The Coup d'Etat in Bolivia: Internal and External Factors

Author(s):  
Konstantin S. Strigunov ◽  
◽  
Andrei V. Manoilo ◽  

The aim of the article is to reveal the mechanism of the coup d'etat in Bolivia in November 2019. Based on the research of Russian and foreign experts, as well as official documents of international organizations, a research center, speeches by world leaders, and the media, the authors analyze the internal causes and external factors that contributed to the overthrow of Evo Morales and the coming to power of the right opposition, oriented to the United States and supranational structures. The methods for the research were selected based on the requirements of a multilateral and systematic analysis of the domestic political situation in Bolivia, its cultural, historical, territorial, and economic characteristics, as well as foreign policy factors that influenced the situation in the country. A comparative analysis of the coup d'etat in Bolivia with the situation in some other Latin American states was done. The first section analyzes the domestic political situation in Bolivia, economic factors, and a number of actions by Evo Morales which led to the weakening of his position on the eve of the presidential election. The second section discusses the mechanism of influence of the Organization of American States on the election process in Bolivia. The influence of neo-fascist organizations, which receive external support and financing and became the main shock force of the coup d'etat, is investigated. The channels of influence of international players and organizations on the internal political processes of Bolivia are studied. The authors infer that the ousted president did not solve the task of creating and implementing a development project for all social and ethnic groups of Bolivia while maintaining their own support and state sovereignty. In addition, the authors give a critical assessment to the decision of the Bolivian leadership led by Evo Morales to entrust election monitoring exclusively to the Organization of American States where the US position dominates. The authors suggest that, for political support, in the monitoring of the election, Evo Morales should have involved representatives of states and organizations not controlled by Washington, for example, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. For the first time, the authors reveal and thoroughly study the trigger mechanism for activating a coup d'etat using technologies for dismantling political regimes adapted to Bolivian conditions. They conclude that, in fact, counteraction to left-wing political regimes by the United States in Latin America is de facto a continuation of the formally completed Operation Condor, but using modern technologies to eliminate the unwanted regime in a particular country in new geopolitical conditions.

1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Meek

Literature on U.S. influence in the Organization of American States reveals a marked diversity of views. Some authors consider that U.S. influence is absolute or very nearly so; others hold that it is relative; still others think it is minimal.In the nearly-absolute school, former Guatemalan President Arévalo (1961: 126) says that the United States “always wins” in the OAS. The Ecuadorian writer Benjamín Cardón (1965: 29) says that the OAS “receives orders and complies with them, with the appearance of discussion, and the appearance of votes that satisfy pro-forma the hypocritical quakerism of the masters.” This view might be summed up by a comment attributed to a Latin American delegate to one Inter-American Conference: “If the United States wanted to badly enough, it could have a resolution passed declaring two and two are five ” (New York Times, March 8, 1954).


1970 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lester D. Langley

Since 1941 United States relations with Latin American countries have fluctuated between the ofñcial cordiality of wartime cooperation, which provided the basis for the Organization of American States and the Rio Treaty, and deep-seated hostility and malaise, which erupted in the Nixon visit and in Castro's revolution, as well as in more recent unpleasant incidents. Latin American leaders have contended that the United States violated its wartime commitments, particularly in the economic sphere, by concentrating on the recovery of Europe in the first postwar decade and on Asian upheaval in the second. The history of U.S.-Panamanian relations since 1941 provides an excellent case study in order to test the validity of these contentions.


1964 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-212 ◽  

Alliance for Progress: On June 15, 1963, recommendations for revitalizing the Alliance for Progress were presented to the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) by the ex-Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek and the ex-Colombian President Alberto Lieras Camargo. The studies had been requested in October 1962 by the Inter-American Economic and Social Council (IA-ECOSOC). Although the two reports differed somewhat in their interpretation of the causes for the deficiencies noted to date in the Alliance for Progress, they coincided in recommending the establishment of a new coordinating agency with in the OAS framework. The new body, which would be called the Inter-American Development Committee, would coordinate the implementation of the Alliance. It would be composed of five Latin American representatives (one from each of five geographical areas) and one representative from the United States.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-151
Author(s):  
Tanya Harmer

This article explains how Latin American governments responded to the Cuban revolution and how the “Cuban question” played out in the inter-American system in the first five years of Fidel Castro's regime, from 1959 to 1964, when the Organization of American States imposed sanctions against the island. Drawing on recently declassified sources from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, and the United States, the article complicates U.S.-centric accounts of the inter-American system. It also adds to our understanding of how the Cold War was perceived within the region. The article makes clear that U.S. policymakers were not the only ones who feared Castro's triumph, the prospect of greater Soviet intervention, and the Cuban missile crisis. By seeking to understand why local states opposed Castro's ascendance and what they wanted to do to counter his regime, the account here offers new insight into the Cuban revolution's international impact and allows us to evaluate U.S. influence in the region during key years of the Cold War.


1967 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-220

The Organization of American States (OAS) Council met in Washington, D.C., in secret session on April 29, 1965, at the request of the United States to consider the crisis which had arisen in the Dominican Republic. This crisis had been brought about by the overthrow on April 25–26 of a three-man civilian junta which had ruled the Dominican Republic since 1963. Civil ar had almost immediately broken out between supporters of former President Juan Bosch, led by Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó and military units headed by Brigadier General Elias Wessin y Wessin, who was one of the leaders of the coup which had overthrown Bosch in 1963.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 714-727
Author(s):  
Bryce Wood ◽  
Minerva Morales M.

When the governments of the Latin American states were taking part in the negotiations leading to the founding of the UN, they could hardly have done so with nostalgic memories of the League of Nations. The League had provided no protection to the Caribbean countries from interventions by the United States, and, largely because of United States protests, it did not consider the Tacna-Arica and Costa Rica-Panama disputes in the early 1920's. Furthermore, Mexico had not been invited to join; Brazil withdrew in 1926; and Argentina and Peru took little part in League affairs. The organization was regarded as being run mainly for the benefit of European states with the aid of what Latin Americans called an “international bureaucracy,” in which citizens from the southern hemisphere played minor roles. The United States was, of course, not a member, and both the reference to the Monroe Doctrine by name in Article 21 of the Covenant and the organization's practice of shunning any attempt to interfere in inter-American affairs against the wishes of the United States made the League in its first decade a remote and inefficacious institution to countries that were seriously concerned about domination by Washington.


1918 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-311
Author(s):  
William R. Manning

It was two years after the United States formally declared for the recognition of the new Latin-American states and after several Spanish-American states had been recognized before the question of recognizing Brazil arose. When, in April, 1824, Rebello presented himself in Washington as the Brazilian chargé, a difference of opinion arose in Monroe’s cabinet, because Brazil was a monarchy, while all of the other American governments were republics, and some hoped that monarchy might have no foothold on the continent. Others, however, advocated the recognition of Brazil the more strongly because it was a monarchy in order to show the world that it was the fact of independence which actuated the United States rather than the form of government.The opposition to recognition was strengthened by recent news of a formidable separatist movement in the north, with Pernambuco as a center, the purpose of which was to establish an independent republic under the name of the Federation of the Equator. This; raised a serious doubt whether the government at Rio de Janeiro were really in effective control. It was reported, too, that the assistance of French naval vessels had been accepted in order to repress the Pernambuco revolt. This conjured up the specter of the so-called Holy Alliance, for the exclusion of which from America Monroe’s famous message of the preceding December had declared. There was also a strong suspicion, supported by persistent rumors, that Dom Pedro (who had allowed himself to be made Emperor when in 1822 Brazilian independence from Portugal was declared, who had summoned a constituent assembly and then quarreled with it and finally forcibly dismissed it because it proved too liberal to suit his ideas of prerogative, and who had appointed a council that had drawn up a fairly liberal constitution in harmony with his wishes which he had not yet taken the oath to observe) really wished to restore Portuguese sovereignty and rule Brazil as a vassal of his father, the King of Portugal. About the middle of May, however, word came that in the preceding March the Emperor had taken the oath to the constitution of the independent Brazilian Empire. After Rebello had given assurances concerning the suppression of the slave trade and the observance of treaties that had been negotiated with Portugal, he was formally received by President Monroe as Brazilian chargé on May 26, 1824. He expressed his gratitude that “the Government of the United States has been the first to acknowledge the independence of Brazil.”


1962 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-257 ◽  

The press announced that the Inter-American Economic and Social Council met in Punta del Este, Uruguay, under the auspices of the Organization of American States (OAS) from August 5 to 17, 1961. A draft act embodying the principles of the “Alliance for Progress” plan for the economic development of Latin America envisaged by the United States was put before the meeting by the delegates of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States, according to press reports. Mr. Douglas Dillon, United States Secretary of the Treasury, promised that his government would provide active assistance in the form of development loans running up to 50 years, but Mr. Dillon made it clear that the development scheme depended on the local programs for social and economic advancement. It was noted that aside from the United States offers, some European and odier countries had indicated that they would take part in development programs in the area.


1968 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jeanne Reid Martz

Amid the aura of urgency in which many today view hemispheric affairs, criticisms of the Organization of American States are legion. In both Latin America and the United States, there are growing numbers who believe that the only viable alternative to complete systemic collapse is a radical organizational transformation. For critics of the inter-American organization, there has been a sharp predilection to place the burden of their argument on either a cataloguing of bureaucratic ills or a polemic attack upon the problems and inconsistencies of United States involvement. And certainly various North American actions and policies have helped contribute to the present precarious position of the OAS.


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