Andean Group - August 2009 (ISSN 1741-4466)

The campaign for the general elections on 6 December got off to an unexpected start. First the authorities arrested 23 people on 11 August with an assortment of weapons, including four rifles with telescopic sights and then on 12 August two letter bombs exploded in La Paz. The police tentatively concluded that the two bombs were linked.

Both bombs were letter-bombs, which are almost unprecedented in Bolivia. Most low-level terrorism in Bolivia involves blasting caps and sticks of dynamite which are readily available in the mining supply industry. Neither of the bombs killed anybody though they badly wounded two people.

The government immediately linked the arrests to the bombing and claimed that the Right was preparing to destabilise the country in the run-up to the December elections. President Evo Morales accused his opponents on the Right of “hiring Peruvian gunmen" to perpetrate the attacks. This was an allusion to fact that three of the 23 people arrested on 11 August were Peruvians. The arrests took place in Cochabamba.

The ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) blamed the rightwing opposition, based in Santa Cruz, for the bomb attacks. César Navarro, head of the MAS in the lower chamber of congress, said that the bombs were the work of a “political minority which has been defeated and ousted democratically". Navarro is chairing the congressional investigation into an alleged right-wing terrorist cell based in Santa Cruz that had recruited three European adventurers who were gunned down as alleged terrorists by federal security forces in mid-April. The adventurers were allegedly aiming to assassinate President Evo Morales and the cardinal archbishop of Santa Cruz.

Peru, with which Bolivia has testy relations, reacted calmly to Morales's aspersions. The congressional foreign relations committee asked Bolivia to provide evidence that Peru was supplying mercenaries. The president of the committee, Luisa Marí­a Cuculiza, who belongs to the party founded by the jailed rightwing former Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori, claimed that Morales should not generalise about Peruvians from the activities of individuals.

Peru's foreign minister, José Antonio Garcí­a Belaúnde, argued on 13 August that “crime has no nationality". He said that Bolivia should deal with the issue as an internal affair. He said that Peru condemned all terrorism without any qualification.

On 16 August Bolivia tightened up its border controls. Alfredo Rada, the hardline minister of the interior (gobierno) said that the government had uncovered a “long chain of evidence" which “established that foreign criminals were involved" in the two recent incidents.

The Bolivian police and other government ministers have been much more circumspect in their statements, though an opposition politician, senator Walter Guiteras of Poder Democrático y Social, claimed that the bombs were the result of an internal squabble in Morales's ruling Movimiento al Socialismo.

The only real link between the two bombs is that both were letter bombs. Both were sent through the Empresa Correos de Bolivia (Ecobol). They appear to have been posted from different locations. Both packages had fake return addresses. 

What clearly puzzles investigators is the lack of any apparent link between the two people who received the bombs. The first package was delivered to a construction firm, Ingenieros Civiles Asociados (ICA), where a secretary half-opened it before becoming suspicious. The company had been the target of another letter bomb attack in 2008. She called the return-addressee who said that they had no knowledge of the package. The secretary then called in the police. The bomb exploded when it was being taken out of the building by the head of the bomb squad, Colonel Gustavo Daza, and another officer.

It is just possible that whoever planned that attack guessed that Daza, who had been injured (partly deafened) when a protester blew himself up in congress in 2004, would respond to a call from ICA about another suspicious package. What is odd is why Daza did not take more precautions: he cleared the building before attempting to carry the letter bomb down, from the ninth floor, in the lift.

The other bomb was addressed to Fidel Surco, a leading figure in the Coordinadora Nacional por el Cambio (Conalcam), which brings together trade unionists and social activists. The package, according to the person who received it at Total, one of Surco's many business interests, was addressed simply to “Fidel". The return-address was Conalcam, which meant that the recipient had no reason to suspect the package.

Surco is a prominent supporter of President Morales. Surco's wife, Arminda Colque, picked up the package from Total and apparently went around La Paz with it before opening it, and setting it off, as she waited for a meeting to start at another of Surco's offices.

Both packages were delivered in the morning post. The police hypothesise that the bombs were built by the same, experienced person and that they were designed not to kill. The main reason for this conclusion, despite the serious wounds suffered by Colque and Daza, is that the explosive appears to have been placed in the bomb in chips, which reduced the force of the explosion. Most lethal letter bombs are either incendiaries or contain steel shards, which can kill when propelled at force.

The bombs have panicked the public. On 13 August bomb disposal teams were called to at least three false alarms. On 14 August there were further false alarms. Ecobol says that it has a team of 16 people monitoring packages and that any they deem suspicious are immediately taken out of the post. The two letter-bombs, however, were not picked up and both were franked by Ecobol.

The acting commander of the bomb squad, Major Guillermo Chacón, said that the police's initial view is that both packages were pretty similar, weighing about 250grammes. The bomb itself was composed of explosives and an electrical circuit with a battery. When the circuit was broken, the bomb was triggered. It is possible that the bomb mechanism was based on that used by musical greetings cards, which play a tune when they are opened.

• Did the government thwart a massacre at a shrine?

On 15 August Alfredo Rada, the interior minister, claimed that the alleged terrorists arrested on 11 August in Cochabamba intended to attack the Urkupiña shrine. The Urkupiña shrine had its big annual festival on 15 August, the Feast of the Assumption. The festival has become a celebration of Bolivian national pride and most senior politicians, including President Evo Morales and the leader of the right wing opposition, Oscar Ortiz, attended the mass.

What makes the Urkupiña visions at Quillacollo unusual is that the Virgin talked in Quechua to the shepherd girl who saw her. The Virgin also allowed the shepherd girl to play with the baby she cradled. According to the tradition, the parish priest and the shepherd girl's parents also saw the vision when they turned up, on 15 August, to check on it. The girl was asked where the Virgin had gone, when the Virgin started ascending into the clouds. The girl replied “Urku'piña" which in Quechua means “onto the mountain."