Bolivia

Items

• Santa Cruz targeted in "terrorist plot" investigation

  31 May 2009 Hits: 162

  With the investigation into the alleged plot to assassinate President Evo Morales [RA-09-04] yet to yield definitive results, the government is, with some evidence of suspicious activity, using the threat of terrorism to move on Santa Cruz, the bastion of opposition to Morales and driving force for autonomy in the country.

  More than a month has passed since the 16 April raid in a Santa Cruz hotel in which three supposed presidential assassins - Michael Martin Dwyer, an Irishman; Árpád Magyarosi, a Romanian-Hungarian; and Jorge Eduardo Rózsa Flores, a Bolivian-Hungarian - died in a gun battle with an elite police unit.

  The special congressional committee set up to investigate the alleged “international terrorist group" behind the foiled plot has identified Luis Alberto Hurtado Vaca, a board member of the Cooperativa de Telecomunicaciones Santa Cruz (Cotas) as the main link between the would-be assassins and the Santa Cruz business lobby. Hurtado - who is currently at large - apparently paid for the substantial hotel bills run up by the supposed terrorists in Santa Cruz over a couple of months. Weapons were also found at a Cotas stand at a Santa Cruz exhibition centre.

  With the two men arrested at the time of the hotel raid currently detained in La Paz for questioning (a Hungarian, Elöd Tóásó and a Bolivian-Croatian, Mario Tádic), the other two men arrested in relation to the case, Juan Carlos Gueder Bruno and Alcides Mendoz Malavi have more evident links to the Santa Cruz autonomists. Both were prominent figures in the thuggish Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), which rightwing politicians in Santa Cruz use to intimidate Morales's supporters.

  The investigating committee is also interviewing more than 20 Santa Cruz business leaders including former president of the rightwing Comité pro Santa Cruz, Branko Marinkovic and Santa Cruz governor, Rubén Costas, both of whom deny all links and dismiss the moves as a smear campaign and a political vendetta.

  The government was bolstered by the findings of the forensic investigation institute (Idif) which backed its claim that the three men had died in a gun battle rather than a one-sided assault. It has not, however, escaped criticism over its handling of the investigation; the opposition filed complaints objecting to the fact that the federal investigator in charge of the case, Marcelo Soza, was encouraging witnesses to give press conferences after they had testified to him. Both Gueder and Mendoz also complained that they had been maltreated by the police and come under pressure to name members of the Santa Cruz business lobby. Contrary to Soza's report, both categorically deny having named Marinkovic and Costas.

  The government has used the threat of “terrorism" to justify certain measures which, opponents claim, are unashamedly aimed at Santa Cruz; on 3 May, Morales inaugurated a new joint military-police command base in San Ignacio de Velasco, about 450 kilometres east of Santa Cruz city. He was quite clear about its purpose: “It was because of the presence of separatists and terrorists in Bolivia and in the department of Santa Cruz that we decided to reinforce the armed forces".

  Then on 20 May Morales approved a decree allowing the government to seize property from citizens suspected of terrorism or separatism. Countering accusations that the measure was in fact a means of stifling dissent, the government argued that the decree does nothing more than enact anti-terrorist provisions included in the new constitution.

  • Autopsy

  The report by Bolivia's forensic investigation institute (Idif) released on 12 May showed that the three alleged presidential assassins died in a gun battle; both Árpád Magyarosi and Jorge Eduardo Rózsa Flores received seven gun shots while Michael Martin Dwyer received six. However, doubts remain, at least in relation to Dwyer; an article in The Irish Times claims an initial post-mortem examination showed the Irishman died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

• Morales moves against judiciary

  31 May 2009 Hits: 259

  Days before the start of the trial of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (1993-1997 and 2002-2003), the country's most high profile case since the 1995 trial of former dictator Luis Garcí­a Mesa, the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) voted to suspend president of the supreme justice court (CJS), Eddy Fernández. While government opponents decried the move as an attempt at “decapitating" the judiciary, the opposition-led senate has yet to issue its own ruling. Many consider his acquittal a foregone conclusion and the MAS vote little more than a response to considerable pressure from Morales' grassroots supporters.

  On 13 May, the lower chamber of congress, where the MAS commands a majority, voted to suspend Fernández on charges of procrastination and dereliction of duty (in that he is accused of having delayed the Sánchez de Lozada trial). Along with 16 of his ministers, Sánchez de Lozada is accused of genocide after an army clampdown on anti-government protests in 2003 resulted in 65 dead. The case has been held up in the courts for years, a sign of the weakness of Bolivia's judicial system.

  With difficulties between the judiciary and executive hardly a new phenomenon under the Morales administration (see sidebar), the government has become increasingly vocal in its hostility towards the CSJ since February, following the court's failure to respond to repeated requests for the accused to be supervised and prevented from leaving the country. The magistrates maintained there was insufficient evidence of a flight risk, despite the fact that some of the accused had already left the country.

  Then, in March, Vice President Alvaro Garcí­a Linera and the defence minister, Walker San Miguel called for Fernández, accused in the past by the government of affiliation to the now-defunct rightwing party, the Nueva Fuerza Republicana (NFR), to be sent to prison for delaying the course of justice.

  Following the 13 May vote by the lower chamber, the senate has yet to rule on Fernández's suspension. However, given that it is dominated by the opposition, a situation which has long proved a thorn in the side of Morales, many believe the acquittal of the former CJS president a foregone conclusion. Morales recently expressed his frustration with the constant obstacles thrown up by the senate and reiterated hopes that the December general elections would result in a changed scenario; he told his followers in Cochabamba, “I hope that from December this year we shall really enjoy power [which means] that we should have the executive, legislative and judicial powers. Right now we are not in power, only in government. We are doing what we can by decree". His aim is for the MAS not only to secure his re-election in the elections scheduled for 6 December, but also to win majorities in both chambers of congress

  Trial begins
  Five days after the MAS voted to suspend Fernández, his interim replacement, another CJS magistrate, Beatriz Sandoval, began hearing oral arguments in the trial of Sánchez de Lozada. The case is considered crucial to ending a history of impunity for government abuses.

  However, Sánchez de Lozada and three of his ministers are in exile in the US, three have recently been granted political asylum in Peru (which in turn has damaged Peru-Bolivia relations -see page?), one is in Spain and one has gone missing. This creates problems as, according to Bolivian law, a trial cannot proceed if the accused is not present.

  In November last year, Bolivia formally requested the extradition of Sánchez de Lozada and his former defence and energy ministers, Carlos Sánchez Berzaí­n and Jorge Berindoague, from the US although the petition has so far been refused. Minister for the presidency, Ramón Quintana recently said that the US had promised to facilitate the extradition request (following a visit by the US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, Thomas Shannon to Bolivia - see box). However, considerable scepticism remains as to whether this promise will result in action, not least because US President Barack Obama's White House Counsel, Greg Craig was formerly Sánchez de Lozada's defence lawyer on the case.

  • US-Bolivia ties

  With Morales' ally and declared enemy of the US, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez having told Obama at the recent Summit of the Americas that he wanted to be his “friend" and Cuba and the US making tentative overtures to each other, Bolivia stands out as the one country where little progress has been made in patching up relations. These had steadily deteriorated in the final months of the Bush administration, with the expulsion of US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg in September, serving as the catalyst [RA-08-10].
     On 21 May Shannon travelled to Bolivia to meet Morales. The visit was unfortunate in its timing, coinciding as it did with the beginning of the Sánchez de Lozada trial, serving to highlight one of the diplomatic disputes between both countries which is least likely to be resolved.
     Nevertheless both sides made conciliatory noises - Shannon alluded to “very open and frank conversations" which, he maintained “had dealt with all the important and difficult issues in the bilateral relationship with a lot of sincerity", while Morales expressed a hope for an improvement in ties with the US.
       However, the first sign of return to normalcy in relations between the two countries will be a new exchange of ambassadors and neither side set a date. The posts in both countries have been vacant since last September [RA-09-08].
     Bolivia is also adamant that it will not allow the US Drug Enforcement Administration to return to the country, even though this means, as Shannon said, that Bolivia will remain without its favourable-tariff access to the US under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (Atpdea).
    The next meeting between representatives from the US and Bolivia is slated to take place in Washington next month.

  • CSJ

  Relations between the judiciary and executive have long been strained under the government of President Evo Morales. Vice-President Alvaro Garcí­a Linera recently described the current judiciary as “a mosaic of old neoliberal parties which for the past 15 years have divvied up the CSJ, the constitutional court and the district courts". He, along with other government supporters, maintains that the judiciary is aligned with the Right.

  • Exeni

  With seven months to go until the 6 December general elections, president of the supreme electoral court (CSE), José Luis Exeni, handed in his resignation on 1 May, citing family reasons. Autonomy minister Carlos Romero speculated that Exeni's decision, which came as a surprise to the government, reflected fears that he was not up to what is undoubtedly a formidable task ahead. Exeni has been replaced by another CSE official, José Antonio Costas.

• ECONOMIC OVERVIEW: BOLIVIA

  31 May 2009 Hits: 175

  The economy and finance minister, Luis Arce, said that the economy should grow in 2009 and that the country would be one of the few in world that would not fall into a recession. Arce expects growth of around 4% in 2009, though if oil prices continue to rise, he implied, the rate could be higher. The government had based the 2009 budget on an average oil price of US$73 a barrel. In February the oil price hit US$33 but was nudging US$61 a barrel by the end of May.

  Arce said that the government had factored in a 17% fall in hydrocarbon revenues in 2009, but now reckoned that this would be a worst case scenario.

  In 2008 the economy grew by 6.1%, though inflation was almost 12%. The governments' original forecast for 2009 had been for growth of 4.5% and inflation of around 6%.

  Bolivianisation:  The government and the Asociación de Bancos (ASOBAN) agree that the replacement of the dollar with the Boliviano is helping the economy. When President Evo Morales took office in 2006, 95% of the financial sector's transactions were in dollars. Now the figure is down to 45%.

  Inflation:  In April the consumer price index fell by 0.43%, much the same as the 0.49% fall in the index in March. For the first four months of 2009, the index has fallen by 0.64%. This means that inflation in the 12 months to April was 5.32% about half the rate for calendar 2008, which was 11.85%.