movements have been talking about for centuries and people are starting to wake up. In 2020, the struggle goes on.”

Patrícia Campos Mello – award-winning journalist from Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo newspaper

“This year confirmed our worst fears about the Bolsonaro government’s relationship with the press. We’ve seen it take an increasingly hostile stance, not just towards journalists but also critical and independent media outlets.

“There hadn’t been any kind of censorship since the end of the military dictatorship [in 1985] – and now we’ve started to see a gradual erosion of freedom of expression. The other day I was talking to Nicaraguan and Venezuelan colleagues and they told me: ‘Four years ago, we were going through exactly what you’re going through. This is how it begins.’

“Every time you write a critical piece, you become a target for Bolsonaro supporters. I’d never been a target before – even when covering conflicts. I didn’t even feel like a target in Syria. But here, it’s personal.

“The aggressive messages and the fake news never stop. This is our new normal – especially for female journalists. I’ve become used to being called a whore. Each time I’m about to publish an article that’s critical of the government, I prepare myself because I know the next day will be hell.”

Celso Amorim – former foreign minister, 2003-10
“The last time I felt ashamed of Brazil was in the late 1960s.

“I was going up the escalators near the London School of Economics and I opened a magazine and it had a story about a Brazilian student who had been killed and tortured by the dictatorship. I had the impression everyone on the underground was looking at me.

“Now, again, I feel ashamed – for many reasons, but especially by what is being done in foreign policy. In 50 years I’ve never seen anything like what is happening in Brazilian diplomacy today. Not even during the military government.

“Terrible things happened back then in Brazil. But our diplomacy was more skilful, more cautious and sought dialogue whenever possible. Now it has embarked upon an all-out ideological war against everything that is not western or Christian – according to their conception.

“I feel sorry for my colleagues in the foreign service because I know some of them are being forced to do what they do because it’s their only job.

“It’s not very different from the US state department under Trump – only more exaggerated, more ridiculous. And of course Trump has 4,000 nuclear weapons – he can do whatever he wants.”

Gustavo Bebianno – former Bolsonaro ally
“The way the president is behaving is disastrous. So for me, this has been a disappointing year given the positive expectations I had before the elections.

“There are two different people: Captain Jair Bolsonaro is someone I highly respect [and] miss greatly… But President Jair Bolsonaro is a disappointment for the way he has betrayed his country and much of what he promised in the campaign.

“He started to see himself as a some sort of mythological entity, blessed by God. He became extremely arrogant and wouldn’t listen to anyone.

“You can agree with him about 99 things. But if you disagree on one and argue or try to offer another point of view, you are seen as a traitor. His administration became a sect of fanatics – and I’m not a fanatic.

“[Bolsonaro] is surrounded by radicals [and] is scared of everything. He is constantly afraid of being betrayed. That’s why he’s aggressive. He’s scared of journalists. He is scared of politicians.”

Davi Kopenawa Yanomami – indigenous intellectual, shaman and author
“Indigenous people in Brazil feel a lot more fear under this president. This year, many illegal miners have entered our land. They pollute our rivers and kill our fish. Our people are starting to get malaria again.

“Bolsonaro is a garimpeiro [illegal miner]. He wants more land and fewer Indians. After he took power in January, he attacked us and said he no longer wants to recognise indigenous reserves. “He calls us lazy and says we produce nothing. That’s exactly the argument the illegal miners use.

“I don’t know the president personally, but I don’t like what I hear of him on TV and read in the newspaper. He thinks in a military way. The military doesn’t care about the land or indigenous people.

“That is bad for him and bad for us because he is president. He sets the direction of Brazil.

“In our culture, we don’t damage the river and trees. We care for the forest. But the miners just bring destruction. Who is getting rich from this? It’s not regular Brazilians in the cities. It’s politicians who are selling the wealth of Brazil to foreigners.

“I hope people outside can understand this and help us to defend ourselves and preserve nature.”

Karine Teles – actor
“For Brazilian cinema, 2019 represented a gigantic pause. Nothing advanced. Everything was suspended. This is a massive loss for an industry that employed more than 300,000 people. It’s not just a cultural loss, it’s an economic loss too. So many families no longer have a way of supporting themselves.

“The new government admits it wants to filter the content being produced with public money. But Brazil’s constitution outlaws censorship. You can’t decide which films can and can’t be made with public funds. There’s a committee responsible for selecting projects according to artistic qualities, the artists involved, the producer – not the themes being portrayed.

“I think it’s an attempt to restrict the content of films. But our country is still a democracy where things work in a certain way. No leader – a mayor, a governor, or president – has the right to impose their personal tastes on the entire population.

“It makes no sense to obstruct a major industry that creates tax revenues, jobs and helps promote the name of our country around the world.

“I don’t know if it’s about Bolsonaro’s tastes, how he sees things or the people in his government. But he himself has said the government wants to control what will be made and what won’t – and this is censorship.”

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro Is The Far-Right Authoritarian He Promised He’d Be

Travis Waldron. Huffington Post. January 1, 2020

As Jair Bolsonaro surged to victory in Brazil’s presidential elections 14 months ago, a steady chorus of observers there and abroad warned the world that the racist, sexist, homophobic former military captain posed a massive threat not just to the country’s most vulnerable populations, but to its very democracy ― the largest in Latin America, and the fourth-largest in the world.

But there was also a school of optimists ― most of them members of Brazil and the world’s elite establishment ― who insisted that the guardrails of Brazilian democracy would constrain Bolsonaro’s worst impulses, and that responsibility, moderation and economic reform would win the day over impassioned, quasi-populist, authoritarian rhetoric. Many of them even voted for him.

Now, at the dawn of the second year of Bolsonaro’s presidency, it is clearer than ever that the alarmists were right ― and that if anything, their warnings were not dire enough.

Since taking office last January, Bolsonaro has followed through (or attempted to) on nearly all of his ugliest promises, with troubling and disastrous consequences for Brazil’s environment and the Amazon rainforest, its already-marginalized Black, LGBTQ, Indigenous and poor communities, and the institutions that form the backbone of any democratic society.

“Bolsonaro is attempting to carry out everything he promised. His electoral promises were real and he attempted to implement all of them,” said James Green, the director of the Brazil Initiative at Brown University. “Different forces have tried to limit his full agenda, but he’s going full force ahead.”

The congressman and Army captain who has for decades expressed an affinity for the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985 and at times longed for its return is, in other words, exactly who his most ardent and fearful critics said he would be.

“The key dynamic we expected pretty much played out, which is that we have a president that is actively seeking to undermine democracy,” said Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo. “It’s not a question of whether the president is seeking to undermine democracy, or if he’s putting democracy at risk, it’s a question of to what extent institutions and society can constrain the president.”

Nothing drew more attention to Bolsonaro and Brazil in the first year of his presidency than the record number of fires that raged across the Amazon rainforest in August and September, highlighting the threat his policies posed to the forest and the global fight against climate change. Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations and further gutted agencies in charge of environmental oversight, both of which have led to drastic reductions in environmental enforcement and contributed, experts say, to the outbreak of fires and increases in deforestation.

It was evident even before he took office that Bolsonaro’s presidency would, at a minimum, make Brazil a more dangerous place for its most vulnerable citizens, and the fires were proof of the dangers he posed to Brazil’s Indigenous people ― who warned early on that Bolsonaro risked subjecting them to “genocide.”

Raids by wildcat loggers and miners who no longer fear government fines or retribution have led to the murder of numerous tribal leaders attempting to defend the lands Bolsonaro pledged to strip protections from. In 2019, killings of Indigenous Brazilians reached their highest levels in more than two decades.

The fires, and Bolsonaro’s continued denial of them to international audiences, proved that “all the claims that Indigenous peoples of Brazil have been making are true,” Dinaman Tuxa, the executive coordinator of the Association of Indigenous People of Brazil, or APIB, said during a September press conference in New York.

Similarly vulnerable groups have found themselves in the same situation as Indigenous Brazilians. Of the groups that have drawn Bolsonaro’s ire across his nearly three decades in Brazil’s National Congress and during a violent and chaotic 2018 presidential campaign, few have been spared the wrath of he and his supporters since he took office.

Bolsonaro, who once said he would rather have a dead son than a gay one, began his presidency by rolling back legal protections for LGBTQ people, and his raging against leftist “gender ideology” has led to efforts to eradicate programs to teach LGBTQ and gender equality in schools. In July, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that anti-discrimination laws covered LGBTQ people. But reports suggest increases in the number of attacks on LGBTQ people under Bolsonaro, and the fear that caused Jean Wyllys, one of Brazil’s first openly gay federal lawmakers, to resign his seat and flee the country is widespread in LGBTQ communities.

Bolsonaro promised to unleash Brazil’s already-deadly police to kill with impunity to combat violent crime, and he has done exactly that. Even though proposed legislation to codify that indemnity never passed, the signal that police were free from scrutiny was received. The number of police killings from 2019 is widely expected to exceed the more than 6,200 that occurred nationwide the year prior.

In Rio de Janeiro alone, the violent police force Bolsonaro promised to further unleash has killed more than 1,600 people ― more than any other year in which data is available. Bolsonaro and his supporters, including Rio’s right-wing governor, credit these policies with modest drops in violent crime, but the reality is that crime rates were already falling from their peak three years ago, and the vast majority of the victims of police ― who are responsible for more than 30 percent of all homicides in Rio, according to researchers there ― were young, Black people whom police can easily wipe away as drug dealers deserving of their murders. (The police killing that drew some international news, that of 8-year-old Rio girl Agatha Sales Felix, stood out precisely because police couldn’t credibly claim she was a drug dealer.)

Under Bolsonaro, who never misses an opportunity to appeal to the most virulent strains of machismo that run through his base of support, the number of femicides ― killings of women simply because they are women ― increased 4 percent in 2019 even as overall homicide figures fell. It’s possible those increases are due to more accurate reporting under Brazil’s femicide law; still, in a country where domestic violence rates are also on the rise, women have warned that Bolsonaro’s efforts to relax gun ownership laws would put them more at risk.

‘People Are Worried About The Next Three Years’
Bolsonaro was widely considered one of the most immediately dangerous of the far-right leaders who have risen to power across the world over the last decade. Though he mimicked President Donald Trump and even embraced the nickname that he was “The Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro assumed control of a much younger democracy with much weaker institutions than exist in the United States.

Bolsonaro, who relentlessly attacked the legitimacy of the press during his campaign, has continued to do so as president, and not just with his ubiquitous cries of “fake news.” He has threatened to cancel government advertising contracts with large newspapers he doesn’t like, and even tried to bar government offices from subscribing to Brazil’s biggest newspaper. He has emboldened supporters to attack journalists, too, both online and in person: Patricia Campos Mello, an award-winning reporter for Folha de S.Paulo, said at a New York ceremony this year that reporters, and especially female reporters, are more at risk now than they have been at any time since the end of the dictatorship.

His attacks on the press have gelled with his broader agenda: When The Intercept Brazil exposed potential corruption within the very anti-corruption probe that helped pave the way for Bolsonaro’s election, he launched into a homophobic tirade against Glenn Greenwald, the gay American journalist who helped launch the outlet, and his husband, leftist congressman David Miranda.

Bolsonaro, too, has targeted civil society, as he promised to do on the eve of his election. He has baselessly blamed nongovernmental organizations for setting the Amazon fires and any number of other problems he perceives. He has cut government funding for nonprofit groups and organizations and waged an ideological battle against universities and the liberal arts.

His culture and religious war has inflamed attacks on the arts and cultural institutions that espouse more progressive views or criticize his policies ― in December, a right-wing fascist group took credit for an attack on a theater that produced a play that portrayed Jesus as a gay man. Bolsonaro himself has threatened to censor or shutter Brazil’s film agency.

Bolsonaro has also worked around the Congress rather than through it, relying more on presidential decrees than any of his predecessors since the return of democracy. And he has turned his ire on both the Congress and the judiciary when either acts against him.

One of the major fears that existed at the outset of Bolsonaro’s presidency was that he may slowly usher in a new period of militarized rule, given his over-reliance on generals and Army men in his Cabinet. That hasn’t come to pass: The military, in fact, has been largely marginalized in his ruling coalition ― Vice President Hamilton Mourao, a former general, has barely been heard from in months.

Instead, a cadre of conspiracy-minded “anti-globalists” ― of the sort who believe everything from climate change to the United Nations is a communist plot against Brazil and Bolsonaro ― has dominated the president’s ear. That wing includes Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo and Bolsonaro’s sons ― three of whom are also lawmakers. The one general who has remained influential has folded himself into the anti-globalist faction; the neoliberal plank of Bolsonaro’s coalition, meanwhile, has either radicalized in concert with the conspiracy theorists or ignored them in an attempt to plow ahead with drastic reforms to the economy.

The influence of the anti-globalists may be even more dangerous, and portend even worse things to come. It is this wing of his support that has the least respect for democratic institutions, as evidenced by Eduardo Bolsonaro’s comments in October 2018 that his father could move to shutter the Federal Supreme Court if necessary. This year, Eduardo Bolsonaro also suggested that the government could institute a new version of Institutional Act Number Five ― the dictatorship-era decree that closed the Congress, effectively legalized torture and is largely regarded as the harshest of the military junta’s policies.

Bolsonaro hasn’t taken such a drastic step yet, but the mere mention of AI-5, as the decree was known, sparked panic among Brazilians who remember the darkest days of the dictatorship, and it followed the tried and true formula Bolsonaro has used for years: His sons or surrogates suggest increasingly radical ideas, shifting the discourse in an ever more menacing direction. Sure enough, the supposedly more responsible figures in Bolsonaro’s government ― particularly Paulo Guedes, the University of Chicago-educated neoliberal economic minister who helped bring the country’s financial elites into Bolsonaro’s fold ― also suggested that a new AI-5 could be a justifiable response to opposition.

There remains a steady resistance to Bolsonaro’s worst anti-democratic impulses inside Brazil, even if its leftist political parties have not formed much of one on their own. The Brazilian press has acted critically and forcefully; artists and musicians like Caetano Veloso, the famous singer who was imprisoned during Brazil’s dictatorship, have formed a backbone of resistance to Bolsonaro, while warning of the dangers he poses to democracy and free expression.

Movements of LGBTQ people, Black Brazilians and the Indigenous have taken their concerns to the world: Bolsonaro’s government has been on the receiving end of 37 formal complaints to the United Nations alleging various human rights abuses ― a marker, the journalist Jamil Chade wrote recently, of “the realization ... that Brazil is experiencing its worst international human rights moment since the re-establishment of democracy in 1985.”

The world, as a result, is more aware of the risks Brazil faces now than it was when democracy fell apart there a half-century ago. 

But it’s possible that Bolsonaro may be setting up even harsher responses to such opposition ― the threats of a return to the harsh tactics of the military regime, Green of Brown University said, were a signal that the response to any outbreak of protests like those that have rocked Latin America this year “will be repression.”

And while Bolsonaro’s reliance on decrees limits his effectiveness as a leader, given that they remain temporary unless the Congress ratifies them, they have also potentially set up a convenient fight between the president and the legislative branch in which Bolsonaro could argue, as Stuenkel of the Getulio Vargas Foundation said, that “all of the problems that exist in my government exist because this system doesn’t allow me to get things done, and that’s because of the legislature and the Supreme Court.”

Bolsonaro, Stuenkel said, may be pushing to argue that he needs “special powers to get things moving.”

That may sound alarmist. But given Bolsonaro’s track record, and his affinity for authoritarians of yesteryear and today (he once said Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s only shortfall was that he didn’t kill enough), there is little reason to shrug this all off. Not in a country where support for democracy was declining even before Bolsonaro’s election; where protests calling for the closure of the Congress and the Federal Supreme Court have broken out in Brasilia and elsewhere; where support for Bolsonaro remains relatively high, even if it has declined from its peak; and where the opposition parties to his left have yet to coalesce into any meaningful counterbalancing force.

The alarmists, after all, have proved to be correct about Bolsonaro so far, and their fears have only deepened.

“People are worried about the next three years,” Stuenkel said. “I expect it to get worse.”