By Guido Vassallo on October 22, 2020
Photo: Bernardino Avila
In a press conference held in a hotel in the Balvanera district of Buenos Aires, Evo Morales, ex-President of Bolivia, again called for the resignation of the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro, “If he has any dignity, he should resign. His hands are stained with blood of the men and women of Bolivia.” He anticipated that his legal team, headed up in Argentina by constitutional law experts Raúl Zaffaroni and Gustavo Ferreyra will present the charges at the International Criminal Court based on the OAS report of 2019, which denounced supposed, but never proven irregularities, in the elections procedures.
Morales also praised the brilliant new president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, for his excellent achievement in the elections last Sunday, in which, with 95% of the polling places confirmed, he prevailed with 54.5% of the votes, compared with 29% for his principal rival, ex-President Carlos Mesa. “Lucho (as he is referred to) is the president the country needs to get back on a democratic path and overcome the crisis that the Bolivian people are living through.”
Morales stated that the dubious report of the OAS was the opening that facilitated the coup in Bolivia. “Reports and investigations from different institutions show that the OAS report was plagued with errors, manipulations, and distortions of facts.”
On Wednesday, a new report was released from the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (CELAG) which carried out a comparative study between the nullified election results of 2019 and those of last Sunday. In all the proceedings challenged by the OAS, the results were the same and an increase (in MAS percentage) was seen compared to last year. These results, according to Morales, “confirm the illegitimacy of the report and the irresponsibility of Luis Almagro.”
“The results described as false by the OAS were perfectly representative of the voting in those precincts,” stated the Bolivian ex-president, as he continued to attack Almagro. “He has no moral authority to conduct the affairs of the OAS. If he does not resign, I will ask the member countries of the OAS to underwrite the appropriate proceedings, because he has caused irreparable harm.”
Morales demanded that an independent audit be carried out to evaluate the “fraudulent report of the OAS, so that all suspicion can be removed.” He also called for an adherence to the accusations made by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and the Human Rights League of Argentina to the High Commissioner of the United Nations concerning Almagro “having committed actions of intervention against the sovereignty of Bolivia” by means of a report “that aludes to supposed electoral fraud which he has been unable to prove.”
Speaking before the journalists assembled in the conference hall of the Quagliaro, Hotel, which belongs to the Association of Government Workers, Morales went on to say that, due to the fact that actions provoked by Almagro “caused massive damages to human rights, we will present an accusation before the International Criminal Court.” The ex-labor leader of the coca workers of the Trópico region maintained that, in this way, “it will be possible to prevent other countries from having to undergo the same suffering that has been inflicted on the Bolivian people”
Although his words were focused on the controversial role that the OAS played in the elections of October 2019, Morales also called attention to the excellent showing of his ex-Minister of Economy, Luis Arce, in the elections of last Sunday. “As we approach a final count, we can confirm that Movement Towards Socialism Party was able to win by more than a 10% lead in votes. If you add together the votes of the second and third place candidates (Carlos Mesa and Luis Fernando Camacho) their total is still less than the MAS total. Getting over 50% of the votes is a historic achievement, especially after there has been such a dirty war and political persecution against us. We have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and we won in six Departments.” (political divisions equivalent to states.) Expressing gratitude for the exemplary conduct of all those who came to vote during the Sunday election, Morales affirmed, “We have come back in our millions and it is our task to restore liberty to the Bolivian people.”
Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau