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The former president warned about the risks of privatizing Bolivia's resources.
Bolivia's acting president, Janine Añez, is planning to hand over the country's natural resources to transnationals, according to a tweet posted on Tuesday by former president Evo Morales.
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"The de facto government is making arrangements to give the lithium project away to transnationals, against the Constitution and the interests of the country, and thus compromises the future of the nation," denounced Evo.
What right does she have to compromise our future? We have to remember that the repression against our natives was mostly because of the lithium.
Morales, who resigned from the presidency last November, forced by a coup against him, stated that the plot against his administration was a move from the government of the United States, to secure "the largest lithium reserves in the world, larger than Chile and Argentina."
"We had our own lithium industrialization project, and the United States could not turn a blind eye to this policy of ours," he said.
Denuncio al pueblo boliviano que el gobierno de facto avanza en acuerdos para la entrega del proyecto de litio a transnacionales en contra de la CPE y los intereses del país. ¿Con qué mandato y legitimidad compromete nuestro futuro?
— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) May 19, 2020
El golpe al indio fue sobre todo por el litio. pic.twitter.com/VWDplrpub5
A couple of months ago, Luis Arce Catacora, presidential candidate for the Movement to Socialism (MAS), alerted that Añez was dissolving the agreements made under Evo's term.
"We made agreements with a German company to sign a contract and start the export of lithium from Bolivia; however, it was paralyzed by a political decision," Arce said at the time, adding that Añez is aiming to drive state enterprises to bankruptcy and then privatize them.
Arce was referring to a contract signed with the German company ACI System. With that operation, Bolivia would have estimated profits of 4.5 billion dollars a year. According to him, the facto government plans to do business with other companies, presumably from the United States.
Lithium is a highly desired mineral, especially for its use in batteries. Bolivia has the largest reserves of this mineral in the world, concentrated mostly in the Salar de Uyuni, in the department of Potosi.
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