Bolivia battles back In a message dated 4/17/00 1:30:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, eschuster2@juno.com writes: << BOLIVIANS PROTEST UNDER STATE OF SIEGE from Weekly News Update of the Americas #533 Although campesinos continued to block highways and new protests were expected for Apr. 17, there was relative calm in Bolivia over the weekend of Apr. 16 following a week of protests and violent repression under a state of siege decreed by President Hugo Banzer Suarez on Apr. 8 [see Update #532]. From Apr. 8-14, at least six people were killed, 74 wounded and 92 arrested. The state of siege grants the government broad powers to restrict press freedoms and to detain people without arrest warrants. [Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 4/11/00; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 4/14/00 from AFP; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/16/00 from EFE] The week began violently on Apr. 9 in Achacachi, near Lake Titicaca in La Paz department, where a group of soldiers trying to disperse campesino protesters from a roadblock met with resistance and opened fire, killing two people--including a 15 or 16 year old boy--and wounding seven others. Angry residents retaliated by taking some of the soldiers' weapons and attacking local military leaders, injuring army captain Omar Jesus Tellez Arancibia and Ayacucho Battalion commander Armando Carrasco Nava. The protesters later dragged Tellez from his hospital bed, beat him to death and dismembered him. [El Mundo (Santa Cruz) 4/10/00 from ANF; LT 4/11/00, 4/12/00, 4/13/00] The government moved on Apr. 9 to end a police rebellion over wages in La Paz by granting police a 50% raise, bringing their monthly salary from the equivalent of $80 to $120. The agreement came after a group of some 800 police protesters fired tear gas at soldiers on Apr. 9; the soldiers responded by shooting their guns in the air. Following the wage agreement, police went back to work enforcing the state of siege against other protesters in La Paz. [El Nacional (Caracas) 4/10/00 from AP, EFE] However, police in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's second-biggest city, then began their own protest to demand a wage increase. [Financial Times (London) 4/10/00 from AP] A group of soldiers has also raised wage demands and charges of racial discrimination in pay scales, and is threatening to stage protests. [El Diario (La Paz) 4/13/00] In Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city, the protests were organized by civic groups and targeted at water service rate increases linked to a multimillion-dollar electricity and drinking water network known as the Misicuni project, scheduled to be built on contract by Aguas de Tunari, a private consortium in which the US company Bechtel Enterprise Holdings plays a major role. Other consortium partners include the London-based International Water Limited, the Italian utility Edison, the Spanish engineering and construction firm Abengoa and two Bolivian companies, ICE Ingenieros and a cement maker, Soboce. [New York Times 4/11/00; Pacific News Service 4/12/00] On Apr. 10, government representatives and the Coordinating Committee in Defense of Water signed an agreement to end the water protests in Cochabamba. The agreement provided for the cancellation of Aguas del Tunari's contract with Cochabamba's Municipal Drinking Water and Sewer Service (Semapa) for the Misicuni project, and the passage through Congress of Law 2029, which would impose a series of modifications--worked out in consensus following earlier protests--to the Law of Drinking Water Service and Sanitary Sewer Systems. [LT 4/11/00] After the government agreed to rescind its contract with Aguas del Tunari, the consortium itself announced it was pulling out of the project. "The company has decided to pull out of the Misicuni project and the distribution of water in Cochabamba," Luis Uzin, superintendent of basic sanitation, said after meeting with Geoffrey Thorpe, chief executive of the consortium. [NYT 4/11/00] Protesters gathered in Cochabamba's main square to listen to civic leaders announce the pact--and the departure of Aguas del Tunari--as a victory, but the crowd insisted it would maintain the mobilization until Congress passed Law 2029. The government moved quickly to get a quorum--even renting airplanes to get regional deputies to La Paz--and the lower house passed the bill in a special session on Apr. 10, the same day the agreement was signed. The Senate was to consider the bill on Apr. 11, but it was not clear whether it was passed that day. [LT 4/11/00] On Apr. 12, as the water conflict in Cochabamba and the police wage dispute in La Paz wound down, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the country's main labor federation, staged a 24-hour general strike "against the state of siege and for an end to the violence and the massacre of campesinos," and university students began protests to demand more money for education and an end to the state of siege. Students clashed with police in the southern city of Santa Cruz on Apr. 12. Students of the state-run San Andres Major University clashed with police in La Paz on Apr. 12 and 13 in the capital; at least 11 students were wounded and 32 arrested. Police lobbed tear gas grenades into the San Andres campus and students threw them back, while bystanders had to flee the clouds of tear gas that filled the streets. [LT 4/13/00] Another student march, on Apr. 13 in Oruro, also met with police repression. Oruro residents were startled by the appearance of army tanks in the main square. [ED 4/14/00] On Apr. 14, three student leaders were arrested in the center of La Paz. [ED-LP 4/15/00 from AFP] Campesinos organized in the Only Campesino Federation of Bolivia (CSUTCB) maintained their blockades of major highways around the country, leaving thousands of cars and trucks stranded and causing shortages of supplies in some areas. Government and campesino leaders signed an accord on Apr. 14 in which the campesinos promised to lift the blockades in return for the release of some 20 arrested leaders. The campesinos insisted that they would continue their roadblocks until campesino leader Felipe Quispe Huanca was freed. Some 15 leaders were freed on Apr. 13 and 14, including Fredd Nunez, executive secretary of the Confederation of Rural Teachers. The government has agreed to return Quispe to La Paz, but not necessarily to free him. [Clarin 4/15/00, 4/16/00; CNN en Espanol 4/11/00 & 4/12/00 with info from AP, Reuters; ENH 4/14/00 from AFP; ED-LP 4/15/00 from AFP] The government has charged that the protests are politically motivated and financed by drug traffickers. "All this requires resources... autonomously and spontaneously it's impossible for campesinos to mobilize on their own," government spokesperson Ronald MacLean said at a press conference. [ED-LP 4/11/00 from AP] Rural and urban teachers are planning to begin mobilizations on Apr. 17 to demand a 50% wage hike. [ED-LP 4/16/00 from EFE] The Confederation of Bolivian Colonizers has announced that its members will stage highway blockades starting on Apr. 17. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 4/16/00] BOLIVIA: STATE OF SIEGE RATIFIED, ABUSES CONDEMNED The Bolivian Congress voted on Apr. 13 to ratify the state of siege decreed by the government on Apr. 8. The main opposition party, the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), opposed the measure; MNR deputy Carlos Sanchez Berzain nearly got into a fistfight with senator Leopoldo Lopez of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR)--part of the ruling coalition--during the session. Deputies from Banzer's Nationalist Democratic Action (ADN) party called MNR leaders hypocritical, noting that almost exactly five years ago the MNR government imposed a state of siege during a COB general strike and arrested hundreds of union leaders. [ED-LP 4/14/00 from EFE; ENH 4/14/00 from AFP] [The 1995 state of siege lasted six months, and was justified at the time by Sanchez Berzain, then Bolivia's Governance (Interior) Minister--see Updates #273-276, 286, 287, 300.] Amnesty International (AI) has blasted the Banzer government's violation of human rights under the state of emergency, noting that security forces have arrested and interrogated minors to get information about protest leaders. AI cited the case of David Goitia Benito, a 16-year old who was arrested in Cochabamba and beaten with hoses and chains; and of Edwin Huanca and Bartolome Flores, who were were doused with water and shocked with electrical currents in the Viacha military installations in La Paz. Other cases were reported by the International Children's Defense organization: detainees in Achacachi who were interrogated with hoods over their heads and made to remain for hours in the "tripod" position, with head and feet on the ground; and a detainee who was tied to the back of a military vehicle and dragged through the streets. Many of the violations occurred in or near Achacachi, where the army was looking for those who killed Capt. Tellez and seeking revenge for his murder. The crackdown also sought to recover the dozens of FAL rifles that protesters took from security forces at Achacachi. Jorge Zabala, Commander of the Bolivian Armed Forces, said his troops had arrested six people for the Tellez killing and handed them over to police after they confessed. The Bolivian Permanent Assembly of Human Rights noted that three of those arrested are adolescents who "say they were threatened, physically attacked and suffered tortures, such as mock execution by firing squad." Another controversial incident involved the sniper gunfire that struck and killed 17-year old Victor Hugo Daza at protests in Cochabamba on Apr. 8. Television footage showed army captain Robinson Iriarte, wearing civilian clothes and protected by an army column, firing his rifle at the protesters in Cochabamba. The top military command confirmed the incident, but said Iriarte was acting in self-defense. The armed forces are investigating, and the Cochabamba prosecutor's office has ordered the Technical Judicial Police to open a separate probe into the shootings. [Clarin 4/15/00, 4/16/00; CNN en Espanol 4/11/00 & 4/12/00 with info from AP, Reuters; ENH 4/14/00 from AFP; ED-LP 4/16/00 from EFE] Army troops shut down a community radio station, Radio Chaka, when it tried to report on the Achacachi events. Other community stations reportedly suffered similar military interventions. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 4/11/00] ________________________________ >>