Unrest continued in Bolivia Thursday as protests against the right-wing coup that unseated democratically-elected President Evo Morales on Sunday and the anti-Indigenous ideology behind it entered their fourth day.
Demonstrators filled the streets of the Bolivian capitol, La Paz, waving the indigenous wiphala flag and registering their disapproval of the new interim government of Jeanine Añez.
“We don’t want any dictators,” protester Paulina Luchampe told Time Magazine on Wednesday. “This lady has stepped on us—that’s why we’re so mad.”
New president Añez has come under criticism for a history of comments promoting an extreme right-wing Christian theocratic ideology, including referring to the country’s Indigenous population as “satanic.”
Members of the country’s police and military forces, whose support for the coup over the weekend precipitated Morales’ resignation Sunday, have been photographed cutting the wiphala flag off of their uniforms.
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“Anti-Indigenous racism is at the heart of what’s happening in Bolivia,” tweeted Cherokee activist and writer Rebecca Nagle.
Right-wing militias burning the flag and attacking the country’s Indigenous protest movement mean that the conflict is more than just about political differences, said Bolivian feminist Adriana Guzman—it’s about the country’s right-wing being opposed to everything the Morales government stood for.
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