2019 Coup in Bolivia

Planning the Coup
In early October, weeks before the elections, leaked audio files of conversation between the coup plotters enabled a detailed description of what was ongoing in an English-language two-part series (1 (archive) 2 (archive)). The audio files, originally posted on dropbox but since deleted, can be found here. Three parts of the plan are described as follows.
 * 1) “PREPARATORY PHASE” (already executed): Its purpose is preparing and organizing the field for the subsequent stages.
 * 2) “INTENSIVE STAGE” (in operation): Its purpose is generating convulsion and social instability in the country.
 * 3) “FINAL STAGE” (not executed): Proclamation of electoral fraud and imposition of a parallel government. It is perceived to be carried out once the presidential elections end.
 * A coup in the making: Evo Morales forced out - Bolivia Information Forum, November 11, 2019 Chronology of events up to November 11

Alleged Electoral Fraud

 * Preliminary Report of the Electoral Observation Mission in Bolivia - Organisation of American States, October 23, 2019


 * OAS AT THE VANGUARD OF THE (ONGOING) COUP IN BOLIVIA - Mission Verdad, October 24, 2019
 * What Happened in Bolivia’s 2019 Vote Count?, Center for Economic and Policy Research, November 2019


 * This paper presents results from statistical analysis of election returns and tally sheets from Bolivia’s October 20 elections. This analysis finds no evidence that irregularities or fraud affected the official result that gave President Evo Morales a first-round victory. The paper presents a step-by-step breakdown of what happened with Bolivia’s vote counts (both the unofficial quick count, and the slower official count), seeking to dispel confusion over the process. The report includes the results of 500 simulations that show that Morales’s first-round victory was not just possible, but probable, based on the results of the initial 83.85 percent of votes in the quick count.

Coup Regime

 * Bolivia's Jeanine Anez recognizes Guaido as Venezuelan president - Reuters, November 13, 2019
 *  “As Constitutional President of Bolivia I invite you to appoint the new ambassador of Venezuela in Bolivia, who will be recognized immediately by our government.”


 * Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire – with foreign support - The Grayzone, November 11, 2019
 * Bolivia announces severing diplomatic relations with Venezuela - Tass, November 15, 2019
 * Bolivia: Coup-Born Government Threatens Independent Journalists - teleSUR, November 15, 2019
 * Bolivia’s New Puppet Regime Wastes No Time Aligning With US Foreign Policy - Caitlin Johnstone, November 16, 2019
 * Bolivia's De Facto Gov’t Grants Impunity to Security Forces - teleSUR, November 17, 2019

International reaction

 * Venezuela Condemns Bolivia Coup d’État - Paul Dobson, Venezuela Analysis November 11, 2019

Anti-coup protests and police and military crackdown

 * Thomas van Linge (Twitter), November 15 - #Bolivia: several #Morales supporters suffered gun shot wounds from the police during clashes outside of #Cochabamba
 * (Twitter) Inter American Commission on Human Rights November 15, 2019 Condemning excessive force from security forces in Cochabamba resulting in 5 deaths.
 * Fars News Agency Bolivia’s ousted leader Evo Morales pleaded with his country’s military to stop firing on unarmed demonstrators protesting the coup-imposed interim leadership, after several activists were killed in clashes with security forces. November 15, 2019
 * Massive Anti-Coup Protests Explode Across Bolivia 'Against the Many Violations to Democracy' - Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams, November 15, 2019
 * Morales’ MAS in talks with Bolivia coup regime on how to quell unrest - Bill Van Auken, WSWS, November 16, 2019
 * Protest blockades have brought vehicular traffic in Bolivia to a virtual halt, leaving thousands of trucks bringing goods to the cities stranded. Peasants have vowed that they will stop sending food into La Paz and other urban centers. And, most damaging of all, the distribution of gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas, which is used to power much of the country’s industrial sector, has been interrupted with the main plant of the state-operated energy corporation, the YPFB, in Senkata outside of El Alto, blocked by demonstrators. The gas pipeline between Carrasco and Cochabamba has also been cut off.
 * Military join protests against the coup in Bolivia - Noticias en red, November 17, 2019 (video)
 * ''Sectors of the Bolivian armed forces folded to the mass protests against the coup d'etat to the indigenous president Evo Morales in Bolivia.
 * ''In the last hours, images of the Andean country infantry could be seen, joining the march of the Copacabana Union on the Oruro-La Paz highway.

Analysis

 * Luis Fernando Camacho, Bolivia's ‘Bolsonaro’ Leading the Coup - teleSUR, November 11, 2019
 * Lev Vershinin (Putnik1), Bolivian diary 1, 2,, 11 November, 2019 (some background of events/actors/Morales, etc; in Rus.)
 * Bolivia Does Not Exist - VJ Prasad, Dissident Voice November 14, 2019
 * First interview with Evo Morales from Mexican exile - teleSUR, November 14, 2019
 * Evo's Bolivia is not over - Sean Orr, FightBack News, November 14, 2019
 * Evo Morales: from the Rainy Place to the Burnt Palace — and back again - Leonidas Oikonomakis, ROAR Magazine, November 14, 2019
 * Bolivia: Evo’s Fall, the Fascist Right, and the Power of Memory - Raúl Zibechi, Brecha, November 15, 2019
 * The Far-Right Coup in Bolivia - Matt Wilgress, Jacobin, November 2019

Lithium
The world's largest/one of the largest identified lithium reserves (info-graphics).


 * Bolivia’s lithium boom: dream or nightmare? - Rafael Sagárnaga, Diálogo Chino, September 15, 2015
 * Bolivian President Evo Morales Visits Russia And Agrees Crucial Lithium Deal With Putin! -YouTube, July 15, 2019
 * China, USA and the Geopolitics of Lithium - F. William Engdahl, New Eastern Outlook, November 18, 2019
 * Since 2015 a Chinese mining company, CAMC Engineering Company, has been operating a large plant in Bolivia to produce potassium chloride as fertilizer. What CAMC downplays is the fact that beneath the potassium chloride are the largest known lithium reserves in the world in Salar de Uyuni salt flats, one of 22 such salt flats in Bolivia. China’s Linyi Dake Trade in 2014 constructed a lithium battery pilot plant on the same site. Then in February 2019 the Morales government signed another lithium deal, this with China’s Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd who will hold a 49 percent stake in a planned joint venture with Bolivia’s state lithium company YLB.

Deal with ACI

 * May 21, 2018: Bolivian State lithium company YLB announces a strategic partnership with German ACI Systems to develop the Lithium exploitation
 * December 12, 2018: Joint-Venture between YLB and ACI is founded in Berlin with participation of the German minister of economics
 * October 7, 2019: Some sort of committee starts a hunger strike in protest over the implications of the deal for the local people (unclear, machine translation from Spanish)
 * October 14, 2019: Strike ends after consultation with Morales
 * November 4, 2019: Morales stops the project per decree without informing the German partners

Aggregate Sources

 * Axis of Logic (Bolivia)
 * Mission Verdad - Twitter (English)
 * Francisco Guaita - Twitter RT correspondent
 * The Grayzone (Bolivia)
 * William Bowles.info - Bolivia News Links November 15
 * teleSUR (Bolivia)