Thread by @AlanRMacLeod

So it turns out that, in a bid to hold on to power, Bolivian dictator Jeanine Añez paid Colombian mercenaries to kill her political opponent days before the 2020 election.

She's just been nominated for the EU Parliment's highest human rights award. 🙃🇧🇴
kawsachunnews.com/coup-regime-so…

The attempt failed. But Añez did oversee multiple massacres after the US/EU-backed coup of 2019 that put her in power.

I was one of the very few people covering these massacres, which were consistently whitewashed as "clashes" by @HRW and Western media.

mintpressnews.com/media-silent-b…

@hrw . @codepink co-founder @medeabenjamin actually witnessed one of these massacres. You can read her account of it here:

mintpressnews.com/human-rights-m…

Añez's 1-yr rule was a reign of terror, establishing death squads that roamed the country looking for foreigners, leftists and human rights groups. Some were killed.

My article detailing it:

mintpressnews.com/bolivia-right-…

Añez made a point of publicly imprisoning journalists and anyone else daring to criticize her, as well as hospital staff who agreed to treat the bullet wounds of the civilians she ordered killed.

There are some incredible videos embedded in this article:

mintpressnews.com/bolivia-right-…

It turns out that Añez employed the same Colombian mercenary group that recently assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

These Colombian paramilitaries have long done the US empire's dirty work, as @dancohen3000 explains here:

mintpressnews.com/haiti-suspecte…

Amazingly, the people of Bolivia did not accept their fate, and worked tirelessly to resist the dictatorship.

After a nationwide general strike, Añez was finally forced to accept new elections (although she kept trying to postpone them).

My article:

mintpressnews.com/bolivia-showdo…

Western human rights groups like @HRW really showed their hand on Bolivia, even condemning the new (democratic) govt for granting an amnesty to all those detained or tortured by Añez. Their excuse was that maybe a few of her victims *did* commit crimes.

mintpressnews.com/human-rights-w…

Añez's group also contacted American mercenaries in an attempt to organize a second coup to prevent democracy's rebirth.

Here's leaked audio from a conversation they had, courtesy of @KawsachunNews:

Anyone serious about building a revolutionary movement needs to be studying Bolivia and the Movement to Socialism (MAS).

A good but somewhat outdated book on this is "The Rise of Evo Morales and the MAS" by Sven Harten.

There have been some pretty poor choices for the Sakharov Prize over the years, including Aung San Suu Kyi, who later presided over a genocide in Myanmar, and Leopoldo Lopez, who led a coup in Venezuela in 2002 and a wave of terroristic violence in 2014 that left dozens dead.