Bolivia’s political crisis has deepened since President Evo Morales was forced to resign and take asylum in Mexico last month. Confusion reigns, while distrust and disagreements among progressives threaten to divide resistance to a terrifying usurpation of the government by ultra-right forces and their military backers.
What is going on and where do things go from here?
•Can Bolivia’s left reconcile their differences and build a unified front against the right-wing takeover?
•How can our international community help?
•What has Mexico’s role been?
•What role do natural resources, such as Bolivia’s immense reserves of Lithium — vital to growing battery production worldwide — play in Bolivia’s future?
That is what we discuss on our “Closer Look South” with a Mexican journalist (Manuel Ortiz) who is reporting from Bolivia and an American-Bolivian analyst (Dan Moriarty) who runs the Sustainable pathways to peace and inclusive security program of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
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Manuel Ortiz is a Sociology professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). He is also a reporter and “visual-storyteller” who uses digital media to bring a human focus to issues of migration, land struggles, rainforest protection, and community control over resources in countries around the world like Mexico, the United States, Colombia, El Salvador, France, Japan, and elsewhere. He is currently in Bolivia investigating and will be reporting on the questions of who will control Bolivia’s vast natural resources (like its huge Lithium deposits) affect and how that affects political events.
Dan Moriarty runs the Sustainable pathways to peace and inclusive security program of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. Born in New York and raised in Seattle he migrated to Bolivia in 1995, became a citizen, raised a family and has spent most of his adult life there. He is a frequent public speaker on Bolivian history, culture, and politics; nonviolence; and racism and social conflict for various international organizations in Cochabamba, and an adjunct professor of Conflict Transformation at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón.
Ted Lewis of Global Exchange moderated.