Luis Fernando Camacho

Luis Fernando Camacho Vaca (born 15 February 1979) is a Bolivian lawyer, businessman and activist. He is a member of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement in Bolivia, and has been the chair of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz since 2019. He emerged as a major critic of Evo Morales in the 2019 Bolivian general elections, demanding Morales resign on 5 November 2019.

Quotes

 * I’m not going with weapons, I’m going with my faith and my hope; with a Bible in my right hand and a resignation letter [for Morales] in my left hand.
 * Quoted in How Bolivia's Evo Morales Was Brought Down With the Help of an Obscure Conservative With a Bible Time (magazine), (15 November 2019)

Quotes about

 * In addition to whitewashing Áñez, corporate journalists have sought to sanitize the image of the figure widely considered to be the real force behind the coup: Christian fundamentalist multimillionaire Luis Fernando Camacho.
 * Camacho is quite literally a fascist who got his political start in the sieg-heiling Santa Cruz Youth Union, an ultra-right paramilitary outfit that was instrumental in the Santa Cruz oligarchy’s 2008 US-backed secessionist plot which ultimately failed.
 * But none of this appears to matter to the Western media, which have portrayed Camacho as a “conservative protest leader” (BBC, 11/13/19), “a firebrand Christian” (Financial Times, 11/12/19) and a “civic leader” (Reuters, 11/7/19).
 * Western Media Whitewash Bolivia’s Far-Right Coup, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), (15 November 2019)


 * He’s managed to build a radical movement, entirely around opposition to Evo—anti-Evismo, Everything that’s being done right now, the whole political agenda [Bolivia’s new government] is pushing right now is the agenda of Camacho.
 * How Bolivia's Evo Morales Was Brought Down With the Help of an Obscure Conservative With a Bible Time (magazine),Quoting: Marcelo Arequipa, a political science professor at the Catholic University of Bolivia. (15 November 2019)


 * A 40-year-old multi-millionaire businessman from the separatist stronghold of Santa Cruz, Camacho has never run for office. Like Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó, whom more than 80 percent of Venezuelans had never heard of until the U.S. government anointed him as supposed “president,” Camacho was an obscure figure until the coup attempt in Bolivia hit its stride.
 * Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.
 * He first created his Twitter account on May 27, 2019. For months, his tweets went ignored, generating no more than three or four retweets and likes. Before the election, Camacho did not have a Wikipedia article, and there were few media profiles on him in Spanish- or English-language media. Camacho issued a call for a strike on July 9, posting videos on Twitter that got just over 20 views.
 * Max Blumenthal  and Ben Norton  in Bolivia Coup Led by Christian Fascist Paramilitary Leader, a Multi-Millionaire – with Foreign Support, Consortium News, (12 November 2019)