The Rise of Militant Religious Right in Latin America
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/20/2019 at 14:30:39 H2'ed 11/20/19
By Wayne Madsen
The recent coup d'e'tat in Bolivia that overthrew President Evo Morales was not merely a standard right-wing putsch aided and abetted by the US Central Intelligence Agency but also placed into power politicians affiliated with a rising fundamentalist Protestant movement in Latin America that can be termed "Christo-fascist." Many of the far-right and out-of-the-mainstream Protestant sects that have gained power in Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, and, now, Bolivia have decried traditional Roman Catholicism in Latin America as heretical to their religious ideology and even pro-Communist. As for mainstream Protestant religions, the fundamentalist sects view them as hopelessly liberal, as well as heretical.
The recent military coup in Bolivia that ousted democratically-elected President Evo Morales from office involved senior active duty and retired high-ranking officers of the Bolivian armed forces, some of whom were trained and indoctrinated at the infamous US "School of the Americas," known since 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), located in Fort Benning, Georgia. One of the School of the Americas trainees is General Williams Kaliman, the now-former commander of the Bolivian armed forces who ordered Morales to step down as president. Kaliman's service to the coup was not very appreciated its ringmasters, the fundamentalist Christians, among whom is the current acting president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez Cha'vez. One of Áñez's first moves after she seized power was to dismiss Kaliman as the head of the armed forces and replace him by General Carlos Orellana. Áñez was the Second Vice President of the Senate and assumed the Bolivian presidency after Morales and the senior members of the line of succession in the governing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party were forced to resign by the military.
In keeping with the tenets of Christo-fascism in Latin America, Áñez not only rejects Roman Catholicism but also the traditional beliefs of the indigenous Aymara people of Bolivia as "satanic." Morales was the first native Aymara to be elected president. During his tenure, Morales improved the living conditions of the Aymara and other poor people in Bolivia who had historically been treated as second-class citizens by the country's wealthy white European population. Under the direction of the Christo-fascist coup leaders, the homes of Morales and other MAS officials were ransacked by rioters and pro-Morales government and media officials were physically attacked. Bolivia TV, Nueva Patria Radio, and newspapers supporting Morales were shut down by the putschists. Bolivia's Wiphala flag, which served as Bolivia's second official flag and represents the 36 indigenous tribes of the country, was burned by the coup-supporting rioters.
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Other School of the Americas alumni were identified among the key Bolivian coup plotters. These include Manfred Reyes Villa, a former military officer, presidential candidate, mayor of Cochabamba, and governor of the Cochabamba Department, as well as General Remberto Siles Vasquez, Colonel Julio Ce'sar Maldonado Leoni, Colonel Oscar Pacello Aguirre, and Colonel Teobaldo Cardozo Guevara.
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Even waveth thy serpent if thou hath one.