[ Tens of thousands of supporters greet Bolivian ex-president
during his triumphant return to Chimoré] [[link removed]]
‘WE’RE IN POWER NOW’: EVO MORALES MAKES GLEEFUL RETURN TO TOWN
HE FLED
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Tom Phillips and Dan Collyns
November 11, 2020
The Guardian
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_ Tens of thousands of supporters greet Bolivian ex-president during
his triumphant return to Chimoré _
Evo Morales waves during a rally in Chimoré, Cochabamba, Bolivia, on
11 November., Photograph: Juan Karita/AP
Tens of thousands of jubilant followers have welcomed Evo Morales
[[link removed]] back to the
coca-growing region from which he fled into exile exactly one year ago
after what they branded a racist rightwing coup.
“Evo, Evo, Evo,” chanted the people who had travelled from all
over Bolivia [[link removed]] to witness
their leader’s triumphant return home in the jungle-flanked town of
Chimoré.
Bolivia’s first indigenous president resigned and abandoned the
South American country on 11 November 2019, making his escape on a
Mexican air force jet that whisked him out of Chimoré’s airport.
Morales decided to bolt when security forces withdrew their support
after later questioned claims of electoral fraud in the presidential
election sparked street protests and deadly unrest.
But on Wednesday, two days after re-entering Bolivia at the start of
an emotional, politically-charged homecoming
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he made a gleeful return to the same town – to a rapturous
reception.
In a highly symbolic move, tens of thousands of followers from across
the country had gathered on the runway from which Morales took flight.
[Supporters of Morales attend a rally to welcome him to Chimoré on 11
November.]
Supporters of Morales attend a rally to welcome him to Chimoré on 11
November. Photograph: Juan Karita/AP
Addressing them from a stage decked with green, yellow and red
balloons, Morales declared: “We knew we were not alone. We knew we
would return.”
Wreathed in white flowers and coca leaves, the former coca growers
union leader thanked the crowd for its support during his year-long
banishment, railed against the US and mocked Jeanine Áñez, the
conservative senator who took power after he was forced from office.
Morales, 61, recalled how in January Áñez had urged the Bolivian
people to stop “the savages” from regaining power.
“The Bolivian right and the global right should know: the savages
are back in government,” he added sarcastically. “We’re in power
now.”
Morales decision to return to Bolivia, just weeks after his party
reclaimed the presidency in a re-run of last year’s election, has
enraged opponents and unnerved some within his own party, the Movement
For Socialism (Mas).
Bolivia’s new leftwing president, Luís Arce, has distanced himself
from his predecessor and has not taken part in Morales’s caravan to
Chapare province.
But Morales is still adored in many parts of the country for the
social, economic and racial strides Bolivia made during his three
terms in power. There have been scenes of joy this week as the exiled
politician crossed Bolivia’s southern border with Argentina and
headed north towards the jungle-covered Chapare region where he began
his political career in the 1980s.
[A supporter holds a poster of Morales during a rally to welcome him
to Chimoré on 11 November.]
A supporter holds a poster of Morales during a rally to welcome him to
Chimoré on 11 November. Photograph: STF/AP
Before Morales spoke in Chimoré, Justina Choque, 37, had fought her
way to the front of the throng. She beamed in anticipation under
wide-brimmed hat.
“We will never forget our president Evo. He identifies our roots. He
represents the poor, the peasants, and this story will never be
forgotten. He will always be our undisputed leader,” said Choque, a
coordinator for the Mas party in Cochabamba.
“We have lived through massacres, with dead and wounded,” she
said, recalling the shooting of unarmed civilians at the height of
last year’s unrest
[[link removed]].
“But thanks to Luís Arce, we got back our country.”
Nearby, a group held up a banner commemorating Roberth Calisaya, 20,
who was killed last year when soldiers opened fire on demonstrators in
Santa Cruz.
“When [Evo] left, there was a dictatorship that persecuted our
people,” said María Poma, whose sister was wounded in unrest.
“They showed no mercy to my sister, in spite of her being a woman,
and they beat and tortured her as if she was a man.
“We want justice for all the victims. We want justice from that damn
dictatorship we lived through,” said Mark Frauz, another family
member. “It’s a joy for us that Evo has returned.”
Along the road north Morales was serenaded by brass bands and mobbed
by devotees shouting words of support or clutching the multicoloured
indigenous Wiphala flag that Morales made one of Bolivia’s national
standards.
“The fight goes on,” the former cocalero activist proclaimed as
his motorcade began its three-day journey back on Monday morning. On
Tuesday the former union leader visited his childhood home in Orinoca
wearing an Andean poncho.
Addressing the rally in Chimoré on Wednesday, Juan Carlos Huarachi,
the head of the Bolivian Workers’ Centre, urged Morales’s
champions to celebrate the return of “comrade Evo” and the defeat
of the right.
“We did not surrender, _carajo!_ We fought back … The people are
responsible for this revolution,” Huarachi said.
“Comrade Evo isn’t just a domestic leader. He’s a Latin American
leader and he’s a world leader,” he added. “Thanks to him we
have our dignity. Thanks to him, comrades, we have recovered our
identity.”
_Tom Phillips is the Guardian's Latin America correspondent. Dan
Collyns is a British multimedia journalist based in Peru._
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