US masterminded ‘coup’ in Bolivia to tap its lithium, ex-president Morales claims

Evo Morales, the immediate-past president of Bolivia has claimed that the United States of America orchestrated a ‘coup’ to force him out of office in a bid to gain access to the country’s vast lithium resources.

The former leader regarded as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president in an interview publised on Wednesday said that the move by the US to remove him from office was an international coup d’etat.

He said; “It was a national and international coup d’etat,” Morales said in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, where he has been living in exile after claiming asylum. “Industrialised countries don’t want competition.”

Morales said Washington had not “forgiven” his country for choosing to seek lithium extraction partnerships with Russia and China rather than the US.

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“That’s why I’m absolutely convinced it’s a coup against lithium,” he said.

“We as a state had begun industrialising lithium … As a small country of 10 million inhabitants; we were soon going to set the price of lithium.”

“They know we have the greatest lithium reserves in the world of 16,000 square kilometres (more than 6,100 square miles).

His comments comes after he resigned as president on November 10 following protests against his controversial re-election to an unconstitutional fourth term in a poll widely denounced as rigged.

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