Bye bye, Evo. Hello...what?
To this day, I have always maintained that the three best years of my life were spent in La Paz, Bolivia. In La Paz, everything aligned just perfectly. Family, work, social life, mental and physical powers. Liebi and I have a consensus on that, and it's not even close. La Paz was our happy place and the standard for all other cities we would be posted at. Never mind the bitter aftertaste of being expelled (USAID) by the President of Bolivia...one Evo Morales.
Evo Morales, or simply 'Evo', was certainly a polarizing figure. It seems like his base came from the rural areas, including the indigenous population and the coca farmers. To the U.S., he had always been a pain in the neck and continued to be after the demise of his bestie in Venezuela, the late Hugo Chavez. Negotiating with Evo Morales was like, in the words of Churchill, "picking up mercury with a fork." For the longest time, relationships between Bolivia and the U.S. seemed to be tucked away somewhere in the vast empty spaces that were so prominent in the gorgeous Bolivian landscapes.
With Morales's exile to Mexico, a new dawn has risen in Bolivia. I have no idea what the exact circumstances of his ouster were, who exactly participated, and who were the players on the stage. Suffice to say that the military featured prominently and clinched this fait accompli. It's a sad, sad day in any country whenever the military (translated, that means brute force) should decide who should and should not govern. That tells me the symptoms of the disease were in Bolivia all along. Cue your South American stereotype about unstable democracies. This one is certainly a little more complicated, though.
Even with the armed forces, the question remains: if there was to be a coup, who supported it? Who gave the green light? Who would lend the new government credence and legitimacy? Was this strictly something that started as a domestic dispute? Enter domestic dispute's ugly grandfather...civil war, which, from the looks of things, is a distinct possibility. I myself had mixed feelings about Evo. I knew people who hated him and loved him. During our time in South America, he and Chavez were the lone holdouts among a bastion of nations who were at least open to U.S. interests.
The alternative to the government of the people's choice (if, indeed, that's what Evo's government was) can be either a puppet government controlled by foreign interests or, even worse: total, utter, unabashed chaos, the likes of what we are witnessing in Bolivia now. In the end, not one person should have to die for any new government, no matter what the ideological stance is. Bolivia was a country that had already ranked among the poorest in South America. Civil war would not only add salt but battery acid to the wound. Good luck, Bolivia. You're going to need it.
Evo Morales, or simply 'Evo', was certainly a polarizing figure. It seems like his base came from the rural areas, including the indigenous population and the coca farmers. To the U.S., he had always been a pain in the neck and continued to be after the demise of his bestie in Venezuela, the late Hugo Chavez. Negotiating with Evo Morales was like, in the words of Churchill, "picking up mercury with a fork." For the longest time, relationships between Bolivia and the U.S. seemed to be tucked away somewhere in the vast empty spaces that were so prominent in the gorgeous Bolivian landscapes.
With Morales's exile to Mexico, a new dawn has risen in Bolivia. I have no idea what the exact circumstances of his ouster were, who exactly participated, and who were the players on the stage. Suffice to say that the military featured prominently and clinched this fait accompli. It's a sad, sad day in any country whenever the military (translated, that means brute force) should decide who should and should not govern. That tells me the symptoms of the disease were in Bolivia all along. Cue your South American stereotype about unstable democracies. This one is certainly a little more complicated, though.
Even with the armed forces, the question remains: if there was to be a coup, who supported it? Who gave the green light? Who would lend the new government credence and legitimacy? Was this strictly something that started as a domestic dispute? Enter domestic dispute's ugly grandfather...civil war, which, from the looks of things, is a distinct possibility. I myself had mixed feelings about Evo. I knew people who hated him and loved him. During our time in South America, he and Chavez were the lone holdouts among a bastion of nations who were at least open to U.S. interests.
The alternative to the government of the people's choice (if, indeed, that's what Evo's government was) can be either a puppet government controlled by foreign interests or, even worse: total, utter, unabashed chaos, the likes of what we are witnessing in Bolivia now. In the end, not one person should have to die for any new government, no matter what the ideological stance is. Bolivia was a country that had already ranked among the poorest in South America. Civil war would not only add salt but battery acid to the wound. Good luck, Bolivia. You're going to need it.
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