Evo Morales was visibly relieved when he landed at 11:00 am local time on Tuesday at Mexico City's International Airport. He thanked head of state Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who had sent a machine of the Mexican Air Force to his rescue in Bolivia: "He has saved my life."
One day before his resignation, his enemies had tried to bribe his bodyguards, Bolivia's ex-president, who was forced to resign by the military, said, "They offered $ 50,000 if they had surrendered to me." Opponents of the ex-president, who was forced to resign by the military, devastated his home in Cochabamba, also destroying his sister's apartment.
That Morales could still leave the country unscathed, he has to thank the Mexican government. A few hours before the arrival of the Bolivian Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard described in the morning press conference of the Mexican President, which political, diplomatic and technical hurdles the Mexicans had to overcome to Morales fly out.
"Journey through Latin American politics"
The rescue operation was "a journey through Latin American politics," said Ebrard - and is as upset and polarized as in decades.
Already on Monday, the Mexican government had sent the plane. The machine waited in the Peruvian capital Lima for the entry permit of the Bolivian authorities.
That came too, but when the jet flew into the Bolivian airspace, it was revoked - it was apparently not clear who was in charge on the ground. Then the plane flew back to Lima.
Peru revoked the permission to refuel
While the plane was waiting in Peru, Ebrard publicly announced that Mexico was granting Morales asylum and concerned about his "physical integrity". So he increased the diplomatic pressure on the authorities in Bolivia. Finally, the armed forces gave the green light - so "was clear who in Bolivia now has the power," said Ebrard.
At 19.00 clock the jet landed on a former base of the US drug agency DEA in the coca growing area Chapare. Morales had rebuilt the base years ago into a civilian airport after expelling the country's DEA agents.
He had fled from La Paz's government headquarters to Chapare because he felt safe there. In that area, he had once started his political career as the leader of the coca farmers, where most people still believe him to be loyal.
On the way to Mexico, the aircraft should land again in Lima to refuel. But at 19.30 clock, shortly before taking off, the Foreign Minister of the Conservative Peruvian government had informed him that he had withdrawn from "political considerations" the license to refuel, so Ebrard.
Friendly gesture from Jair Bolsonaro
"It was the worst moment because Morales' followers gathered in front of the Bolivian airfield and inside were military." Apparently it could have come at any moment to bloody clashes. While the machine was waiting in Bolivia, the Mexicans worked on a plan B:
- Argentina's elected President Alberto Fernández, a moderate leftist close to Mexico's head of state López Obrador, had the saving idea.
- He called Paraguay's President Mario Abdo, who allowed the Mexicans to stop and refuel in Asunción.
- But when they wanted to withdraw from the Paraguayan capital, the Bolivian authorities refused to fly over to the north.
- Then the Brazilian ambassador in La Paz offered his help.
In an "almost miraculous" way, Ebrard said, right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro's government granted permission to fly north along the Brazilian border until the Peruvian airspace was reached.
Ebrard expressly thanked the Brazilians for this unexpectedly friendly gesture. On a renewed stopover in Peru or Ecuador, the fully fueled machine could do without; Seven hours later, Morales landed safely in Mexico together with his resigned vice-president Alvaro García Linera and his former minister of health.
Asylum law has a long tradition in Mexico
It is no coincidence that Mexico, of all things, is picking up the Bolivians. It has a long tradition in the country to grant persecuted politicians asylum. The right to asylum is enshrined in the constitution:
- In Mexico, among others, Leon Trotsky took refuge; he was murdered here by an agent of Stalin.
- Many German intellectuals fled from the Nazis to Mexico, among them the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch and the writer Anna Seghers.
- Even tens of thousands of Spaniards who fled the civil war in the 1930s found shelter in Mexico.
- Mexico also granted asylum to many Latin American politicians. The family of Chilean President Salvador Allende, who was ousted in 1973, was accepted, as well as the future Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú from Guatemala and the ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.
The right to asylum is the basis of his "new foreign policy," left-wing President Obrador said: "We're referring to Mexico's diplomatic history." However, this generosity is not well received by all Mexicans. Granting Evo Morales asylum meant "negating the electoral fraud he committed against the Bolivian people," columnist Luis Cárdenas criticized in the newspaper "El Universal."
Mexico is back on the international stage
It is also unclear whether the new generosity also applies to the tens of thousands of Central Americans who are stranded fleeing the violence in their home countries in Mexico because they were rejected at the US border. Many report about attacks and ill-treatment.
However, one thing is undeniable: Mexico has successfully returned to the international scene with the inclusion of Morales', after Obrador had previously neglected foreign policy. A few days before Morales arrived, the elected president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, had come to Mexico. It was his first trip abroad after his election victory.
Fernández wants to forge a new political axis of the moderate left in Latin America, which reaches from Buenos Aires to Mexico City. Obrador had reacted cautiously to this push, and domestic politics was a priority for him.
But that could quickly change as the riots in Latin America spread to a wildfire: then it is no longer enough to offer asylum and otherwise hold out with reference to the principle of non-intervention. Then Obrador will have to become active as a foreign politician.