Evo Morales Returns to Bolivia, Welcomed by Millions
November 9, 2020. Evo Morales and former vice
president Álvaro García Linera greeted in the
border town of Villazón as they cross into Bolivia
from Argentina.
We will return and we will be
millions!
-
Declaration of legendary Aymara independence
fighter
Tupac Kátari before he was executed by the Spanish
in 1781
On the morning of Monday, November 9 a multitude
of people gathered in the border town of Villazón
in the south of Bolivia to greet Evo Morales and
former vice president Álvaro García Linera as they
crossed into Bolivia from Argentina where both
have been living as refugees during most of the
past year. Many people travelled 16 hours
overnight, after attending the swearing-in of
President Luis Arce and Vice President David
Choquehuanca in La Paz the day before, to join in
celebrating Evo's much-awaited return to Bolivia.
November 9, 2020. President Alberto Fernández bids
farewell to Evo Morales at a send-off in La Quiaca, Argentina before
walking across the border into Bolivia with him.
 Before
crossing the border, Evo was honoured at a large send-off event in the
neighbouring city of La Quiaca in Argentina's Jujuy province. There,
Argentinian President Alberto Fernández bid him farewell, saying, "I am
honoured to have had you among us." The two men embraced and then walked
together across the international bridge to Villazón on the Bolivian
side.
In Villazón, after receiving a traditional Indigenous blessing
upon setting foot on Bolivian soil, Evo and Alvaro were received by a
sea of jubilant supporters who packed the town square and filled the
streets leading up to it for blocks and blocks. Contingents of miners
could be identified by their hard hats. Members of different Indigenous
nations played traditional musical instruments and danced in the
streets -- all contributing to the joyous atmosphere that prevailed.
The rally in Villazón served as the kick-off for a caravan of
vehicles in which Evo, Álvaro and hundreds of supporters
travelled through three departments, starting in the south of Bolivia
and arriving in the Tropic of Cochabamba in the centre of the country
two days later.
In his speech in Villazón, Evo said it was thanks
to the Bolivian people who took action to rescue their democracy and
their country that today MAS was in government and he was back in
Bolivia. It was a message he would repeat many times to the tens of
thousands who came out to the rallies held in towns and cities the
caravan passed through, on its 1,100-km journey through the departments
of Potosí and Oruro to the Tropic of Cochabamba, the caravan’s final
stop. There, in Chimoré, the city where Evo plans to live and work in
the coming period, as he did before becoming president, a million people
turned out to celebrate his arrival.
Evo and Álvaro were fêted at political-cultural
celebrations in large and small population centres
along their route as the people affirmed the rich
ancestral traditions of their regions and their
rights today. Celebrations took place in the
mining towns of Atocha, Uyuni and Oruro, the
quinoa growing region of the Bolivian highlands
and the tropical lowlands of Cochabamba. Between
scheduled stops, Evo and Álvaro had to get out of
the car many times as villagers who lined the
highway waving their Wiphalas and other flags
demanded to personally express their support and
joy at the former president's return, take selfies
with him and give gifts of food and agricultural
products grown in their fields and gardens.
November 9, 2020. Evo Morales and Álvaro García
Linera are welcomed by miners in Antocha.
In a speech to a midnight rally in Uyuni, where
the world's largest salt flat is located and lithium is mined, Evo made a
point of saying that last year's coup was not just an act of Bolivian
right-wing forces. He said they were accompanied, directed and financed
by the United States for the purpose of stopping the process of change
in Bolivia's economy. "They do not want us to benefit from the
added value of our resources, to have the technology to process our
resources," he said.
Bolivia's lithium industry was brought to a
virtual standstill by the coup government when its
attempts to sell it off to private foreign
interests did not work out. Luis Arce has long
said that a MAS government will reactivate the
industry and continue with plans to process more
of the strategic mineral as a national project.
Evo reiterated this, adding that "nationalization
is the program of the people; privatization is the
program of the looters who want to keep on looting
our natural resources." He said that fight was not
just Bolivia's but humanity's fight over who
controls the earth's resources, ending his remarks
with "Long live a dignified and sovereign Bolivia!"
November 10, 2020. Campesinos line the route of
Evo Morales' caravan.
 
November 10, 2020. Morales visits his childhood home in Orinoca, Oruro
(left): Morales receives gifts of food.
Million-Strong Rally Greets Evo in Tropic of
Cochabamba
November 11, 2020. Evo Morales and Álvaro García Linera at Rally in Chimoré.
By the time the caravan arrived at its final
destination in Chimoré, there were people as far
as the eye could see packing the runway of the
city's airport -- the very place Evo and Alvaro
had flown from, a year before to the day, after
accepting the Mexican government's offer of
asylum.
 The event was
organized by the Six Federations of the Tropic of
Cochabamba, the coca growers' union of which Evo
is still the president. In attendance was a broad
section of the Bolivian people as well as
ministers and elected members of the new
Plurinational Legislative Assembly, other
officials from all levels of government,
Indigenous leaders and members of the Unity Pact
of unions and social movements that worked to
elect Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, and many
others who came from all over Bolivia as well as
neighbouring countries -- Ecuador, Peru, Argentina
and others, to be part of what promised to be, and
was, a historic event.
In his remarks to the crowd Evo explained the
circumstances that led to his and Álvaro's
decision to leave the country -- mainly the fact
that the top leadership of the police and military
had been bought off and were responsible for the
mutiny of those forces. He thanked the thousands
of workers from the Trópico who surrounded the
airport so the plane in which they flew to Mexico
could take off in the tense situation that had
developed. He said he never felt abandoned during
the time he spent as a refugee outside Bolivia.
He attributed the reversal of the coup in just a
year to the strength, unity and convictions of the
Bolivian people, who he also credited with
stopping right-wing forces, right up to the eve of
the inauguration, from preventing Luis Arce from
taking office.
In closing, he emphasized: "First, we are
anti-imperialist, that's not up for debate. It's not about being
'populist,' 'progressive,' 'in solidarity.' If you're not
anti-imperialist, you are not revolutionary. Get that in your head
brothers and sisters!"
The rally ended with a rousing speech by Álvaro
García Linera who paid tribute to Evo and what he
represented to the Bolivian people, especially the
Indigenous, campesinos, workers and all other
humble people who, after 500 years of subjugation,
lifted themselves up and would never bow their
heads again. He said both he and Evo would keep
fighting for their cause as long as they both
lived no matter how hard the racist usurpers who
burned the Wiphala try to regain the ground they
have lost at the hands of the Bolivian people.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) extends its congratulations and best wishes to Evo
Morales on the happy occasion of his return to
Bolivia to continue his work, in a new capacity,
for the process of transforming Bolivia which
began 14 years ago. Special congratulations as
well to the Bolivian people whose courage,
convictions and steadfastness in the face of very
big odds created the conditions for the return of
the historic leader and founder of MAS-IPSP to
Bolivia. In so doing they have delivered a sharp
and fitting rebuke to the criminal coup forces,
many of them now scurrying to leave Bolivia, and
to their international backers -- Canada's
interfering government among them.
See video clips from Evo Morales' return to
Bolivia:
- Midnight
rally with miners in Uyuni, Potosí
- Indigenous
campesinos hail Evo's return as caravan passes
through Potosí
- Aerial
view of crowd gathered for rally in Chimoré in
the Tropic of Cochabamba.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 44 - November 14, 2020
Article Link:
Evo Morales Returns to Bolivia, Welcomed by Millions
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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