Glenn Greenwald, a co-founder and editor of The Intercept, said that the New York Times’s coverage of the Organization of American States (OAS) preliminary audit of the Bolivian election could have contributed to former president Evo Morales’s ouster.
The Times reported this month that the OAS report, which accused Morales of election fraud, may have been flawed.
“The OAS has long been viewed in Latin America as a tool of the United States,” Greenwald told Hill TV’s “Rising” on Thursday, noting that the U.S. funds about 70 percent of the OAS budget.
“There was no fraud in the election itself, the fraud was in the OAS study,” Greenwald said. “This was not the first example of scholars claiming that but because the New York Times for whatever their reasons decided to report on it, it was elevated to mainstream acceptability.”
Morales was ousted in 2019 and the right-wing, U.S-backed party took power without an election. Morales originally found asylum in Mexico but relocated to Argentina.
“This is a case where the U.S., working with the OAS and right-wing factions of Bolivia, just destroyed a prosperous, stable democracy,” Greenwald said. “It seems like another story of the U.S. through its interference — not through Twitter bots and Facebook ads — but with supporting hardcore military force, driving and elected leader out of a country.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.