[Peace-discuss] Warren Criticized for Conciliatory Remarks on Post-Coup Bolivia

[David Johnson]

Published on 

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

by

 <https://www.commondreams.org> Common Dreams

After Week of Violence and Unrest, Warren Criticized for Conciliatory
Remarks on Post-Coup Bolivia

"Maybe it's just me, but if you're going to call yourself a progressive who
stands up for the little guy you might want to start calling a right wing
coup that's resulted in the curbing of democratic freedoms and onslaught of
violence... well, a right wing coup."

by

 <https://www.commondreams.org/author/eoin-higgins-staff-writer> Eoin
Higgins, staff writer

 
<https://commons.commondreams.org/t/after-week-of-violence-and-unrest-warren
-criticized-for-conciliatory-remarks-on-post-coup-bolivia/70187> 0 Comments

2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) came
under fire Monday for her statement on the Bolivian coup.

2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) came
under fire Monday for her statement on the Bolivian coup. (Photo: Marc
Nozell/ <https://flic.kr/p/2d5vP1W%20%20> Flickr/cc)

Top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren is
under fire from progressives and Indigenous activists for her comments
Monday about the recent coup in Bolivia—remarks her critics called too
conciliatory to the right-wing un-elected government that seized power after
President Evo Morales was forced to resign and flee the country.

"The Bolivian people deserve free and fair elections, as soon as possible,"
Warren tweeted Monday afternoon. "Bolivia's interim leadership must limit
itself to preparing for an early, legitimate election. Bolivia's security
forces must protect demonstrators, not commit violence against them."

"Sometimes silence is better,"
<https://twitter.com/kthalps/status/1196592950836449280> replied journalist
Katie Halper.

"Please get a better foreign policy advisor and condemn the coup,"
<https://twitter.com/evagolinger/status/1196520578200592384> said attorney
Eva Golinger.

The coup on November 10 resulted in the democratically-elected Morales being
forced to resign from office. Morales fled Bolivia for Mexico days later
after Sen. Jeanine Añez, a right-wing Christian extremist, unilaterally
declared herself president. 

Jacobin's Luke Savage
<https://twitter.com/LukewSavage/status/1196526927554793473> pointed out
that Warren's statement appeared to be an attempt to downplay the violence
of the coup and reframe the conflict as a purely political conflict.

"This isn't an issue of process," said Savage. "A right wing military coup
deposed Bolivia's sitting president and the U.S.A. supported it."

Chief among progressive criticiques of Warren's statement were the
Massachusetts' senator's apparent endorsement of the legitimacy of the coup
government. 

"Maybe it's just me, but if you're going to call yourself a progressive who
stands up for the little guy you might want to start calling a right wing
coup that's resulted in the curbing of democratic freedoms and onslaught of
violence... well, a right wing coup," tweeted Al Jazeera host Sana Saeed.
"And condemn it."

Protests against Añez's government have spread across Boliva over the past
week. On Friday, as Common Dreams reported, police and military forces
killed nine Indigenous protesters in the city of Sacaba, near Cochabamba.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a fellow frontrunner for the Democratic
presidential nomination, on Monday evening tweeted once again his
condemnation of what he has consistently called a coup and shared a video of
the violence in Cochabamba. 

"I oppose the intervention of Bolivia's security forces in the democratic
process and their repression of Indigenous protesters," said Sanders. "When
the military intervened and asked President Evo Morales to leave, in my
view, that's called a coup."

"Bolivia highlights another stark contrast with Sanders that can't be
obscured with semantics,"
<https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1196524907083030530> tweeted
journalist and media critic Adam Johnson. "Sanders firmly calls what
happened a coup, Warren gives us process handwringing."

In response to Warren's statement, civil rights activist Kade Crockford
<https://twitter.com/onekade/status/1196780664789573634> tweeted: "This has
me seriously reconsidering my support for Warren over Sanders."

The Intercept's Ryan Grim, in a tweet,
<https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1196618013707030528> called out
Warren's refusal to call Añez's seizure of power a coup. 

"The 'interim leadership' has already threatened to arrest elected lawmakers
in Morales' party for sedition," said Grim, "while killing people in the
streets."

Texas Democrat Sema Hernandez, who is Indigenous,
<https://twitter.com/_SemaHernandez_/status/1196607455335190528> said on
Twitter that she found Warren's statements on the coup and the violence
unaccetable.

"I condemn Elizabeth Warren for taking this position on the Bolivia coup,"
said Hernandez. "The interim leadership is ethnically cleansing Bolivia's
indigenous population and declaring Bolivia a Christian nation."

In the Now journalist Rania Khalek, in a withering
<https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1196570306162372608> criticism of
Warren's position, referred to the Massachusetts senator's longstanding
controversial claim of Cherokee heritage.

"This is a pathetic statement in light of a U.S. backed coup," said Khalek.
"And it's coming from a person who claimed to be Indigenous. But now she
says nothing in defense of actual Indigenous people."

 

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