Evo Morales asks Bolivia to leave the OAS to “liberate” the country from the “empire”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Former Bolivian President Evo Morales proposed that Bolivia leave the Organization of American States (OAS), a proposal questioned by opposition sectors that consider it a step backwards and would affect Bolivia’s image.

“It is important to free ourselves; to free ourselves lies in withdrawing from the OAS,” he affirmed in his program on the coca growers’ radio Kawsachun Coca. He added that the continental organization is “an instrument of the North American empire”.

Morales made this statement while rejecting the announcement by the United States, the host country of the next Summit of the Americas, that it will not invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua because it considers that they “do not respect” democracy.

“It is a summit of blackmail, of political extortion,” Morales said, adding that “it is no longer of the Americas but of the United States.”

In a subsequent tweet, the former president and leader of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) reiterated his proposal in line with Bolivia’s “anti-imperialist position.”

“Faced with the US exclusion of countries freed from its hegemony, how good it would be for #Bolivia to withdraw from the @OEA_oficial, ratifying our anti-imperialist position, the sovereignty, and independence of the State, but also the identity, dignity, and freedom of the Bolivian people,” Morales wrote on his Twitter account.

Last week the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, warned that if the exclusion of “brotherly” countries from the summit persists, he will not attend the continental meeting.

This Monday, MAS senator Leonardo Loza told local media that “Morales’ suggestion will be discussed within MAS and in the different social organizations that bet with this change process”.

“The OAS has disappointed Bolivia and many countries; it has always been at the service of the most powerful and against democratic countries,” added Loza.

Efe consulted government sources on Monday about its position on Morales’ proposal, but there has been no response so far.

BOLIVIA, “IN THE BACKYARD”

In declarations to Efe, the deputy of the opposition Citizen Community (CC) Gustavo Aliaga described Morales’ declaration as “unwise” and “absurd” and considered that Bolivia is “making a fool of itself” by placing itself on the side of countries such as Venezuela and Nicaragua “that violate human rights”.

Aliaga, a career diplomat, recalled that an eventual exit from the OAS implied a long and complex procedure and considered that if the Arce government followed Morales’ suggestion, the country would remain “in the backyard of international relations”.

The parliamentarian acknowledged that Bolivia’s multilateral relations were handled “intelligently” even during the Morales administration. Therefore, he considered his suggestion to leave the OAS now as “a provocation that only damages the country’s image”.

For the senator of the opposition Creemos Centa Rek, “it is logical” that Morales wants to join Nicaragua in leaving the OAS because of the report issued by that body on the failed 2019 general elections in Bolivia and which was one of the components of the crisis that resulted in his resignation from the Presidency that year.

“Dictatorships try to annul and ignore everything unfavorable to them,” Rek told Efe.

For Aliaga and Rek, Morales’ initiative will probably not prosper. However, the senator pointed out that “anything can happen” and predicted that, if that happens, there will be internal protests since international instances are the only option given the lack of independence of Bolivian institutions such as the judiciary.

With information from EFE