Electric cars and the coup in Bolivia

Bolivians rally in support of President Evo Morales and CELAC (2015)

On the morning of the 11th of November, I woke up to two big pieces of news - firstly, that the number of electric cars in Jersey is rising rapidly, and, secondly, that Evo Morales, the democratically-elected socialist president of Bolivia, has been removed in a military coup d'etat.

Most people probably didn't link the two. "After all", you might say, "what do electric cars on a small and relatively unimportant island like Jersey have to do with the political convulsions of a nation half a world away?"

Well, I'm glad you asked!

According to Jersey Electricity, in the last year, the number of electric vehicles operating in Jersey has shot up, from a mere 189 twelve months ago to an impressive 572 today. The rise in the number of hybrid vehicles has been even more surprising - nearly 1,000 hybrid cars are now registered, up from only 271 a year ago. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a coup struck Bolivia, with President Evo Morales Ayma, the country's first indigenous president and the leader of Bolivia's Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) party, forced to resign under military pressure as opposition-led violence continued to escalate across the country.

Bolivia is a country rich in resources, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the Salar de Uyuni, a massive salt flat spanning nearly 5,000 square miles. Salt has been mined in Bolivia for hundreds of years, but the real treasure of the plain isn't the seasoning you put on your chips - hidden in the salar, contained within billions of little white crystals, is 50-70% of the world's lithium reserves.

Lithium is an increasingly in-demand metal, used to create everything from smartphones, aeroplanes, batteries, and - you guessed it - electric cars. The metal's price has risen by 400% in the last few years alone - according to Deutsche Welle, lithium-ion battery production is expected to double by 2025. Unlike Bolivia's other natural resources, such as gold, silver and copper, the country's lithium resources have thus far remained relatively untapped, meaning they haven't been spirited away to the global north to be used in high-end manufacturing or flogged off to western mining companies for a quick boliviano. MAS are well aware of this untapped potential (they've seen the incredible transformations of countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya after the development of the oil industry in those countries) and - at least before the coup yesterday - have pursued a programme of massive investment into lithium extraction and the growth of native lithium-based industries such as battery manufacturing. What makes Bolivia different is that MAS have explicitly stated that they don't want to turn Bolivia into just another Saudi Arabia-like resource-exporting economy - they don't want to export lithium to the global north, favouring the creation of a fully-integrated native supply chain that can process lithium into batteries (and other products) and export it in value-added form, all firmly under the control of either home-grown Bolivian companies or the state (rather than American, European or Chinese mining companies). MAS have form in this regard - while Bolivia used to export unrefined natural gas while importing gas for cooking and heating, Morales has turned the industry around so that Bolivia's nationalised gas industry now exports refined natural gas to Argentina, Peru and Paraguay. A very nice boost for the state coffers!

This really is mega for Bolivia - it has the potential to utterly transform Bolivia's economy, from a largely agricultural economy based on small-scale light industry, gas, soybeans and coca (Morales himself is a former cocalero, a coca farmer) into a serious industrial economy based upon extracting and processing one of the most important commodities in the entire world, with every penny either going directly back into government coffers or into the home-grown Bolivian economy to be taxed later on. For the countries and companies that have historically dominated Bolivia's valuable mining sector, this sort of thing is a bit too independent-minded - there are several large and powerful mining companies and chemical manufacturers who would absolutely love to get their hands on Bolivia's massive lithium reserves, and make themselves a killing exporting it back to the global north to be used in specialist factories in South Korea or the USA, leaving the Bolivian government, and the people they serve, high and dry.

A pro-Morales city mayor is grabbed, covered in red paint and
later has her hair forcibly cut off by violent anti-MAS rioters

This brings us to the coup. On the 10th of November, after 19 days of protests surrounding what western media are calling a 'disputed election' - i.e. an election disputed by the violent anti-Morales opposition, because they lost - the Bolivian military and police demanded Morales's resignation. With his supporters being dragged out of their homes by the opposition and murdered, and the threat of a direct military intervention, Morales resigned, in order to prevent further violence. It hasn't worked - as I write this, clashes continue between MAS supporters and the police across the country, especially in the city of El Alto, where - rumour has it - residents have begun to form self-defense militas to defend themselves against the police, chanting "Ahora sí, guerra civil" - "Now, civil war".

There is no serious argument that Morales lost the election - the dispute is ostensibly about whether he won by a large enough margin to avoid a runoff. Much is also being made of his decision to stand for a fourth term, after extending Bolivia's presidential term limits - but this decision was ruled completely constitutional by the Supreme Court (I'd also remind everyone that Angela Merkel has been in power since 2005 - it isn't anti-democratic to serve for a long time). We all know what the real reason is - Bolivia has a long and sordid history of military coups against governments that dare to defy the interests of western imperialism, and Latin America in general has been a hotspot of CIA activity forever (but especially since the pink tide swept the continent two decades ago). Mark my words - in twenty or thirty years, it will come out that the CIA was behind all of this, just as it came out that they overthrew Allende in Chile in 1973, or funded right-wing death squads in Nicaragua during the 1980s, or backed the Dirty War in Argentina from 1976-83. The idea of an independent and socialist Bolivia, industrialised and able to form a bedrock for anti-imperialist resistance across the entire western hemisphere, was simply too much for the right-wing army and their imperialist backers in Washington and Langley - it's exactly the same reason they overthrew Allende, Isabel Perón, João Goulart and Jacobo Árbenz, the same reason they locked up Lula da Silva and toppled Manny Zelaya, the same reason that the comprador Colorado Party was kept in power in Paraguay for 65 consecutive years of poverty and terror. The USA cannot abide an independent Latin American nation, and will do everything it can to defeat and destroy any country that tries to assert itself.

I write this, not to big up the Movement for Socialism and Evo Morales, or even to educate you on the tragic events that are currently transpiring in Bolivia - but to remind everyone that this is where your electric car batteries, and tons of other things, actually come from. The vital ingredients that make up your phone, your washing machine, your TV, and fancy new gadgets like electric cars are all stolen from the people of the global south, extracted by our mining companies and spirited away to the global north, where they can be turned into consumer electronics and sold on the shelves of the local IQ store to enrich some vile fat cat in Wall Street, New York. Here, in peaceful Jersey, we celebrate our accomplishments in promoting electric cars, pat ourselves on the back for being ever-so-environmentally-friendly - and we ignore the socialists and nationalists of the global south, the courageous defenders of national sovereignty and the global working class, who have been shot in the back of the head to put that electric car in your garage.

Keep that in mind, the next time you see someone flaunting their new Prius.

EDIT 14/11/2019 20:40:

Jeb Sprague, Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton of The Grayzone have produced two excellent articles about the coup d'etat in Bolivia, that I would recommend everyone read.

The first, "Top Bolivian coup plotters trained by US military’s School of the Americas, served as attachés in FBI police programs", highlights the links between the military officers who carried out the coup and the US Army School of the Americas, an American training facility for Latin American officers whose graduates have included such lovely personalities as Hugo Banzer Suárez, the military dictator of Bolivia from 1971-78, and José Efraín Ríos Montt, a Guatemalan general and the former president of Guatemala who was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013.

(other greatest hits include Emilio Eduardo Massera, Argentine naval officer and mastermind of the Dirty War, Roberto D’Aubuisson Arrieta, prominent Salavadoran death squad leader who ordered Óscar Romero’s assassination, and Heriberto Lazcano, founder of the Los Zetas drug cartel.)

The second, "Bolivia coup led by Christian fascist paramilitary leader and millionaire – with foreign support", highlights the links between prominent Bolivian golpista, Luis Fernando Camacho, and outright Bolivian fascists. 

They are both well worth your time.