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Violence Spirals in Yapacaní, 3 dead in Protests

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:40:37 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, a mass meeting of the inter-institutional committee of Yapacaní (cabildo) seeking the resignation of Yapacaní mayor David Carvajal was broken up violently by police who appear to have killed at least three people and wounded many more. After the violence Carvajal has resigned. Hundreds of protestors with rocks, sticks and fireworks faced off against the massed police in a major street battle that raged into the night. Carvajal is a member of Evo Morales’ Movement to Socialism party and had been forced out of office earlier this year until a judge ordered his forcible reinstatement which the police attempted to do yesterday.

One of the dead protestors, a 27 year-old carpenter named Abel Rocha Bustamante died of multiple bullet wounds, presumably fired by the heavily armed police. Reporters from Radio Erbol were attacked by the police, thrown on the ground, kicked while on the ground and had their equipment confiscated. Protestors are planning a wake for the dead in the central plaza. In La Paz, the Vice-Minister of the Interior, Roberto Quiroz, assured Radio Erbol that no deaths have yet been confirmed. At midnight the Bolivian government confirmed two deaths in Yapacaní. By 10 p.m. locals had set enormous fires on the routes to Santa Cruz and Cochabamba and mayor Carvajal resigned in order to stop the spiraling violence.

To learn more in Spanish see: http://www.erbol.com.bo/noticia.php?identificador=2147483954141

Controversial New Judges Sworn in Today

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:11:40 +0000

The Bolivian Supreme Court. Photo by Elisha Marshall on Flickr.

Today 56 new magistrates will be sworn into office during a ceremony in Sucre. The government is calling this a triumph of democracy because the new magistrates were elected by popular vote on October 16, and the opposition deplores the new judges as politically biased members of the judiciary who did not have a popular mandate because on the election of the 16th, 60% of voters chose to throw away their votes in protest. Over 400 guests will be present including family members, social movement leaders, and government officials, however no foreign dignataries will be present because of “scheduling problems” according to Supreme Court Justice Ramiro Guerrero.

As part of the new Judicial Organ Transition Law that takes effect on January 3, several document fees will be eliminated to allow the poor more access to the judicial system. The President of the Bolivian House of Representatives said that access to the justice system is a human right and that formerly the colonial and neo-liberal states had only granted access to privileged individuals.

Ximena Costa, a former opposition presidential candidate said that the new judges will only represent the interests of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party because they were pre-selected by the MAS-dominated legislature before the elections. Costa said, “There is no new justice, it will be the same as before when justice was subject to political power, but worse because the candidates were not selected based on merit. Before each party had a quota of judges it could appoint, so the opposition was at least represented, now one single party has selected judges based on subjective criteria.”
Bolivia’s first indigenous vice-president and former-presidential candidate Victor Hugo Cardenas strongly criticized today’s ceremony, calling it a “scandal.” He pointed out that in an election with a low turn-out, 60% of voters chose to vote blank rather than pick one of the pre-selected candidates. “It is a national and international embarrassment that the government insists on installing these applicants who lost the election and garnered the scorn and rejection of the voters.” Cardenas pointed out that not even Bolivia’s allies such as Cuba and Venezuela were sending representatives to the ceremony.

To learn more in Spanish see: http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/politica/20120103/nace-nueva-etapa-de-la-justicia-boliviana_155468_323922.html

Government Rejects UN Plea for Alleged Hungarian Terrorist

Matthew Grace — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:09:08 +0000

Yesterday, the legal director of the Bolivian Interior Ministry, Fernando Rivera, said that the Hungarian Elöd Tóásó was legally detained in the terrorism case that resulted in the deaths of three of his alleged conspirators in April 2009.

Rivera’s statement is in contrast with the contents of a letter from the UN, which recommended Tóásó’s release due to supposed irregularities in his apprehension.

“The detention of Mr. Elöd Tóásó has been conducted under the Code of Criminal Procedure,” Rivera said. He noted that the Bolivian government will issue a response to the UN letter, including a statement on Tóásó’s legal status. He is currently being held in the San Pedro prison in La Paz, awaiting trial.

A UN working group asked that the Hungarian be freed because his detention of more than 32 months without being sentenced violates his human rights.

To learn more in Spanish see:

http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/nacional/20111230/gobierno-niega-ilegalidad-en-la-detencion-de-toaso_155194_323248.html

Final Evo Opponent Close to Arrest

admin — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:20:23 +0000

The last major opposition leader in Bolivia, Ruben Costas, the governor of Santa Cruz may soon be declared “a rebel” for not appearing in court in La Paz to address charges of defamation where he is accused of “verbal aggression” against judge Marcelo Soza. All of President Morales’ strong opponents have either fled the country or been entangled in legal prosecutions and Costas marks the last such national figure to have avoided this fate. Soza is seeking an arrest warrant to bring Costas to La Paz to defend himself against the defamation charges and hopes to have it shortly. Costas recently survived a robbery where he was shot in the head by gunmen who fled the scene and has since made a full recovery.

To learn more in Spanish see: http://www.erbol.com.bo/noticia.php?identificador=2147483953109

Bolivian Mennonite Men Accused of Serial Rape

Matthew Grace — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:24:31 +0000

In the lowlands of the Santa Cruz department in Bolivia, up to 50,000 Mennonites live in reclusion, farming soybeans in the clearcut jungle and wetlands. Mennonite men are occasionally seen in the large towns and metropolitan Santa Cruz in their trademark blue overalls and button-up shirts; Mennonite women, though, are much less visible, usually having been regulated to the hearth and home of the sect’s various colonies, and rarely learning Spanish.

Now the Mennonite colonies are coming into a new light in Bolivia, one which they wish to avoid: Recently, nine Mennonite men have been accused of a four-year serial raping spree on their co-religionists. The men allegedly used veterinary tranquilizers to gas unsuspecting families as they slept, then raping the women inside. When there weren’t grown women available to violate, they allegedly sexually attacked young children, even their own family members.

Read more on the Bolivian Mennonite rape case in Jean Friedman-Rudovsky’s Time article.

See pictures of the Bolivian Mennonite rancher lifestyle at the From the Equator to the Land of Fire blog.

Bolivia Expresses Interest in Chile-Peru Maritime Dispute

Matthew Grace — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:52:06 +0000

Bolivian President Evo Morales yesterday defended his government’s decision to send a document on July 8 to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The document asked the court to evaluate Bolivia’s position regarding a maritime border dispute between Chile and Peru over the sovereignty of the two nations’ Pacific costal area.

While Chile and Peru are involved in the dispute that originates from the 19th-century War of the Pacific—in which both Peru and Bolivia lost territory to Chile (Bolivia losing all its littoral territory)—Bolivia is lobbying for international support to regain access to the Pacific.

Morales said the Hague-bound diplomatic document was sent to prevent Bolivia’s effort from faltering in the future. Chile and Peru responded that Bolivia has no involvement in those two countries’ litigation.

In 1975, the Bolivian government, under Hugo Banzer, and the Chilean government, under Augusto Pinochet, negotiated a continuous maritime corridor north of the coastal city of Arica. The current dispute between Chile and Peru could affect that agreement, and also affect Bolivia’s future maritime claim.

(Graphic from The Hague Justice Portal.)

To learn more in English and Spanish see:

http://www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2011/july/13/latinamerica110071302.htm

http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/nacional/20110713/evo-defiende-posicion-boliviana-enviada-a-la-haya-_133553_271395.html

http://www.la-razon.com/version.php?ArticleId=133693&EditionId=2589

Málaga Building Owner Detained for January’s Collapse

Matthew Grace — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:57:17 +0000

Yesterday, at approximately 7:45pm, the public ministry ordered the arrest of Paulina Callaú Jarpa, one of the co-owners of the Málaga building in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, which collapsed on January 24, killing 15 people, including masons and construction executives.

Callaú will have an arraignment either today or tomorrow, in order to be released or held for the pretrial period.

Francisco Núñez del Prado, the prosecutor heading the investigation, summoned Callaú and her sister Andrea as witnesses.

The two sisters were accompanied by counsel Abel Montaño, a minority partner in the Sicruz law firm.

According to Núñez del Prado, there is sufficient evidence to proceed to a trial for Callaú for negligent homicide.

To learn more in Spanish and English see:

http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/nacional/20110616/detienen-a-propietaria-del-edificio-

http://www.boliviaweekly.com/building-collapse-update/1408/malaga_130106_262982.html

http://www.boliviaweekly.com/5-story-building-collapse-in-santa-cruz/1396/

Trilateral Commission Set to Meet to Discuss Pilcomayo River Problems

Matthew Grace — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:36:36 +0000

On Tuesday, June 28, a trilateral commission will meet in Villamontes, Tarija—a Bolivian town on the Bolivia-Argentina border—to discuss strategies to ameliorate problems that are currently affecting the Pilcomayo River. The river, which has suffered from extremely low water levels and contamination lately, runs through Bolivia, Argentina, and Paraguay before joining the Paraguay River en route to the Atlantic Ocean.

Yersi Oblitas, the general secretary of government of Chuquisaca, the Bolivian department where the Pilcomayo originates, said that an international Villamontes among the three countries is needed to mitigate the effects of pollution and water depletion.

To learn more in Spanish see:

http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/nacional/20110613/comision-trinacional-debatira-el-28-la-crisis-del_129696_262095.html

Gov. Official Tells of Threats Warning Him Off Ròsza Case, Files Charges

Matthew Grace — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:25:42 +0000

Boris Villegas, the director general of internal affairs, said on Thursday that he has been receiving threats that demand that he drop the Ròsza terrorism case. (In April of last year, Eduardo Ròsza-Flores, an alleged Bolivian-Hungarian mercenary, was killed with two other foreign nationals in Santa Cruz by Bolivian police. Government officials say they were in country to carry out assassinations of key political officials, including president Evo Morales, and foment revolution.)

Villegas said that his car was stoned early Wednesday morning on the El Alto–La Paz highway after he received yet another telephone threat.

Villegas has filed an attempted murder complaint with the district attorney’s office. Prosecutor Felipe Rodriguez will investigate the case.

To learn more in Spanish see:

http://www.lostiempos.com/diario/actualidad/politica/20110421/caso-terrorismo-apedrean-vehiculo-del-director-de-regimen-interior-tras_122529_245168.html

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admin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:32:16 +0000

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