Evo accuses the US of lithium in Bolivia, but continues with the “self-coup” theory

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales said this Wednesday (17), in an interview with the BBC, that the “United States believes it owns all the natural resources in the world”, but continued to state that the military movement that tried to overthrow President Luis Arce was a “self-coup”.

“The crime of the Bolivian people is having so many natural resources […] This is our crime. The United States, by manifest destiny, believes it owns all the natural resources in the world,” he says.

For Evo, the problem is that the US thinks it has a divine mission, that “by manifest destiny, God sent them to be the world’s policemen. That’s the problem. That’s the difference we have with the empire.”

“Countries that nationalize, that establish economic sovereignty through the nationalization of their natural resources… are already in the sights of the empire (…) The coup [de 2019] It wasn’t just the gringo’s attack on the Indians. It was about our economic model. With our economic model we showed that Bolivia has a lot of hope. But it was also, fundamentally, a coup d’état for lithium,” he explained.

Bolivia’s main leftist leader has reaffirmed his position that the military movement in Murillo Square in La Paz on June 26 was an attempted self-coup by his former minister and now president, Luis Arce.

“On the 26th of last month, at 11 a.m., some military friends called me. They said, ‘They’re quartering us.’ I told them, ‘Give me an x-ray or [passe-me] the documents [que comprovem]”. 10 or 15 minutes passed and they told me: “It’s verbal”, the report began.

“At two in the afternoon, I was walking on my property to see the fish and I see the tanks entering Murillo Square,” he continued.

In his rhetoric, Evo establishes a difference between his behavior and that of the Bolivian government: “At this moment, I prepared a tweet declaring and calling for a general strike and the blocking of national highways to defeat the coup d’état. I kept walking and when I realized it, the government minister was caressing the tanks in Murillo Square. What kind of coup is this? I am surprised.”

“I’m watching on social media, the coup plotter enters the Quemado Palace and talks to the president. A government minister is with a happy military man, laughing. These are the images,” he says.

“Everything shows that if it is not a coup, it is a self-coup. Let it be investigated, let it be known, but everything is well planned. Was it to raise Lucho’s image? Is it a real coup, an attempted coup? Or is it a self-coup to victimize himself?” he concludes.