Does he play with the military? He plays for the military.
Pelao Carvallo*
A Bolivian citizen, through an audio message, told us at the time of the attempted coup in Bolivia that it was difficult to know what was happening and proposed three hypotheses: one that it was an "old-fashioned" coup, that is, the work of the military alone; another that it was a plot between President Arce and the military, but he doubted this because he had changed the high command of the army after the attempt; finally, his last hypothesis was that it was a plot between former President Evo Morales and the military, but given the complexity of the moment, whatever the plot was, it wouldn't be known then... only later.
Coup attempts are not uncommon in Latin America, no matter how much current democracies would have us believe they are a thing of the past. Little historical time has passed since the ignominious decades of military dictatorships.[1] On the one hand, it's as if the military's influence has diminished significantly in our societies and institutions in such a short time that even parliamentary coups or self-coups are only successful if they have the approval of the military and police. Bolsonaro knows this very well, having lacked it in January 2023.[2].
Demilitarization processes are only effective when they respond to a social demand that is supported institutionally, while remilitarization processes, in contrast, are very rapid and require only institutional impetus. These processes have been extensively researched in Latin America.[3] And one of the key conclusions is that halting militarization and remilitarization processes is far from easy. Handing over parts of democratic and/or social institutions to the military under the pretext of temporary or emergency reasons often becomes permanent, and once they control a portion of those institutions, they tend to acquire even more. President Calderón's "war on drugs" in Mexico so thoroughly involved the armed forces that it was practically continued by his successor, President Peña Nieto, leaving a trail of deaths and disappearances as emblematic as those of Ayotzinapa.[4]The successor of the successor, the still current president López, gave more impetus to the militarization of society by creating a militarized National Guard and handing over national public works to the military administration, such as the Maya Train.[5]The military temptation seduces governments regardless of their political affiliation.
Another example is offered by Chile and the militarization of the border, which began tentatively with the construction of trenches on the northern border under the government of Michelle Bachelet and continued with the complete militarization of the northern border during the government of the right-wing Sebastián Piñera.[6] This situation persists even today with a left-wing government led by President Boric.
Yesterday's events in Bolivia point to an ongoing process of remilitarization. We already saw some signs of this in the crisis following the 2019 elections, when police and military involvement involved both granting and withdrawing support for the opposing sides. The three hypotheses presented in the aforementioned audio recording are bad news for Latin America. The first, the "autonomous" hypothesis, suggests that the situation, the context, has led the military to believe they can intervene with little consequence. The extent of the intervention remains to be seen: whether it was a failed attempt or a trial run. In any case, the military apparatus has learned a great deal from this action, and a simple change of high command is insufficient to undo that learning, unless that change of command was itself part of the trial. Either of the other two hypotheses amounts to the same thing: the political apparatus using the military to manipulate the situation to its advantage. This effectively grants institutional space to the military and accelerates the militarization process by leaps and bounds. It speaks poorly of the political skills of those who ventured to create that scenario and speaks volumes about the political naiveté of believing that the military had no agenda of its own (and someone else's, who knows what kind of otherness) in this or any other scenario. Did they play with the military? Well, they played for the military.
The temptation to stage coups in Latin America is historical, and we must not be naive enough to think it is something distant and belonging to other generations. It is here, now, throughout the region, in civilian governments of all stripes that, openly and covertly, appease the military by granting them positions and resources. A coherent and firm medium- and long-term social, educational, institutional, and cultural process of demilitarization is one of the few, if not the only, guarantees against military coups, and it must begin by excluding the military from the solution to political and social crises.
26 June, 2024
* Advisor to War Resisters' International (WRI), member of the Latin American and Caribbean Antimilitarist Network (RAMALC) CLACSO Working Group on Collective Memories and Practices of Resistance.
[1] (60s, 70s and 80s).
[2] https://www.dw.com/es/bolsonaro-citado-a-declarar-ante-la-polic%C3%ADa-por-el-supuesto-intento-de-golpe-de-estado/a-68302186
[3] For example, the bibliography of this article https://paraguay.sociales.uba.ar/wp-content/uploads/sites/129/archivos/P_Carvallo22016.pdf
[4] https://www.cndh.org.mx/noticia/desaparicion-de-43-estudiantes-de-la-escuela-normal-rural-raul-isidro-burgos-ayotzinapa-0
[5] https://www.forbes.com.mx/gobierno-de-mexico-le-entrega-al-ejercito-la-administracion-del-tren-maya/
[6] https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-pinera-autoriza-ejercito-intervenir-control-migratorio-frontera-norte-chile-20210112173425.html
