Bolivian Chancellor David Choquehuanca affirmed to the press on Thursday that he is pressing criminal charges against a group of indigenous women who forced him to march with them when he was sent to negotiate with them on September 24 in Yucumo. The indigenous Amazonian women were marching against a highway that the government planned [...]

Fifteen minutes before the Sept. 25 police operation in which scores of indigenous marchers were brutally repressed, the then vice minister of government, Marcos Farfán, gave the authorization for the police to intervene in the march protesting the construction of a Beni-Cochabamba highway that would cut through the Tipnis ecological and indigenous reserve, according to [...]

Bolivia’s Director General of Coca Control and Industrialization, Luis Cutipa, told the press that they have serious problems controlling the illegal planting and sale of coca in Bolivia- most especially in the Chaparé region of Cochabamba. Cutipa said that they only have 60 agents in the country and have a serious lack of economic resources [...]

The Bolivian foreign minister, David Choquehuaca, said yesterday at a press conference that under a recently penned framework agreement between Bolivia and the United States—intended to normalize relations between the two countries after a diplomatic break in 2008—the matter of former Bolivian President Gonzalo (Goni) Sanchez de Lozada would be addressed. Goni is wanted in [...]

Bolivia’s former sub-comandante of the national police, general Oscar Muñoz, revealed yesterday that the orders that led to the harsh attack on the indigenous TIPNIS march by 500 police officers over a month ago in Yucumo were given by the Ministry of the Government. The police surprise attack led to dozens of injuries and arrests [...]

A Norwegian court has ruled Christina Snemyr—formerly Christina Oygarden—innocent in a 2008 Cochabamba cocaine-smuggling case. In May of that year, Snemyr and fellow Norwegians Stina Brendemo Hagen and Madeleine Rodriguez were arrested at the Cochabamba airport when 22.5 kilos of cocaine were discovered in their luggage. In 2010, Snemyr escaped from Bolivia while out on [...]

Two and a half years after a violent confrontation in a Santa Cruz hotel room that left three alleged foreign mercenaries dead, the terrorism case against the survivors is set to go before a new judge, Ricardo Maldonado, who will rule whether the case can proceed. A hearing will be held today in Cochabamba to [...]

Judge Carlos Guerrero ordered the “preventative detention” of eleven men and three women individuals including a judge, notary, and police colonel who are alleged to be involved in the attempt to illegally withdraw $1.4  from a bank account with false documents yesterday. The fourteen may face charges of “ideological fraud,” material fraud, fraud, and multiple-victim [...]

Norwegian mercenary ex-soldiers—and a journalist from Oslo—helped Stina Brendemo, 21, escape on August 9 from Cochabamba, according to a Norwegian newspaper. Brendemo is a young Norwegian woman who was sentenced in May 2008 to 13 years in jail for attempted trafficking of cocaine to Europe. Brendemo was conditionally released on bail in August after paying [...]

Today Bolivians all over the country voted, for the first time in history, for judges. Despite a ban on campaigning, the Supreme Electoral Council admitted that illegal campaigning before the election was so rampant that they had no ability to control it. The new judges will serve six year terms and do not have to [...]