The Briefing
- Bolivia's former president Evo Morales formally launched CIMA—a new left-wing continental coalition—on Monday, October 12, to oppose Trump's Shield of the Americas security bloc.
- Morales compared the U.S.-led alliance to Plan Condor, arguing it now works through courts and prosecutors rather than generals.
- The announcement came as Morales hides inside Bolivia to evade two active arrest warrants—one for aggravated human trafficking, one for terrorism.
A three-day gathering of leftist social movements in Bolivia's cocalero heartland closed Monday with the formal creation of a new continental bloc designed to challenge the Trump administration's regional security architecture—and, by design, to build an international shield around its politically embattled founder.
A New Anti-Trump Bloc Takes Shape in the Bolivian Jungle
The Coordinación Internacionalista de los Movimientos Sociales Antimperialista del Abya Yala—known as CIMA—was formally constituted at the closing ceremony of the First International Anti-Imperialist and Decolonization Encounter, organized by the Runasur platform in Bolivia's Trópico de Cochabamba. The three-day event ran October 10 through 12, with its final session at the stadium in Sinahota—inside the cocalero stronghold where former President Evo Morales has sheltered since October 2024 to evade two active Bolivian arrest warrants.
Eight in-person delegations attended from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Mexico, with five more countries participating virtually. At the closing, delegates formally proclaimed Morales "the president of all peoples of the Americas" and pledged to defend him against Bolivian judicial proceedings—an unusual convergence of continental geopolitics and personal legal strategy.
Colombian delegate Sonia López, reading CIMA's founding declaration, described the new body as "antimperialist, anticolonialist, antifascist" and committed to building a socialist, plurinational order across the region.
Morales Frames the Shield as a New Plan Condor
The summit's most politically charged moment came when Morales reframed Trump's anti-cartel initiative through the lens of Cold War atrocity. The Shield of the Americas "is the rebirth of Plan Condor," he told delegates, according to Correo del Sur. He then added a sharp contemporary qualifier: unlike the original Condor network—which deployed generals and soldiers to suppress dissent—the current version, in his framing, now operates through judges, prosecutors, and electoral tribunals, making it "much more grave" than its historical predecessor.
Plan Condor was the covert coordination network run by South American military dictatorships from the early 1970s through the 1980s, responsible for the forced disappearances and killings of thousands across Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Applying that framework to a U.S.-endorsed counter-narcotics coalition is a calculated rhetorical escalation; the Shield's declared mandate—intelligence sharing and coordinated military operations against drug-trafficking networks—does not extend to political opponents.
What the Shield of the Americas Actually Is
Trump launched the coalition on March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami, alongside the leaders of 12 conservative-aligned governments. Its formal military arm is the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C). Since that founding summit, the bloc has grown to 19 member states, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth leading U.S. military coordination throughout. Colombia's accession was formalized in August 2026 at a Hegseth meeting in Panama with Colombia's defense minister, shortly after President Abelardo De La Espriella took office.
One detail sharpens Morales' positioning considerably: Bolivia's own government—led by President Rodrigo Paz—signed onto the Shield, placing Morales and his country's sitting executive in direct institutional conflict over the same foreign policy commitment. Mexico and Brazil remain outside the coalition.
Two Arrest Warrants and the Geopolitics of Self-Preservation
The international solidarity on display in the Trópico cannot be separated from Morales' worsening legal exposure inside Bolivia. A Bolivian tribunal declared him in contempt on May 11, 2026, issuing a capture warrant after he failed to appear at the opening of his trial in Tarija. Prosecutors allege he maintained a relationship with a 15-year-old while serving as president, fathering a child with her in 2016, and are seeking up to 20 years in prison on aggravated human trafficking charges. His legal team has challenged the proceedings on procedural grounds.
A second warrant arrived on July 29, 2026, from the Santa Cruz Fiscalía, which charged him with terrorism and armed insurrection linked to blockades his supporters held across Bolivia for more than 50 days in May and June—protests that left at least 22 people dead and forced President Paz to declare a national state of emergency.
Since October 2024, Morales has remained in the Trópico, protected by loyalist cocalero unions who have pledged to physically resist any police operation. By casting these proceedings as foreign-backed judicial persecution under the Shield framework—and by creating CIMA to amplify that argument regionally—Morales is converting a domestic legal crisis into an international defense narrative, with consequences designed to extend well beyond Bolivia's borders.
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