More Than 800 Scholars and Activists Sign Open Letter Demanding US End Support for Bolivia's Right-Wing Coup Regime

More than 800 academics, activists, and public figures published an open letter Sunday demanding that the United States and the international community end its support for the right-wing, anti-Indigenous regime in Bolivia that seized power following the military’s ouster of former President Evo Morales.

“What is happening in Bolivia is highly undemocratic and we are witnessing some of the worst human rights violations at the hands of the military and the police since the transition to civilian government in the early 1980s,” reads the open letter, which was signed by renowned linguist Noam Chomsky, activist and academic Angela Davis, journalist John Pilger, and other prominent human rights advocates.

“We are outraged by the Áñez regime’s violations of Bolivians’ political, civil, and human rights, and by the deplorable use of deadly violence that has led to a mounting death toll.”

See the full list of signatories and read the letter here.

“We condemn the violence in the strongest terms, and call on the U.S. and other foreign governments to immediately cease to recognize and provide any support to this regime,” the letter continued. “We urge the media to do more to document the mounting human rights abuses being committed by the Bolivian state.”

The open letter, first published in The Guardian, came hours after the Bolivian legislature passed a bill to annul the results of the October 20 presidential election—which Morales won in the first round—and set the stage for new elections.

The academics and activists raised alarm at the authoritarian and racist behavior of Jeanine Añez, who declared herself president just days after Morales—Bolivia’s first indigenous president—was ousted by the military on November 10.

In an interview with The Guardian Sunday, Añez’s interior minister Arturo Murillo threatened to jail Morales for the rest of his life. Morales is currently in Mexico, where he was granted asylum amid fears for his safety.

“Añez represents the radical-right sector of the Bolivian opposition, which has taken advantage of the power vacuum created by Morales’ ouster to consolidate control over the state. Áñez appears to have full support of Bolivia’s military and police,” the letter states. “Equally disturbing has been a resurgence of public anti-Indigenous racism over the course of the last week.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, observers on the ground in Bolivia have voiced fears that the military’s ongoing repression of Indigenous anti-coup protesters could spark a full-blown civil war. More than 30 people have been killed and hundreds more injured since Morales was overthrown earlier this month.

“The military has guns and a license to kill; we have nothing,” cried a mother whose son was shot during a massacre in El Alto last week. “Please, tell the international community to come here and stop this.”