UN report confirms Pando massacre

In a further blow to opposition leaders who have done their utmost to discredit the UNASUR report on the Pando massacre that took place 11 September 2008, today, Canadian Denis Racicot, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bolivia presented his report in La Paz.
In it, he confirms previous findings that what took place in Pando was a massacre and not an armed confrontation like the Bolivian opposition have tried to argue. His report says that “…the massacre of peasants constitutes a grave violation of human rights perpetrated by employees of the prefecture, Sedcam (a road maintenance service dependent on the prefecture), and members of the civic committee of Pando”.
Not good news for a former prefect – Leopoldo Fernandez – who, from prison, has recently had an unusual degree of access to UNITEL’s news programmes (telephone interviews and all) to present himself as a martyr and political prisoner of what the opposition increasingly argue is becoming a totalitarian state.
The prosecutor’s own investigation is still pending but six months after he was arrested accused of ordering the indiscriminate killing of peasants in Porvenir, it seems that international organisations are speaking with one voice regarding the less than benign political actions of the opposition. Of those, one at least (prefect of Tarija Mario Cossio) is accused both of corruption and of incitement to criminal damage during the attempted coup that took place during the days leading up to the massacre.
We will have to see what a justice system that has always pronounced itself in favour of the rich and powerful delivers this time. Given that 2009 is an electoral year, we can only expect that these political battles will be intensely fought.