27th July, another Bolivian anniversary

This is a country very keen on its anniversaries and its history, a country with a big chip on its shoulders keen to emphasise national unity and create the semblance of a nation state. This, even though the state does not get to all those corners of the country where there is no health care, no education, no police presence, no justice…

So, anniversaries cover every single important event in Bolivia and in Latin America’s history. It was from current Bolivia after all, that the Latin American liberation from Spain was instigated exactly 200 years ago. There are, however, less memorable anniversaries; Bolivian defeats in the Pacific War, the Chaco War…just some of the many Bolivian defeats at war with her neighbours.

This time the anniversary is mine. I arrived here exactly on 27th May 2008 and I am now only weeks away from leaving (if they let me out of the country but that’s another story). In the interim, political events have been exhilarating (some) and depressing (others). These are some of them.

I arrived in the middle of a political campaign like I have never experienced before. Having taunted the president for endless months accusing him of being a ‘dictator’ scared to put his position under the scrutiny of the electorate, the opposition won the right to expel Evo Morales through a recall referendum – the first such event in Bolivian political history – to be held on 10th August.

I have never seen a more ruthless, unpleasant, vile campaign. One accepts that lies and politics are one and only thing. But in Bolivia, I heard open calls to the military to overthrow the president on live radio and TV, accusations of fraud before, during and after the referendum, in the most biased media campaign I have ever witnessed. It was a truly bizarre experience.

The result in favour of the president (with a 67 % support nationwide, even greater than expected) was followed by a mature call for dialogue with the opposition prefects. Not a chance. Those who before the election took the mantle of guardians of democracy, instigated from the regions a violent uprising led by violent thugs – racists and not a few neo-fascists paid by the opposition and the infamous civic committees in Santa Cruz – designed to destabilise the government, force a military intervention and provoke a few deaths that could serve as the basis to overthrow the same government that two thirds of the electorate had just legitimised with its support. The provocation went as far as to lead to the massacre of peasants in the northern department of Pando in the middle of September.

Fortunately for Bolivia, the events of 2003, when a previous president had to leave the country, did not repeat themselves. Instead, the government chopped off the head of the snake, so to speak, when the US ambassador was expelled from Bolivia, leaving the opposition prefects without a political rudder. Very soon things got back to a tense normality. Along with the ambassador, the DEA and USAID were also soon expelled from the country. The US response was swift and petty, suspending Bolivia’s special trade agreement ATPDA, something that new president Obama has only confirmed. Oh well, no surprises there in spite of some initial high hopes that Obama’s presidency symbolised a new beginning for US-Latin American relations.

For me, the second ‘historic’ moment took place on 21st October in the presidential square, Plaza Murillo. As the country has become accustomed to expect, there was a blocking of the law needed to call a referendum that would put to the Bolivian people the constitution drafted by 255 men and women elected for the purpose in 2006 (after many, some would say illegal changes made on it by Congress and a group of negotiators that included the opposition prefects in October 2008).

I have never seen a demonstration like this. Some estimate that as many as 100,000 people from all over the country marched on to La Paz to demand from congress their right to vote. They came, led by their own president, and they stayed for 30 hours outside congress, chanting, dancing, and listening to speeches. Every now and then the president himself, surrounded by the leaders of the social movements, had to make an appeal for calm, especially at 6 am when a group of miners, dynamite in hand were ready to storm congress. At last there was a law and it would be January 25th 2009 when Bolivia approved the new constitution that many hope will be the basis for refounding the state. We will know how when, after new elections in December, the new plurinational assembly – this is the new name for congress – begins to work.

The shine was rubbed off this process of change when days after the new constitution was approved, the head of the ‘nationalised’ oil and gas company was arrested after being involved in the worst corruption scandal of this administration. That the head of YPFB was someone with the total confidence of the president didn’t help. Oops, the MAS appeared to be not quite as virtuous as we thought.

At last (and at least), after such high level social and political confrontation, you could think that it was time for the country to pacify itself. Not a chance, I’m afraid. Only a couple of months later, antiterrorist police arrested two members of a terrorist cell (three others died in the shooting that ensued during the arrest) in Santa Cruz, just meters away from where I had been staying a couple of weeks earlier. There is more than enough evidence to link them to opposition leaders and businessmen from the Santa Cruz region. It seems that the same forces at work behind the recent Hondurean coup will not give up. Will they ever?

This month we have just celebrated the bicentennial of Bolivia’s role in the war of liberation from Spain. Celebrations are over and now begins the race towards the December elections that will continue the process of change that was set in motion with the victory of MAS in December 2005. It is difficult to know what might happen. All we can guarantee is that this will be another hot pre election period full of surprises.

Why the crisis in Honduras is so important for Bolivia

Sorry to go on about Honduras when this is a blog about Bolivia. I can't help to think, however, that what happens in Honduras is of enormous importance to Latin America generally, the standing of the US in the region, and to Bolivia in particular.

Let's start with the latest on the crisis. The negotiation table that Washington set up between the 'two contending parties', as Hillary Clinton referred to the coup instigators and the democratically elected president of the country, has failed. It has failed because the de facto president Micheletti has refused to attend the last two negotiation meetings chaired by Oscar Arias in Costa Rica. This has prompted Manuel Zelaya to declare his intentions to return to his country where he risks being detained and imprisoned. Or worse where his presence might lead to a civil insurrection with the possibility of violence and, dare I say it, civil war.

Meanwhile, a troubling 'legitimation' of the coup took place when a delegation of the golpistas visited Manuel Uribe in Colombia who showed signs of 'understanding' for the coup. This, by the way, a Colombian president who is seeking to change the constitution in order to get a third term. Wasn't Zelaya's attempt to hold a non-binding referendum on the possibility of having a second term the explanation given for the coup? Some people just have no sense of irony.

So why is this coup and its possible success a problem for Latin America and the US? Firstly, because it is happening with the tacit support of the US. Obama has called it illegal but Clinton seems to legitimise the coup when she refers to it as an internal political dispute. Sorry Hillary but it isn't. This is a very dangerous precedent in a region with long and bloody wars fuelled by US involvement.

The US is playing very dangerously with the great hopes of a new beginning in US-Latin American relations Obama created a few months ago in Trinidad and Tobago. All Latin American countries know that this coup would be over if the US withheld support for the military in Honduras. Not acting decisively on it is tantamount to supporting it. Except that Washington acted decisively to remove Miguel Insulza, head of the Organisation of American States, from the scene, installing instead Oscar Arias, a much safer pair of hands for those who want the coup to succeed.

Secondly, because progressive Latin American governments confronting extremist right oppositions like the Bolivian one, know that a coup victory in Honduras would set a very dangerous precedent in the region. Opposition leaders in Bolivia like the prefect of Santa Cruz have already declared themselves in support of the coup. This is interesting given that his usual accusation to this government is that there is no democracy in Bolivia. What is worrying is that a victory for the military and the coup in Honduras could make more, no less, possible, the replication of other similar attempts in Bolivia. We know that entrepreneurs and landowners from Santa Cruz recruited and paid the foreign mercenaries arrested in Santa Cruz arrested last March. Could Micheletti's victory in Honduras lead to more such attempts over here? The next few months leading to the presidential elections of December could be last opportunity for those who desperately want to reverse the process of change in Bolivia.

200 years of Bolivian independence

As the previous post mentioned, yesterday marked the 200th anniversary of the start of the rebellion in 1809 that would result in the independence of Bolivia 16 years later. The celebrations in La Paz were memorable but I thought that these pictures from the BBC do much more justice to them than any I could have taken so...enjoy.

The link is the following:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8155083.stm

Presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Paraguay visit La Paz

July 16 is the day when, 200 years ago, La Paz joined the cry for freedom from Spain, giving way to a revolutionary wave that led to the independence of all of the current South American countries. Today, that day is remembered in La Paz, with the presence of Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa and Paraguay’s president Lugo.

In the Villarroel square of La Paz, they are currently remembering Pedro Murillo, the independence leader who pronounced the words that have become so famous this year: “I will die but nobody will be able to put out the torch of freedom that we set alight today”. And so it was.

But 200 years later there is still a long way to go for those aspirations to become a reality. The signs of change are in the air with a new wave of democratic and progressive governments in power and united among themselves that have realigned the power relations with the US. The extent to which they are undertaking revolutionary changes as they claim is less clear. The mass of impoverished populations are still with them. Let’s hope that these governments can deliver more social justice before patience runs out.

Ex ministro de dictadura boliviana conoció sentencia condenatoria

PRENSA LATINA
PL Agencia Informativa Latinoamericana S.A.
o o o o

La Paz, 13 jul (PL) La justicia boliviana presentó hoy al ex ministro de Interior Luis Arce Gómez (1980-1981) la condena a 30 años de prisión sin derecho a indulto, por delitos de lesa humanidad vinculados a la dictadura.
Arce Gómez, ex funcionario del gobierno de facto de Luis García Meza, arribó a la nación andina el pasado jueves deportado de Estados Unidos para cumplir la pena, impuesta aquí en ausencia en 1993.
El ex coronel del ejército, también conocido como rey de la cocaína, pasó los últimos 18 años en una cárcel norteamericana por tráfico de drogas.
En Bolivia fue procesado en rebeldía y por eso ahora hacemos pública la sentencia condenatoria, dijo el juez de ejecución penal José Ayaviri, quien leyó el dictamen.
Tras la llegada al país, Arce Gómez fue recluido en una cárcel de máxima seguridad, el mismo penal en el que cumple su condena García Meza, responsable de las jornadas sangrientas del golpe de Estado del 17 de julio de 1980.
Como ministro de Interior organizó y comandó grupos paramilitares que asesinaron a líderes opositores. Fue sentenciado por el asesinato de 11 de ellos entre 1980 y 1981.
En una abierta muestra de chantaje, así calificada por el vocero gubernamental Iván Canelas, el reo pidió a través de su abogado una reducción de la sentencia a cambio de revelar dónde están los restos del líder del Partido Socialista Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz y otros desaparecidos.
"Ese pedido nos confirma una vez más que Arce Gómez conoce dónde fue conducido el cuerpo de Quiroga Santa Cruz luego de su asesinato", recalcó Canelas.
Indicó que por moral, debería, sin chantaje alguno, decir dónde están los restos del dirigente socialista y los de otros líderes como Carlos Flores y Gualberto Vega, desaparecidos en la década de 1980.