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FTR #1104 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment. [6]
FTR #1105 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment. [7]
Introduction: These programs highlight features of an apparent coup d’etat in Bolivia, emphasizing the individuals and institutions figuring in the coup itself, as well as the underlying dynamic of the development of Bolivia’s enormous lithium reserves. Central to the discussion is the fact that lithium is essential for the development of electric car batteries and that technology is important to any successful “Greening” of the global economy.
Fascists from Latin America and Europe networked with transnational corporate elements and some U.S. intelligence cut-outs to oust Evo Morales and his government [8].
Although Morales had violated constitutional norms on term limits in order to extend his governance, his political agenda had greatly benefited Bolivia’s poor and its historically oppressed indigenous population, in particular. The country’s mineral wealth has been exploited by foreign companies and select members of the Bolivian elite to the detriment of much of the population. Even the conservative Financial Times has noted that Morales restructuring of the Bolivian economy–mineral extraction, in particular–has significantly improved the country’s economy and reduced poverty.
This element of discussion involves many subjects covered at length over the decades and featured in the archives:
- Material about Klaus Barbie and the European fascists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bridegrooms of Death”) mercenaries can be found in, among other programs, AFA #‘s 19 [9]and 27 [10].
- The Vatican’s relationship to fascism, including Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croatia, is highlighted in, among other programs AFA #17 [9].
- Information about the re-emergence of the Ustachi can be found in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 49 [11], 154 [12], 766 [13], 901 [14].
Key individual and institutional players in the development of, prelude to, and execution of the Bolivian coup include:
-
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
- He is heir to a tradition of wealth, the nation’s natural gas business, in particular: : ” . . . . Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty [15] by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. . . .”
- Prior to the coup, Camacho: ” . . . . met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted [16] gratitude: ‘Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation [17]. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
- A marginal figure with little public gravitas, including on social media, Camacho was moving to neutralize the Morales government before the coup itself.
- His political presence and base of support is a Christian fascist organization: ” . . . . Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. . . .”
- The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS [18], and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion [19]. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes [20]. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described [21] UJC members as ‘racist’ and ‘militant,’ noting that they ‘have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.’ . . .”
- Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croatian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
- Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a secessionist movement for the Santa Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced [22] the committee as an ‘actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.’ In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported [23] that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. . . .”
- There has been speculation that Marinkovich may be descended from Croatian Ustachis fascists: ” . . . . But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the ‘shadow CIA [24],’ produced a rough background profile [25] on Marinkovic, speculating, ‘Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.’ . . . .”
- The coup follows by some years an attempt by a group of international fascists to murder Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer [26], who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. . . .”
- Eduardo Rosza-Flores had fought in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ultimately came to power: ” . . . . During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the ‘PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups [27], from Germany to Ireland.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. . . .”
- Rosza-Flores had no money, yet his group of would-be fascist assassins were well funded. Marinkovic appears to have been among the funding sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was subsequently charged [28] with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil [29], where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. . . .”
- Hugo Acha Melgar was networked with the Human Rights Foundation, a right-wing organization with strong links to U.S. intelligence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foundation is involved in the Hong Kong turmoil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr. [30], the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. . . . . He launched the HRF with grants [30] from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America. . . .”
- Proxy presidential candidate Carlos Mesa is heavily networked with the Inter-American Dialogue, financed in considerable measure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” [31] at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . .”
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
Central to the multi-national dissatisfaction with Evo Morales is his nationalization of some of Bolivia’s mineral resource industry. And central to the Bolivian mineral resource inventory is lithium [32], essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: ” . . . . The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. . . .”
Bolivia has been reported to hold up to 70 percent of the world’s lithium, and the Morales government’s pivot toward developing those reserves in tandem with Chinese firms, rather than Western transnationals, may well have been the central dynamic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash. . . .”
The complexities of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats–location of much of Bolivia’s lithium reserves–mandate the technological involvement of foreign firms. A deal reached with German ACI Systems (heavily subsidized by the German government) was negated by protests on the part of local residents in the Salar de Uyuni area. Chinese firms were poised to fill that vacuum, offering the possibility of a more equitable development of the mineral. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. . . .”
After the ouster of Morales, the value of Tesla’s stock increased dramatically.
The ACI/Bolivia deal [34] had heavy backing by the German government and featured the planned export of lithium to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. . . . Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany. . . .”
Of particular significance for the discussion to follow is ” . . . . China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”
Shortly after the ouster of Morales, Tesla announced that Tesla would locate a new car [35] and electric battery factory near Berlin. If the ACI lithium development project in Bolivia is resuscitated, the Tesla move will give the firm access to the Bolivian lithium.
Might that have been the reason for the rise in Tesla’s stock? Might there have been some insider trading?
The programs conclude with review of the rebirth of Cambridge Analytica as a synthesis with British “psy-op” development firm SCL. A key director of Emerdata–the new firm–is a Hong Kong financier [36] and business partner of Blackwater chief Erik Prince, the brother of Trump Secretary of Education Betsy de Vos. Noting the firm formerly known as Blackwater’s deep involvement in the world of covert operations and former Cambridge Analytica lynchpin Steve Bannon’s pivotal role in the anti-China movement, it is not unreasonable to ask if Emerdata may be involved in the Hong Kong turmoil.
We also review China’s leadership [37] in the development of Green technologies.
1. A coup d’etat has taken place in Bolivia, with fascists from Latin America and Europe networking with transnational corporate elements to oust Evo Morales and his government.
Although Morales had violated constitutional norms on term limits in order to extend his governance, his political agenda had greatly benefited Bolivia’s poor and its historically oppressed indigenous population, in particular. The country’s mineral wealth has been exploited by foreign companies and select members of the Bolivian elite to the detriment of much of the population. Even the conservative Financial Times has noted that Morales restructuring of the Bolivian economy–mineral extraction, in particular–has significantly improved the country’s economy and reduced poverty.
This element of discussion involves many subjects covered at length over the decades and featured in the archives:
- Material about Klaus Barbie and the European fascists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bridegrooms of Death”) mercenaries can be found in, among other programs, AFA #‘s 19 [9]and 27 [10].
- The Vatican’s relationship to fascism, including Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croatia, is highlighted in, among other programs AFA #17 [9].
- Information about the re-emergence of the Ustachi can be found in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 49 [11], 154 [12], 766 [13], 901 [14].
Key individual and institutional players in the development of, prelude to, and execution of the Bolivian coup include:
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
- He is heir to a tradition of wealth, the nation’s natural gas business, in particular: : ” . . . . Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty [15] by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. . . .”
- Prior to the coup, Camacho: ” . . . . met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted [16] gratitude: ‘Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation [17]. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
- A marginal figure with little public gravitas, including on social media, Camacho was moving to neutralize the Morales government before the coup itself.
- His political presence and base of support is a Christian fascist organization: ” . . . . Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. . . .”
- The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS [18], and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion [19]. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes [20]. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described [21] UJC members as ‘racist’ and ‘militant,’ noting that they ‘have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.’ . . .”
- Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croatian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
- Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a secessionist movement for the Santa Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced [22] the committee as an ‘actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.’ In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported [23] that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. . . .”
- There has been speculation that Marinkovich may be descended from Croatian Ustachis fascists: ” . . . . But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the ‘shadow CIA [24],’ produced a rough background profile [25] on Marinkovic, speculating, ‘Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.’ . . . .”
- Marinkovich’s activism in the Santa Cruz area is part of a fascist political landscape in that area that dovetails with Klaus Barbie (of whom we spoke in–among other programs–AFA #19): ” . . . . In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, the New York Times [38] acknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as “a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.” The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. . . .”
- The coup follows by some years an attempt by a group of international fascists to murder Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer [26], who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. . . .”
- Eduardo Rosza-Flores had fought in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ultimately came to power: ” . . . . During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the ‘PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups [27], from Germany to Ireland.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. . . .”
- Rosza-Flores had no money, yet his group of would-be fascist assassins were well funded. Marinkovic appears to have been among the funding sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was subsequently charged [28] with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil [29], where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. . . .”
- Hugo Acha Melgar was networked with the Human Rights Foundation, a right-wing organization with strong links to U.S. intelligence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foundation is involved in the Hong Kong turmoil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr. [30], the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. . . . . He launched the HRF with grants [30] from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America. . . .”
- Proxy presidential candidate Carlos Mesa is heavily networked with the Inter-American Dialogue, financed in considerable measure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” [31] at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . .”
When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward. With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.” “Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.” Bolivia’s extreme right-wing opposition had overthrown leftist President Evo Morales that day, following demands by the country’s military leadership that he step down. Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void.
He is a rich and powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty [15] by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.
In the lead-up to the coup, Camacho met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted [16] gratitude: “Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!” he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation [17]. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!” Camacho had spent years leading an overtly fascist separatist organization. The Grayzone edited the following clips from a promotional historical documentary that the group posted on its own social media accounts [39]:The rich oligarch leader of Bolivia’s right-wing coup, Luis Fernando Camacho, was the leader of an explicitly fascist paramilitary group. Here are some clips from a promotional historical documentary it published:https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p [40] pic.twitter.com/XXNQfhD7ii [41] — The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019 [42]While Camacho and his far-right forces served as the muscle behind the coup, their political allies waited to reap the benefits. The presidential candidate Bolivia’s opposition had fielded in the October election, Carlos Mesa, is a “pro-business” privatizer with extensive ties to Washington. US government cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that he regularly corresponded with American officials in their efforts to destabilize Morales. Mesa is currently listed as an expert at a DC-based think tank funded by the US government’s soft-power arm USAID [43], various oil giants, and a host of multi-national corporations active in Latin America.
Evo Morales, a former farmer who rose to prominence in social movements before becoming the leader of the powerful grassroots political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader. Wildly popular in the country’s substantial Native and peasant communities, he won numerous elections and democratic referenda over a 13-year period, often in landslides. On October 20, Morales won re-election by more than 600,000 votes, giving him just above the 10 percent margin needed to defeat opposition presidential candidate Mesa in the first round. Experts who did a statistical analysis of Bolivia’s publicly available voting data found no evidence of irregularities or fraud [44]. But the opposition claimed otherwise, and took to the streets in weeks of protests and riots. The events that precipitated the resignation of Morales were indisputably violent. Right-wing opposition gangs attacked numerous elected politicians from the ruling leftist MAS party. They then ransacked the home of President Morales, while burning down the houses of several other top officials. The family members of some politicians were kidnapped and held hostage until they resigned. A female socialist mayor was publicly tortured [45] by a mob.The squalid US-backed fanatics of the Bolivian right ransack the house of the country’s elected president, Evo Morales. And the havoc is just beginning. Let no one call them “pro-democracy.” pic.twitter.com/rwwvOSAEaA [46] — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 11, 2019 [47]Following the forced departure of Morales, coup leaders arrested the president and vice president of the government’s electoral body, and forced the organization’s other officials to resign. Camacho’s followers proceeded to burn Wiphala flags [48] that symbolized the country’s Indigenous population and the plurinational vision of Morales. The Organization of American States, a pro-US organization founded by Washington during the Cold War [49] as an alliance of right-wing anti-communist countries in Latin America, helped rubber stamp the Bolivian coup. It called for new elections, claiming there were numerous irregularities in the October 20 vote, without citing any evidence. Then the OAS remained silent as Morales was overthrown by his military and his party’s officials were attacked and violently forced to resign.
The day after, the Donald Trump White House [50] enthusiastically praised the coup, trumpeting it as a “significant moment for democracy,” and a “strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua.”
Emerging from the shadows to lead a violent far-right putsch
While Carlos Mesa timidly condemned the opposition’s violence, Camacho egged it on, ignoring calls for an international audit of the election and emphasizing his maximalist demand to purge all supporters of Morales from government. He was the true face of the opposition, concealed for months behind the moderate figure of Mesa. A 40-year-old multi-millionaire businessman from the separatist stronghold of Santa Cruz, Camacho has never run for office.
Like Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó, whom more than 80 percent of Venezuelans had never heard of until the US government anointed him as supposed “president,” Camacho was an obscure figure until the coup attempt in Bolivia hit its stride. He first created his Twitter account on May 27 [51], 2019. For months, his tweets [52] went ignored, generating no more than three or four retweets and likes. Before the election, Camacho did not have a Wikipedia article, and there were few media profiles on him in Spanish- or English-language media. Camacho issued a call for a strike on July 9, posting videos [53] on Twitter that got just over 20 views [54]. The goal of the strike was to try to force the resignation of Bolivian government’s electoral organ the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). In other words, Camacho was pressuring the government’s electoral authorities to step down more than three months before the presidential election. It was not until after the election that Camacho was thrust into the limelight and transformed into a celebrity by corporate media conglomerates like the local right-wing network Unitel, Telemundo [55], and CNN en Español. [56]
All of a sudden, Camacho’s tweets calling for Morales to resign were lighting up with thousands of retweets [57]. The coup machinery had been activated. Mainstream outlets like the New York Times and Reuters followed by anointing the unelected Camacho as the “leader [58]” of Bolivia’s opposition. But even as he lapped up international attention, key portions of the far-right activist’s background were omitted. Left unmentioned were Camacho’s deep and well-established connections to Christian extremist paramilitaries notorious for racist violence and local business cartels, as well as the right-wing governments across the region.
It was in the fascist paramilitaries and separatist atmosphere of Santa Cruz where Camacho’s politics were formed, and where the ideological contours of the coup had been defined.
Cadre of a Francoist-style fascist paramilitary
Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. Since Morales entered office in 2006, the UJC has campaigned to separate from a country its members believed had been overtaken by a Satanic Indigenous mass.
The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS [18], and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion [19]. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes [20].Here is another video posted by Bolivia’s fascist opposition Santa Cruz Youth Union. Coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho @LuisFerCamachoV [59] previously helped lead this sieg-heiling group. These are the people who overthrew elected President Evo Morales. https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p [40] pic.twitter.com/GvvMfL21UZ [60] — The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019 [61]Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described [21] UJC members as “racist” and “militant,” noting that they “have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.” [see pic of US embassy document [62]] After journalist Benjamin Dangl visited with UJC members [63] in 2007, he described them as the “brass knuckles” of the Santa Cruz separatist movement. “The Unión Juvenil has been known to beat and whip campesinos marching for gas nationalization, throw rocks at students organizing against autonomy, toss molotov cocktails at the state television station, and brutally assault members of the landless movement struggling against land monopolies,” Dangl wrote. “When we have to defend our culture by force, we will,” a UJC leader told Dangl. “The defense of liberty is more important than life.”
Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. In August, Camacho tweeted a photo with his “great friend,” Marinkovic. This friendship was crucial to establishing the rightist activist’s credentials and forging the basis of the coup that would take form three months later.Hoy cumple años un gran líder cruceño y expresidente del Comité pro Santa Cruz pero todo un gran amigo, Branko Marinkovic, quien entregó todo, su libertad y su vida, por su pueblo. pic.twitter.com/uVzNrgH2pI [64] — Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 21, 2019 [65]Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced [22] the committee as an “actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.” The human rights group added that it “condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.”
In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported [23] that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. “What they [the US] put across was how they could strengthen channels of communication,” the vice president of the committee told Kennard. “The embassy said that they would help us in our communication work and they have a series of publications where they were putting forward their ideas.”
In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, the New York Times [38] acknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as “a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.” The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. . . . The Bolivian Falange came into power in 1971 when its leader, Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez, ousted [66] the leftist government of Gen. Juan Jose Torres Gonzales. The government of Gonzales had infuriated business leaders by nationalizing industries and antagonized Washington by ousting the Peace Corps, which it viewed as an instrument of CIA penetration. The Nixon administration immediately welcomed Banzer with open arms and courted him as a key bulwark against the spread of socialism in the region. (An especially ironic 1973 dispatch [67] appears on Wikileaks showing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thanking Banzer for congratulating him on his Nobel Peace Prize).
The movement’s putschist legacy persevered during the Morales era through organizations like the UJC and figures such as Marinkovic and Camacho. The Times noted that Marinkovic also supported the activities of the UJC, describing the fascist group as “a quasi-independent arm of the committee led by Mr. Marinkovic.” A member of the UJC board told the US newspaper of record in an interview, “We will protect Branko with our own lives.” Marinkovic has espoused the kind of Christian nationalist rhetoric familiar to the far-right organizations of Santa Cruz, calling, for instance, for a “crusade for the truth [68]” and insisting that God is on his side [69]. The oligarch’s family hails from Croatia, where he has dual citizenship. Marinkovic has long been dogged by rumors that his family members were involved in the country’s powerful fascist Ustashe movement. The Ustashe collaborated openly with Nazi German occupiers during World War Two. Their successors returned to power after Croatia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia – a former socialist country that was intentionally balkanized in a NATO war [70], much in the same way that Marinkovic hoped Bolivia would be.
Marinkovic denies that his family was part of the Ustashe. He claimed in an interview with the New York Times that his father fought against the Nazis. But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the “shadow CIA [24],” produced a rough background profile [25] on Marinkovic, speculating, “Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.” The Stratfor analyst excerpted a 2006 article [71] by journalist Christian Parenti, who had visited Marinkovic at his ranch in Santa Cruz. Evo Morales’ “land reform could lead to civil war,” Marinkovic warned Parenti in the Texas-accented English he picked up while studying at the University of Texas, Houston.
Today, Marinkovic is an ardent supporter of Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro [72], whose only complaint about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was that he “didn’t kill enough [73].” Marinkovic is also a public admirer of Venezuela’s far-right opposition. “Todos somos Leopoldo [74]” — “we are all Leopoldo,” he tweeted in support of Leopoldo López, who has been involved in numerous coup attempts against Venezuela’s elected leftist government. While Marinkovic denied any role in armed militant activity in his interview with Parenti, he was accused in 2008 of playing a central role in an attempt to assassinate Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism party allies. He told the New York Times less than two years before the plot developed, “If there is no legitimate international mediation in our crisis, there is going to be confrontation. And unfortunately, it is going to be bloody and painful for all Bolivians.”
An assassination plot links Bolivia’s right to international fascists.
In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer [26], who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. In fact, the codename [75] Rosza-Flores assumed in the assassination plot was “Franco,” after the late Generalissimo.
During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the “PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups [27], from Germany to Ireland.” By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. And it was there that he was killed in a luxury hotel with no apparent source of income and a massive stockpile of guns. The government later released photos of Rosza and a co-conspirator posing with their weapons. Publication of emails between the ringleader and Istvan Belovai [76], a former Hungarian military intelligence officer who served as a double agent for the CIA, cemented the perception that Washington had a hand in the operation.
Marinkovic was subsequently charged [28] with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil [29], where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. “Rozsa didn’t come here by himself, they brought him,” the Bolivian government’s lead investigator told Kennard. “Hugo Achá Melgar brought him.”
The Human Rights Foundation destabilizes Bolivia
Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr. [30], the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. The first cousin of the veteran Venezuelan coup plotter Leopoldo Lopez, Halvorssen was a former college Republican activist who crusaded against political correctness and other familiar right-wing hobgoblins.
After a brief career as a firebrand right-wing film producer, in which he oversaw a scandalous “anti-environmentalist” documentary [77] financed by a mining corporation, Halvorssen rebranded as a promoter of liberalism and the enemy of global authoritarianism. He launched the HRF with grants [30] from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America.
Though Achá was granted asylum in the US, the HRF has continued pushing regime change in Bolivia. As Wyatt Reed reported for The Grayzone [78], HRF “freedom fellow” Jhanisse Vaca Daza helped trigger the initial stage of the coup by blaming Morales for the Amazon fires that consumed parts of Bolivia in August, mobilizing international protests against him. At the time, Daza posed as an “environmental activist” and student of non-violence who articulated her concerns in moderate-seeming calls for more international aid to Bolivia. Through her NGO, Rios de Pie, she helped launch the #SOSBolivia hashtag, which signaled the imminent foreign-backed regime-change operation.
Courting the regional right, prepping the coup
While HRF’s Daza rallied protests outside Bolivian embassies in Europe and the US, Fernando Camacho remained behind the scenes, lobbying right-wing governments in the region to bless the coming coup. In May, Camacho met with Colombia’s far-right President Ivan Duque [79]. Camacho was helping to spearhead regional efforts at undermining the legitimacy of Evo Morales’ presidency at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, seeking to block his candidacy in the October election. That same month, the rightist Bolivian agitator also met with Ernesto Araújo [80], the chancellor of Jair Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative administration in Brazil. Through the meeting, Camacho successfully secured Bolsonaro’s backing for regime change in Bolivia. This November 10, Araújo [81] enthusiastically endorsed the ouster of Morales, declaring that “Brazil will support the democratic and constitutional transition” in the country. Then in August, two months before Bolivia’s presidential election, Camacho held court with officials from Venezuela’s US-appointed coup regime. These included Gustavo Tarre [82], Guaido’s faux Venezuelan OAS ambassador, who formerly worked at the right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) [83] think tank in Washington. After the meeting, Camacho tweeted gratitude to the Venezuelan coup-mongers, as well as to Colombia and Brazil [16].No vamos a parar hasta tener una democracia real! Seguimos avanzando! Vamos sumando apoyo… ahora lo hace Venezuela…Gracias a Dios.. hay esperanza! Gracias Colombia! Gracias Venezuela! Gracias Brasil! pic.twitter.com/v9TQ2Fi2Sa [84] — Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 27, 2019 [85]Mesa and Camacho: a marriage of capitalist convenience Back in Bolivia, Carlos Mesa occupied the spotlight as the opposition’s presidential candidate. His erudite image and centrist policy proposals put him in a seemingly alternate political universe from fire-breathing rightists like Camacho and Marinkovic. For them, he was a convenient front man and acceptable candidate who promised to defend their economic interests. “It might be that he is not my favorite, but I’m going to vote for him, because I don’t want Evo,” Marinkovic told a right-wing Argentine newspaper [86] five days before the election. Indeed, it was Camacho’s practical financial interests that appeared to have necessitated his support for Mesa. The Camacho family has formed a natural gas cartel in Santa Cruz. As the Bolivian outlet Primera Linea reported [87], Luis Fernando Camacho’s father, Jose Luis, was the owner of a company called Sergas that distributed gas in the city; his uncle, Enrique, controlled Socre, the company that ran the local gas production facilities; and his cousin, Cristian, controls another local gas distributor called Controgas. According to Primera Linea, the Camacho family was using the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee as a political weapon to install Carlos Mesa into power and ensure the restoration of their business empire.
Mesa has a well-documented history of advancing the goals of transnational companies at the expense of his own country’s population.
The neoliberal politician and media personality served as vice president when the US-backed President Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada provoked mass protests [88] with his 2003 plan to allow a consortium of multinational corporations to export the country’s natural gas to the US through a Chilean port. Bolivia’s US-trained security forces met the ferocious protests with brutal repression [89]. After presiding over [90] the killing of 70 unarmed protesters, Sanchez de Lozada fled to Miami and was succeeded by Mesa. By 2005, Mesa was also ousted by huge demonstrations [91] spurred by his protection of privatized natural gas companies. With his demise, the election of Morales and the rise of the socialist and rural Indigenous movements behind him were just beyond the horizon. US government cables released by WikiLeaks show that, after his ouster, Mesa continued regular correspondence with American officials. A 2008 memo [92] from the US embassy in Bolivia revealed that Washington was conspiring with opposition politicians in the lead-up to the 2009 presidential election, hoping to undermine and ultimately unseat Morales.
The memo noted that Mesa had met with the chargé d’affaires of the US embassy, and had privately told them he planned to run for president. The cable recalled: “Mesa told us his party will be ideologically similar to a social democratic party and that he hoped to strengthen ties with the Democratic party. ‘We have nothing against the Republican party, and have in fact gotten support from IRI (International Republican Institute) in the past, but we think we share more ideology with the Democrats,’ he added.” [see pic of wikileaks document [93]] Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” [31] at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department subsidiary that was exposed in classified diplomatic cables published on Wikileaks for strategically directing millions of dollars [94] to opposition groups including those “opposed to Evo Morales’ vision for indigenous communities.” Other top funders of the Dialogue [95] include oil titans like Chevron and ExxonMobil; Bechtel, which inspired the initial protests against the administration in which Mesa served; the Inter-American Development Bank, which has forcefully opposed Morales’ socialist-oriented policies; and the Organization of American States (OAS), which helped delegitimize the Morales’s re-election victory with dubious claims of irregular vote counts. . . . ———-
2a. Central to the multi-national dissatisfaction with Evo Morales is his nationalization of some of Bolivia’s mineral resource industry. And central to the Bolivian mineral resource inventory is lithium, essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: ” . . . . The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. . . .”
Bolivia has been reported to hold up to 70 percent of the world’s lithium, and the Morales government’s pivot toward developing those reserves in tandem with Chinese firms, rather than Western transnationals, may well have been the central dynamic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash. . . .”
The complexities of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats–location of much of Bolivia’s lithium reserves–mandate the technological involvement of foreign firms. A deal reached with German ACI Systems (heavily subsidized by the German government) was negated by protests on the part of local residents in the Salar de Uyuni area. Chinese firms were poised to fill that vacuum, offering the possibility of a more equitable development of the mineral. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. . . .”
After the ouster of Morales, the value of Tesla’s stock increased dramatically.
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to bring economic and social democracy to his long-exploited country. It is important to recall that Bolivia has suffered a series of coups, often conducted by the military and the oligarchy on behalf of transnational mining companies. Initially, these were tin firms, but tin is no longer the main target in Bolivia. The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car.
Over the past 13 years, Morales has tried to build a different relationship between his country and its resources. He has not wanted the resources to benefit the transnational mining firms, but rather to benefit his own population. Part of that promise was met as Bolivia’s poverty rate has declined, and as Bolivia’s population was able to improve its social indicators. Nationalization of resources combined with the use of its income to fund social development has played a role. The attitude of the Morales government toward the transnational firms produced a harsh response from them, many of them taking Bolivia to court.
“The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies.”
Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the “fuel that will feed the world.” Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash.
Clash With the Transnational Firms
When Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism took power in 2006, the government immediately sought to undo decades of theft by transnational mining firms. Morales’ government seized several of the mining operations of the most powerful firms, such as Glencore, Jindal Steel & Power, Anglo-Argentine Pan American Energy, and South American Silver (now TriMetals Mining). It sent a message that business as usual was not going to continue. Nonetheless, these large firms continued their operations—based on older contracts—in some areas of the country. For example, the Canadian transnational firm South American Silver had created a company in 2003—before Morales came to power—to mine the Malku Khota for silver and indium (a rare earth metal used in flat-screen televisions). South American Silver then began to extend its reach into its concessions. The land that it claimed was inhabited by indigenous Bolivians, who argued that the company was destroying its sacred spaces as well as promoting an atmosphere of violence.
On August 1, 2012, the Morales government—by Supreme Decree no. 1308—annulled the contract with South American Silver (TriMetals Mining), which then sought international arbitration and compensation. Canada’s government of Justin Trudeau—as part of a broader push [96] on behalf of Canadian mining companies in South America—put an immense amount of pressure on Bolivia. In August 2019, TriMetals struck a deal with the Bolivian government for $25.8 million, about a tenth of what it had earlier demanded as compensation. Jindal Steel, an Indian transnational corporation, had an old contract to mine iron ore from Bolivia’s El Mutún, a contract that was put on hold by the Morales government in 2007. In July 2012, Jindal Steel terminated the contract and sought international arbitration and compensation for its investment.
In 2014, it won $22.5 million from Bolivia in a ruling from Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. For another case against Bolivia, Jindal Steel demanded $100 million in compensation. The Morales government seized three facilities from the Swiss-based transnational mining firm Glencore; these included a tin and zinc mine as well as two smelters. The mine’s expropriation took place after Glencore’s subsidiary clashed violently with miners. Most aggressively, Pan American sued the Bolivian government for $1.5 billion for the expropriation of the Anglo-Argentinian company’s stake in natural gas producer Chaco by the state. Bolivia settled for $357 million in 2014.
The scale of these payouts is enormous. It was estimated [97] in 2014 that the public and private payments made for nationalization of these key sectors amounted to at least $1.9 billion (Bolivia’s GDP was at that time $28 billion). In 2014, even the Financial Times agreed [97] that Morales’ strategy was not entirely inappropriate. “Proof of the success of Morales’s economic model is that since coming to power he has tripled the size of the economy [98] while ramping up record foreign reserves.”
Lithium
Bolivia’s key reserves are in lithium, which is essential for the electric car. Bolivia claims to have 70 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, mostly in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. The complexity of the mining and processing has meant that Bolivia has not been able to develop the lithium industry on its own. It requires capital, and it requires expertise. The salt flat is about 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) above sea level, and it receives high rainfall. This makes it difficult to use sun-based evaporation. Such simpler solutions are available to Chile’s Atacama Desert and in Argentina’s Hombre Muerto. More technical solutions are needed for Bolivia, which means that more investment is needed. The nationalization policy of the Morales government and the geographical complexity of Salar de Uyuni chased away several transnational mining firms. Eramet (France), FMC (United States) and Posco (South Korea) could not make deals with Bolivia, so they now operate in Argentina.
Morales made it clear that any development of the lithium had to be done with Bolivia’s Comibol—its national mining company—and Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB)—its national lithium company—as equal partners. Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. Tesla (United States) and Pure Energy Minerals (Canada) both showed great interest in having a direct stake in Bolivian lithium. But they could not make a deal that would take into consideration the parameters set by the Morales government. Morales himself was a direct impediment to the takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms. He had to go. After the coup, Tesla’s stock rose astronomically.
2b. The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy backing by the German government and featured the planned export of lithium to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. . . . Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany. . . .”
Of particular significance for the discussion to follow is ” . . . . China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”
Germany and Bolivia on Wednesday sealed a partnership for the industrial use of lithium, a key raw material for battery cell production, in an important step to become less dependent on Asian market leaders in the dawning age of electric cars. Interest in battery metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium is soaring as the auto industry scrambles to build more electric cars and cut noxious fumes from vehicles powered by fossil fuels in light of stricter emission rules. “Germany should become a leading location for battery cell production. A large part of production costs is linked to raw materials,” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said. “German industry is therefore well advised to secure its needs for lithium early in order to avoid falling behind and slipping into dependency,” Altmaier said, adding the deal was “an important building block” to secure this supply.
With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. The joint venture aims to produce up to 40,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year from 2022 over a period of 70 years. Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany.
ACI Systems is in talks to supply a big German carmaker with lithium, according to a person familiar with the project. An ACI Systems spokeswoman declined to comment.
MORE CONTROL
For Germany, the public-private partnership is part of wider government efforts to support the production of battery cells in Europe and help companies get more control over the value-added chain of electric vehicles. The government has earmarked 1 billion euros to support domestic companies looking to produce battery cells for electric vehicles as a way to reduce German carmakers’ dependence on Asian suppliers and protect jobs at risk from the shift away from combustion engines.
For Bolivia, the deal to extract lithium from the Uyuni salt flats in the Andes, one of the world’s largest deposits, enables the government to bring jobs to a region plagued by poverty. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, economy minister of Germany’s southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the home region of ACI Systems, said the lithium deal would help German carmakers to become less dependent on Asian suppliers of car batteries. The success of the venture now depends on whether both sides can reconcile economic interests with environmental and social requirements, she added.
LITHIUM TRIANGLE
… President Evo Morales has sought to keep lithium from being exported merely as raw material and Germany’s willingness to help build production facilities in Bolivia played a key role in the decision to start the joint venture. When Bolivia sought a foreign partner to develop Uyuni, a Chinese company seemed a natural fit, given China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. Instead, Bolivia picked ACI Systems, a company from southern Germany untested in lithium that nonetheless beat seven rivals from China, Russia and Canada. Backing from German federal and regional ministries was key to persuading Bolivia ACI’s bid was serious, company and government officials from Bolivia and Germany told Reuters. ———–
2c. Shortly after the ouster of Morales, Tesla announced that Tesla would locate a new car and electric battery factory near Berlin. If the ACI lithium development project in Bolivia is resuscitated, the Tesla move will give the firm access to the Bolivian lithium.
Might that have been the reason for the rise in Tesla’s stock? Might there have been some insider trading?
To unclog bottlenecks last year at his Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) plant in California, Elon Musk flew in six planeloads of new robots and equipment from Germany to speed up battery production for its Model 3. Now the Tesla CEO is trying to tap that German automation ecosystem directly with Tuesday’s announcement that the electric carmaker will build a European car and battery factory near Berlin. So far, Musk has failed in his plans to create a factory so highly automated that it allows Tesla to make cars more efficiently than much bigger rivals. As a result, the automaker has struggled to meet production goals and been hit with defections of key staff members to rival firms. The new German factory is designed to help change all that.
“Everyone knows German engineering is outstanding for sure. You know that is part of the reason why we are locating Gigafactory Europe in Germany,” Musk said at a prestigious German car awards ceremony in Berlin late on Tuesday. BMW (BMWG.DE) has a factory in Leipzig, where it builds its i3 electric vehicle and it will source battery cells from a factory in Erfurt run by China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) (300750.SZ).. VW is retooling a plant in Zwickau to build 330,000 electric cars and German engineering giant Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE), which has an industrial and technology hub in Berlin, last week said it met with Musk to discuss projects in the area of advanced manufacturing and car charging. German carmakers and suppliers are tapping in to a 1 billion euro ($1.10 billion) fund set up by Germany to increase battery cell production and are further aided by a government-funded research facility to increase battery cell development know-how.
PRODUCTION GOAL
Tesla has yet to meet its goal of building more than 500,000 Model 3 cars by 2018. That goal was set back in 2016 and since then Tesla’s production guru, Peter Hochholdinger, a former Audi production expert, quit to joined rival Lucid. This year Tesla expects to deliver 360,000 to 400,000 cars, a target that includes selling all models. By contrast, the Volkswagen brand delivered 6.24 million cars last year and is readying its global production network to build 22 million electric cars by 2028. To ramp up manufacturing, Tesla started making its Model 3 in a tent, but the California-built cars often failed to meet German quality standards. In August, German car rental company Nextmove walked away from a 5 million-euro ($5.55 million) order for 85 Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles, following a dispute over how to fix quality issues.
POTENTIAL FOR AUTOMATION
Although Tesla has chosen a high-cost location, there is higher potential for automation with electric cars since they are less complex to build than combustion engined vehicles. A combustion engined car has 1,400 components in the motor, exhaust system and transmission. By contrast, an electric car’s battery and motor has only 200 components, according to analysts at ING. While the average combustion engine takes 3.5 hours to make, and the average transmission requires 2.7 hours of assembly, an electric motor takes only about 1 hour to assemble, consultants at Alix Partners said in their Global Automotive Outlook study. “Personnel is not a high cost factor in the production of electric cars,” Evercore ISI analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said. Today the biggest cost factor is still battery packs, which amount to between 30% and 50% of the cost of an electric vehicle.
QUALITY VS SCALE
By adding the “Made in Germany” quality, Tesla could significantly boost sales of its electric cars, which are already class-leading. On Tuesday Tesla’s Model 3 was awarded the “Golden Steering Wheel” by Germany’s Auto Bild magazine, with jury member Robin Horning saying the Model 3 had beaten the new BMW 3 series and the Audi A4 in “mid and premium class” category. . . . ———-
3b. Cambridge Analytica is rebranding under a new company, Emerdata. Intriguingly, Cambridge Analytica’s transformation into Emerdata is noteworthy because the firm’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, [36] a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince: ” . . . . But the company’s announcement left several questions unanswered, including who would retain the company’s intellectual property — the so-called psychographic voter profiles built in part with data from Facebook — and whether Cambridge Analytica’s data-mining business would return under new auspices. . . . In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm [99], Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. . . . An executive and a part owner of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, has publicly described Emerdata as a way of rolling up the two companies under one new banner. . . . ”
Again, we ask if the SCL/Cambridge Analytica reborn corporate synthesis may have had something to do with the unrest in Hong Kong?
3c. The initial decision by the Morales government to contract with Chinese firms (after the negation of the ACI deal with Germany) should be evaluated against the background of China’s preeminence in “Green” technologies, including electric car technology.
Note the alarmist tone of the New York Times op-ed. It would be great if the U.S. would put a major effort into developing green technologies. The U.S. is going in the opposite direction, however.
“Our Green Energy Challenge” by John Kerry and Ro Khanna; The New York Times; 12/10/2019. [37]
. . . . We should pledge that by the end of the next decade, America will surpass China and win the clean energy race.We aren’t winning the clean energy race today. In many ways, we aren’t even trying. China is becoming an energy superpower. Earlier this year, the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation [100] reported that China became the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, followed by Japan and Germany. The United States ranks fourth.
China surpassed us for the lead in renewable energy technology [101], too, with 150,000 patents — making up 30 percent of the world’s total. We are second with just over 100,000 patents, while Japan and the European Union follow with about 75,000 each.
In 2015, China surpassed us to become the largest electric vehicle market and is on pace to dominate production for the next 20 years. Chinese electric vehicles account for 60 percent of global sales [102]: 876,000 vehicles were produced last year compared with 361,000 in America.
China is doing things we are afraid to do. They offer citizens large subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles from state-owned companies. Municipalities waive fees for electric vehicle owners. The city of Shenzhen, which has a population of 12.5 million people, runs a 100 percent electric vehicle bus fleet and is, by fiat, converting 22,000 taxis to electric vehicles [103].
High-speed rail also is integral to China’s strategy. It has the largest high-speed railway in the world, with 19,000 miles of track and most major cities connected by the network [104]. The United States has less than 500 miles. Our fastest train takes 19 to 22 hours from New York to Chicago, whereas the same distance in China takes four-and-a-half hours [105]. . . .