48 THENEWYORKER,MARCH23, 2020
which by all accounts still seethed with
anger toward the police force. Alarcón
said he was organizing a potluck lunch,
and he hoped that Senkata people would
attend. He was also intending to hold
a Catholic Mass, he said, “for those of
us who believe in God.”
The town seemed unreceptive. One
morning, a fund-raiser was held on El
Alto’s scrappy outskirts for the families
of the victims of the massacre. In a small
plaza, just past the Senkata facility, a stage
had been set up, with a backdrop that
read “The coup is against the people.”
An Andean band played charango and
flute, and a group of university students
from La Paz danced. The smell of burn-
ing palo santo filled the air, and venders
sold “solidarity food”—empanadas and
hot dogs—with the proceeds going to
the victims’ families. A bulletin board
next to the stage showed photographs
of the dead, and placards read “This de-
mocracy censors, persecutes, and kills.”
A pale, bearded man stood onstage
and explained that “oil companies backed
by Yankee imperialism” had been be-
hind the events in Senkata. He spoke
about unrest in Mexico, strife in Pales-
tine, and the protesters in Hong Kong,
concluding, “It’s all the same struggle.”
He was followed by a rapper, who de-
livered furiously charged lyrics that de-
scribed the Palestinians and the people
of El Alto as allies in the “battles of the
world.” In the end, he said, “the true re-
sistance is right here.”
W
hen I saw Morales in Mexico,
he told me that he had been up
since three-thirty that morning, work-
ing the phones, strategizing with his
supporters. From exile, he carefully mon-
itored the developments back home,
and adjusted his message as necessary
to keep himself relevant. When MAS
agreed to start negotiating with the Áñez
government, he shook off the slight and
announced that he would no longer
seek to be President. After his deputies
voted to accept his resignation, Morales
took on a new role, as the Party’s cam-
paign manager. If he could no longer
be king, he would be the kingmaker.
In mid-December, Morales called in
to a gathering in Cochabamba, where
several thousand MAS loyalists had as-
sembled to discuss the Party’s future.
Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third-largest city,
sits in a fertile Andean valley southeast
of La Paz—the gateway to the Chapare,
the coca-growing region that is Mo-
rales’s political base.
The assembly was held at a stadium
called La Coronilla. On the sidewalk,
people hawked DVDs: “Learn the truth
about the coup financed by the United
States!” Inside, several thousand people
filled the bleachers, waving wiphala flags
and buying snacks from strolling vend-
ers. A folk musician sang anti-imperi-
alist lyrics to warm up the crowd. Min-
ers wearing orange plastic helmets strode
around purposefully.
As horns called the crowd to atten-
tion, an announcer welcomed MAS del-
egations from around the country, to
cheers in Spanish, Aymara, and Que-
chua. The national anthem played, and
people stood, one hand over their heart
and the other clenched in a fist. After
a moment’s silence for fallen comrades,
the leader of the Cochabamba MAS con-
tingent spoke, ending with a shout of
“Down with traitors!,” which the crowd
echoed rowdily. When the announcer
declared that Morales “will return soon,”
there were chants of “Evo, Evo, Evo!”
and “Evo, you are not alone!”
I was sitting with a woman who had
worked in Morales’s administration. She
had quit out of frustration with the priv-
ileged circle around Evo—the llunkus,
as she called them, “who surrounded
and isolated him from the people.” There
was a rumor that Morales might leaveMexico for Argentina, and, if he did,
she said, “I hope he goes alone so he
can be by himself for a while, and think.
He needs to.”
Still, the former aide joined in as the
crowd chanted pro-Evo slogans. “The
idea behind this assembly is unity, to
leave divisions behind,” she said. The
crowd was unruly, and the atmosphere
was tense; it was the first time since
Morales’s resignation that MAS had
gathered in large numbers, and policehelicopters buzzed in the air outside.
She showed me Twitter messages sent
by right-wingers; one urged the gov-
ernment to take advantage of the as-
sembly to “capture the mas criminals.”
In the bleachers, people took up defiant
chants: “Long live our wiphala, long live
our coca leaf !” Someone handed out a
bitter message printed on a flyer:Áñez, little dyed woman,
Self-proclaimed dictator,
you authorized the killing of
Bolivians, you murderer!
Sellout to Yankee imperialism,
Accursed traitor,
The BOLIVIANS say
you will not pass,
Nor will God pardon your hypocrisy.A speaker announced that “Presi-
dent Evo” was going to speak, and a
hush fell. A moment later, Morales’s
voice filled the stadium. He saluted his
“compañeros y compañeras,” denounced
the “fascist, racist coup,” and promised
that he would “soon be back in Bolivia.”
The crowd clapped and cheered. Evo
stressed the need for unity and for the
assembly to agree on candidates for the
upcoming elections, which he was sure
the Party would win.
After Morales signed off, another
delegate came onstage to denounce the
“cowards and sellouts” who had aban-
doned their positions during the crisis,
taking refuge in embassies or fleeing
the country. The former aide explained
the vindictive tone: “Many of those who
went into the embassies are seen as
cowards because they were not actually
being persecuted.”
From the crowd, I spotted one of the
officials who had resigned: Adriana Sal-
vatierra, the former Senate leader, whose
departure had allowed Áñez to take
power. Salvatierra, thirty years old, with
long hair, wore jeans and a black T-shirt
that depicted a rising sun. I asked her if
it had been a mistake for Evo and the
MAS leadership to resign, given every-
thing that had happened since. “We made
some tactical and also strategic mistakes,”
she allowed. What about herself? She
could be Bolivia’s President right now.
Did she have any regrets? Salvatierra
shook her head. Even if she had tried to
assume the Presidency, Morales’s oppo-
nents would not have let her. “A coup
was under way, and had been planned
long beforehand,” she insisted. “History