Gary Prado is more than just the capture of Che
8 May 2023
Gary Prado is more than just the capture of Che
I apologize to my kind readers if today I comment on something that touches me closely but that I think is of interest to the whole country: General Gary Prado Salmon has left us, a remarkable and multifaceted character, outstanding in many activities beyond his military career.
Gary Prado is known for having been the officer who captured Che Guevara and turned him over to authorities. Without a doubt, it was a military action of national and international relevance, but Gary Prado’s figure goes far beyond that military action.
Gary Prado was also a valuable intellectual, researcher, historian, politician, diplomat, role model, and renowned university professor.
His intellectual production includes a book on the history of the Armed Forces and another on the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) and the Armed Forces.
His work on guerrilla warfare called “The Immolated Guerrilla,” published in many languages and in several countries, is the best text on Che’s guerrilla warfare. Another very important work is the account of President Siles’ kidnapping, a subject unknown to many. He was preparing his autobiography, which unfortunately will remain incomplete.
Gary Prado was part of that group of young institutionalist officers who in 1974 demanded immediate national elections from the military power. The Government accepted the proposal, but within a few hours, the main leaders, including him, were either imprisoned or exiled.
The opportunity presented itself again in 1978 when the young institutionalists with General Padilla installed a new government with the sole objective of calling elections in six months, and so it was, a unique case of clean elections without an official candidate.
Gary Prado was the Minister of Planning in that Government and from that position supported and promoted the creation of the Development Corporation in Santa Cruz, handing over the leadership of the process to the group of young professionals who were already working on the issue with a specialized consulting firm. It was the team that, led by Oscar Serrate, consolidated the Santa Cruz development model from the public sector, with broad participation of civil society. It is within this framework of collaboration with the Ministry of Planning that the construction of Viru Viru Airport was consolidated.
Gary Prado placed himself politically in the center, away from all kinds of extremism.
As Commander of the Eighth Army Division, he calmed the region with his negotiating and conciliatory skills, rather than using force. He was the guarantee for peaceful coexistence, intervening in conflicts always with great intelligence and knowledge of the issues. His word had credibility.
Being an impeccable career military man, he had to endure ten years of a process of terrorism with which he had nothing to do. Why was he included? According to some sources, it was an imposition of Cuba, but also because the crude scheme invented needed a person with military and strategic capabilities to be credible, and he fitted that profile. But, as expected, that trial could not even stand for ten years.
It is worth noting the significant support that Gary had during these ten years: that of his son Gary, who, as a lawyer with great ability, defended him and several other accused who did not have resources, and that of his wife Maria del Carmen, who accompanied him with great love and supported him with the ferocity of a lioness. The constant presence of journalist Harold Olmos should also be noted, who later published a meticulous and precise book of over 500 pages about the trial, denouncing the arbitrariness.
He was a highly appreciated professor by Private Technological University of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (UTEPSA) students because, with his enormous capacity and culture, he opened the eyes of young people to the complexity of the world in which we live.
Finally, he was president of the Cedure board, always accompanying our activities.
I want to conclude this comment with a phrase that a friend sent me, which summarizes some of my feelings toward him: “The general was a beloved and admired man.” A great achievement in life.
Source: https://eldeber.com.bo/edicion-impresa/gary-prado-es-mas-que-la-captura-del-che_324313
“What is happening to Bolivian diplomacy today did not happen even in the worst dictatorships,” said Viscarra.
The diplomat made observations about the country’s foreign service and proposed ways in which the national diplomatic service can be redirected. He recommends that we leave our ostracism and open ourselves up to the world.
24 December 2022
Javier Viscarra, a diplomat and former official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, states that the national foreign service is going through its worst moment. He assures that what is happening today has not happened “even during times of military dictatorship.”
In an interview with Página Siete, Viscarra made several observations about the management of the country’s foreign policy. He also spoke about the need to redirect the diplomatic service for the benefit of Bolivia.”
It was proposed that there should be an institutionalized diplomatic service, what is your opinion on this? How should this process be carried out?
The country needs to start a strong foray into various economic processes, we must leave the ostracism to which the ideologization of our international relations has subjected us and open ourselves up to the world.
We are not observers in the economic and trade integration mechanism of the Pacific Alliance, in which Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico negotiate with one of the most important markets in the world, Asia.
How should the restructuring of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs be?
It is possible to work based on many of the current diplomatic professionals, but above all, within the framework of Law 465, which is very clear. It is urgent to rethink the return to the institutionalization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and have a serious diplomatic corps.
I also believe that we should not cling to centralizing thinking and stop thinking that only in La Paz are there diplomats. There are professionals throughout the country. In Santa Cruz, some universities offer an International Relations major.
What government do you consider to be the worst moment for the foreign service?
The issue does not cross the government’s mind, but rather the perspective of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the worst moment is that of the current Minister, Rogelio Mayta, who is not doing the Government of President Luis Arce any good. What is happening to Bolivian diplomacy today did not happen even in the worst military dictatorships.
Bolivia abstained from voting against the war in Ukraine, how does this type of action leave us internationally?
The strabismus suffered by Bolivian diplomacy is worrying. On the one hand, we consider ourselves to be a pacifist country, as our Constitution states, and on the other hand, we abstain from condemning the aggression of one country against another.
Again we fall into the submission imposed on us by certain international actors. These powers use us when they want our vote in international forums, and unfortunately, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs submits and votes in their favor.
Bolivia did not vote against Iran at the UN for the repression of recent protests. Will this type of action have consequences for the country on the international stage?
Bolivia should have clearly expressed its indignation at the death of a young woman for not properly wearing the veil covering her head. The international pressure has been so strong that Iran has ended up reconsidering the continuation of its moral police.
What do you think of Bolivia’s stance on the crisis in Peru?
I believe that this is another incomplete reading of the facts, influenced again by a political line rather than concrete facts. It has been an unfortunate decision to join Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina in a joint statement saying that the former Peruvian president was a victim of “antidemocratic harassment.”
What is the difference between the old Diplomatic Academy and the current one?
The first difference is that there used to be a Diplomatic Academy, but now there isn’t. Before, there was a focus on excellence in training through agreements with major universities so that the curriculum was recognized. Today, training is reduced to a few hours in courses offered by the Plurinational Public Management School, so that “new diplomats” can perform duties in the central service and in our embassies. It goes without saying that the expected result of such improvisation is questionable.
Was it a mistake to judicially address the maritime issue?
I believe that the biggest mistake was not considering the overall picture of international relations and public international law, which probably was not ready to admit this new international law on which Bolivia based its claim. But it was not just this lack of perspective; it was also the failure to continue exploring other diplomatic alternatives instead of submitting our maritime cause to judicial proceedings, only because of the dictates of the country’s internal politics.
Javier Viscarra, Diplomat.
BOLIVIA, AN INVISIBLE DICTATORSHIP
Former Mayor, Minister of State, and Chancellor of the Republic of Bolivia
10 May 2022
BOLIVIA, AN INVISIBLE DICTATORSHIP
For decades it was said that Mexico lived under a “perfect dictatorship.” After the revolutionary process, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was established in 1929 and ruled with an iron fist for more than 70 continuous years. It was a kind of intrinsic contradiction because a revolution –radical and often violent change– occurs by episodes and, therefore, cannot be “institutionalized.” What was institutionalized in that country was a dictatorship in disguise.
It was a fantasy that Mexico wanted us to swallow because, in reality, its system of government was reddish on the outside but pure green and hard on the inside. That country was a refuge for foreign guerrillas or leftist intellectuals, who were forbidden to interfere in domestic politics, but were given the freedom to foment the insurrection wherever they wanted, being Fidel Castro and his gang, with Che Guevara, their best exponents.
Meanwhile, internally, Mexicans became infamous for the “Tlatelolco Massacre,” which occurred in the face of the 1968 student revolt in their capital city, which demanded a political opening to the PRI regime, which was continually in power –as a medieval dynasty– with hereditary succession.
That political parody continues today with the worst President of its history, the populist demagogue Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former PRI member, senile and ignorant, who is already the shame of that great nation, and who has sheltered in Mexico the conspiratorial brain of “Socialism of the 21st Century.”
After years of ruminating on the defeat of the USSR in its attempt to establish a military presence in Cuba, after the Missile Crisis of 1962 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Russia decided to face its defeat in the Cold War with a strategy of subversion in Latin America, of long breath, which consists in using liberal democracy to capture political power and destroy it from within. To this end, it implemented, through its agents in this region, the best and most refined subversive communication campaign, and the penetration of civil society institutions to stir up political discontent, through the “social action” of mobilized minorities.
In this effort, after the resounding failure of the “socialist-communist” model in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, Bolivia established itself as a “successful” model of this evil project. Using that strategy, Evo Morales took power in Bolivia in 2006, with Russian-Mexican-Venezuelan-Cuban strategic support.
This project of political action, of continental nature, aims to overthrow the different republican identities of adherence to their respective countries, replacing them with foreign social categories to create transversal alliances throughout the continent, under a single ideology and political structure aligned with Moscow, in an authoritarian dictatorial, single-party, and “democracy” model administered from power.
The confirmation of this political “model” has been made evident by the Chilean revolt of October 2019, which has followed to the letter the insurrectional script that took place in Bolivia from the year 2000.
Following the Mexican parody, the current Bolivian Government simulates democratic norms to govern as a tyranny, violating all the precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, but with a millionaire spending on propaganda, and the siege of the independent press. In doing so, it has so far succeeded in “making its dictatorship invisible.”
Luis Arce Catacora presides over a dictatorial government, as arbitrary and criminal as that of his predecessor and mentor, Evo Morales, who has turned Bolivia into a refuge for drug trafficking, institutionalized corruption, keeping more than a thousand dissidents in exile, and hundreds of political prisoners, including former President Jeanine Añez, imprisoned without a sentence more than a year ago, in violation of all her constitutional and human rights.
It is the “invisible dictatorship” of Bolivia, which must be sanctioned as such and not invited to the table of democracy, in Los Angeles, next June.
Source: http://www.cabildeodigital.com/2022/05/la-diplomacia-de-la-verguenza.html
THEIR TIME IS UP
Journalist
20 February 2022
Their time is up
It took a long time, but the time has come when the “empire” identified drug trafficking as an ally of the axis of autocracies and has decided to fight it throughout the world.
For Bolivia, this means the end of an era, marked by the political dominance of figures and organizations linked to drug trafficking, who had managed to control all the institutions of the democratic State.
The country has been demolished by this force. Drug trafficking has as its servants the Armed Forces, the Police, justice, all State institutions and has almost achieved total control of the media.
But now America’s war has begun with worldwide scope. The trigger was the DEA announcement that the Venezuelan Alex Saab, now imprisoned in Miami, had been its informant since 2017. A key element of the Los Soles Cartel, created by Hugo Chávez and his Bolivian supplier to bring drugs to the United States, passing through Cuba.
Europol is arresting hundreds of drug traffickers in six European countries, including Spain, former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández has been extradited, members of the Jalisco Cartel and all the Mexican cartels are being persecuted, the Brazilian Government is mobilizing against the drug commandos and the United States requests the extradition of Bolivian Colonel Maximiliano Dávila, to begin with.
This 21st century war has only just begun. The United States has decided to put an end to the economic and political power of drug trafficking for an elementary reason in any war: drug trafficking is allied with the enemies.
In our region, that economic power came to create an organization that rivals the OAS: the alliance of Narco-States, of which Bolivia is a key player. After all, it is the only country on the planet whose President was the head of the largest suppliers of raw materials for the manufacture of a drug banned by the UN.
Not even in Afghanistan had the drug traffickers gone that far. In that poor country, the world’s leading opium producer, drug traffickers proposed to create a political party, but it was rejected by parliament in the 1980s.
In Bolivia, that political party was not only created but has managed to govern the country for fifteen years.
But their time is up. The culprits have been silent and the main one of them prepares his escape.
Proof of the political party’s degree of dominance over justice is that prosecutor Juan Lanchipa continues to defend Colonel Dávila, who is accused of having conspired to bring a ton of cocaine to the United States.
It is assumed that when the entire framework has been dismantled, and their leaders are imprisoned in Miami or Guantanamo, all the institutions that had been controlled will recover their independence and the country can be reborn from the ashes.
Source: https://www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/opinion/20220220/columna/les-llego-su-hora
UKRAINE AND ITS IMPORTANCE FOR BOLIVIA
Former Attorney General
2 February 2022
Ukraine and its importance for Bolivia
Vassily Nebenzia, Russian Ambassador to the UN and an exponent of old school Russian diplomacy, had to leave the unfinished session of the United Nations Security Council itself, notably upset, where the United States had unexpectedly managed, by ten votes in favor, three abstentions, and two refusals, to put into discussion and public debate the reasons for the large displacement of troops and weapons by the second military power in the world, powerful Russia, to its border with its weak neighbor, Ukraine.
As the Russian Ambassador stood up from his country’s coveted permanent seat on the Council, US President Joe Biden himself issued a press release from Washington, announcing that they are “ready no matter what,” if “Russia chooses to move away from diplomacy and attack Ukraine.”
Are these events, of the highest relevance in world geopolitics and that involve territories literally on the other side of the world, also of interest, and should they concern Bolivia, and the role that its Foreign Ministry should play?
Possibly the a priori answer could be negative, since in said conflict it is the first and greatest world powers that face each other, using their best and most powerful diplomatic and military weapons to do so.
However, in the current world scenario, the advance of multilateralism has allowed the other countries of the so-called international community, and not only the great powers, to intervene with an impact in the management of the different crises of world politics. And in this framework, it was already up to Bolivia in the years 2017 and 2018, occupying a seat in the UN Security Council, and even directing and moderating in the exercise of the rotating Presidency of said body, the discussion, and management that in its moment the UN had to face in relation to the civil war in Syria, and that also compromised the geopolitical interests of the US, Russia and the other powers.
Being a free and sovereign nation not only means claiming non-interference in the internal affairs of your own country, but also getting involved, actively and responsibly, in the future of international politics, since this, inevitably, forges the world order that ends up dictating the real possibilities so that all of humanity, including us Bolivians, can live and achieve our desired development, without violence, war, or injustice.
It is in the interest of Bolivia, that in handling the crisis in Ukraine, the abuse and unilateral will of the nation with the strongest army does not prevail, but rather that the principle of territorial integrity of States, the full sovereignty of countries, that all the norms of International Law are observed and respected, and that the international organizations be effective in containing the military or economic force of States as a means of resolving their conflicts, and that there is no international setback towards the right to declare wars of aggression already prohibited by the Charter of the United Nations.
Bolivia is so interested in the preservation of these aspects that its great national interest, which is its centennial maritime claim, depends on the maintenance and development of the majesty of International Law and multilateralism; and that is why our Foreign Ministry, emulating the effective votes cast by Mexico and Brazil in the Security Council in which they now hold seats for Latin America, and which supported the discussion motion that only Russia and China refused, concur assertively to avoid at all costs that on the international scene a more powerful nation than another, whatever it is called, acts with abuse and arbitrariness against a weaker one, and it is in this direction, and no other, that all Bolivians hope that our international policy will be conducted.
Source: https://eldeber.com.bo/opinion/ucrania-y-su-interes-para-bolivia_265923
IT IS GETTING MORE DIFFICULT TO OVERTHROW A DICTATOR
16 January 2022
IT IS GETTING MORE DIFFICULT TO OVERTHROW A DICTATOR
A shadow of hopelessness covers the country. Luis Arce, being a small-time leader, heads a dictatorship tougher than that of Evo Morales, and despite the struggles within the Government and the MAS for power quotas in the cabinet and in state-owned companies, the democratic feat of October 2019 seems unrepeatable in the short term.
There are four long years to go before the next elections, enough time to put an end to the opposition in inquisitorial trials and to set up another fraud that will keep them in power in perpetuity.
THE MASTER OF THIS MODEL
The master of fraud, the extermination of the opposition, and the trampling of human rights is called Vladimir Putin, President of Russia since 1999 and quite possibly until 2036 when he will be 83 years old.
The latest blow to Russian democracy was the closure less than a month ago of the Memorial Center that was fighting for the release of political prisoners.
COMMUNISM FELL, BUT THE DICTATORSHIP CONTINUES
After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the global irradiation of the democratic system was expected. But then Putin arrived and reversed the situation.
“Russia is like the USSR. The difference is that, instead of the communist old hags, we have two dozen millionaires at the helm,” the exiled opposition member Vladimir Osechkin explained clearly to EFE.
And the same thing has happened in Russia’s backyard, in the 15 republics that became independent from the USSR but remain in Putin’s orbit, except for two: Georgia and Ukraine.
THE PINK AND ORANGE REVOLUTIONS
In 2003, the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, initiated the transformations that thousands of protesters demanded of him in the streets and in Parliament, which had been occupied by young people who carried roses instead of guns.
Months later, another revolution broke out, the orange one in Ukraine that ended with the annulment of the fraudulent elections that had given victory to Viktor Yanukovych.
However, Yanukovych was appointed Prime Minister until he won the presidential elections in 2010 and submitted as he was to Putin, he refused to sign an agreement with the European Union. This led to an unexpected and huge popular uprising in Kyiv, the capital, in 2014, which ended with Yanukovych’s escape to Moscow.
PUTIN’S VIOLENT REVENGE
That second revolution cost Ukraine the loss of Crimea, invaded and annexed by Putin’s army, and the promotion in the country’s southeast of all kinds of pro-Russian and pro-Kyiv independence actions.
Not satisfied, Putin threatens to invade all of Ukraine, which has no defense capacity against the Russians and depends on the failed negotiations between Putin and the European Union and the United States so far.
NO MORE COLOR REVOLUTIONS
A few days ago, at the request of dictator Tokayev, Putin invaded Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, with 2,000 troops and tanks, where he put out the fire of a revolution triggered by the increase in gas prices.
The Russian intervention left 160 dead and about a thousand arrested. A massacre justified by the world “left” for the alleged existence of a coup d’État.
THE FRAUDS OF 2020
As in Bolivia, electoral fraud to favor Putin’s friends has been the reason for two other revolutionary outbursts in 2020.
In Kyrgyzstan, a bloodbath was avoided thanks to the resignation of President Boronov, who wanted to be re-elected in fraudulent elections.
Instead, in Belarus, with the open intervention of Putin, the dictator Lukashenko was reelected for the sixth time after drowning in blood a popular uprising that lasted five months and that moved the entire society against electoral fraud.
There are no figures of deaths, but there were a few hundred who lost their lives, and many more wounded, tortured and nearly seven thousand detained. Maria Kolesnikova, one of the three women who led the August 2020 revolution in Belarus, was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
LATIN AMERICA, RUSSIAN COLONY?
Three days ago, in the dispute over Ukraine, and while Kazakhstan was fresh news, Putin warned Joe Biden, President of the United States, that he would send troops to Venezuela and Cuba. Those referred to, showing complete colonial subordination, did not open their mouths.
As we have described, Putin has learned in his own backyard how to maintain through blood and fire dictators that are loyal to him. That experience has been transferred to our region, which is becoming Putin’s second backyard in the face of the inaction of the decaying North American empire. What would be of Maduro without Putin! And Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who is always in economic and political trouble, will travel to Russia and China in early February to see if they can save him.
RUSSIAN AND CHINESE ON THE ATTACK
The dictatorial regimes of Russia and China are on the economic and military offensive throughout the world. On the other hand, democracies are threatened even in the United States. A new world order is emerging that discourages anyone.
Both China and Russia, plus the votes of the dictators of the world, neutralize any sanction or condemnation in the United Nations. Ortega who kills with impunity in Nicaragua, arrests all opposition candidates, and wins openly fraudulent elections, could never be sanctioned in the United Nations.
Tokayev, the dictator of Kazakhstan, the one who ordered the firing of demonstrators without warning, the one who allowed the Russian invasion of his country, is the president of the United Nations Security Council.
And the UN Human Rights Council since January 1 is managed by the 10 worst regimes in the world, including China, Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Meanwhile, Luis Almagro’s OAS is losing strength with the repeated victory of the left in several countries in the region.
Yes, we are alone, just like the resistance in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. And yet, a week ago the opposition won the governorship in Barinas, the cradle and apparently the grave of Chavismo in Venezuela. He won despite the fraud, the tanks, the intimidation, and the arrest of candidates. This is encouraging.
Source: http://www.cabildeodigital.com/2022/01/cada-vez-es-mas-dificil-tumbar-un.html
RIBERA TAKES THE AÑEZ CASE TO THE WORLD CONGRESS OF LAW ON DEMOCRACY IN COLOMBIA
Photo: Página Siete [Newspaper].
2 December 2021
Ribera takes the Añez case to the World Congress of Law on democracy in Colombia
The daughter of former President Jeanine Añez will speak at the meeting about the “political persecution” in Bolivia and the situation of her mother as a “political prisoner.”
Carolina Ribera, daughter of former President Jeanine Añez, arrived in Barranquilla, Colombia, to participate in the World Congress on Law. The event has panels referring to democracy, human rights, and justice.
Ribera will present at the meeting on the “political persecution” in Bolivia and the situation of her mother as a “political prisoner,” she reported this Thursday.
“In this Congress of the World’s Jurists, issues of the rule of law, democracy, respect for due process, and human rights will be discussed. All these issues have robbed and violated [the rights of] my mother. I come to be her voice to ask for a fair trial and for the whole world to find out about my mother’s situation, I seize every opportunity and every location,” said Ribera in contact with Página Siete Digital.
Former Foreign Minister Karen Longaric, who was part of the transitional Government led by Añez, will also participate.
In the meeting, which consists of 49 panels, lawyers and personalities of international politics will give their presentations, such as Colombian President Iván Duque, King Felipe VI of Spain, the Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo López, the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, and others.
The event takes place this Thursday and Friday and has the participation of more than 3,000 people who can also expose the problems that their countries are experiencing.
This is the case of Ribera, who will participate in two spaces [to present] her mother’s case.
A tweet published on the account of the former President, imprisoned since March of this year for the cases “coup d’État I” and “coup d’État II”, gives an account of that participation.
“Carolina is the voice of #JeanineAñez as a political prisoner since 13 March 2021. Thanks to the World Congress of Justice where she is exposing the situation of the illegality of her detention, the despicable accusation, and crying out for the injustice suffered by democratic Bolivia,” the text outlines.
For her part, Longaric will participate in the Human Rights and Justice panel.
The Venezuelan López, during his speech in a discussion published by NTN24, expressed his support for Carolina Ribera and the former Bolivian President.
The member of the European Parliament Hermann Tertsch also expressed his solidarity with this cause through a message on his social networks.
Source: https://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2021/12/2/ribera-lleva-el-caso-anez-al-congreso-mundial-de-derecho-sobre-democracia-en-colombia-316955.html
FORMER TRIBUNAL MEMBER BAPTISTA REVEALS THAT THE SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL (TSE) DID NOT RESOLVE TWO CAUSES OF ACTION THAT COULD HAVE LED TO THE LOSS OF THE MAS LEGAL STATUS
Former Supreme Electoral Tribunal Member
22 November 2021
Former Tribunal member Baptista reveals that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) did not resolve two causes of action that could have led to the loss of the MAS legal status
The former electoral authority re-wrote a letter explaining the reasons for her resignation. Among several denunciations, she says that in the week she was on vacation, 60 officials without merits were hired
Rosario Baptista reappeared after her resignation from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). The former Tribunal member, in an extensive letter, revealed that the electoral body did not resolve two causes of action that could have led to the loss of the legal status of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS). The former authority also assured that if Bolivia does not change the electoral system –and also the functioning of justice– “a tyrant government” will be consolidated and “Evo Morales will go unpunished,” whom she considers as a person who wants to hold on to power.
In addition, Baptista revealed that in the week that she was on vacation, 60 officials without merits were hired and with the endorsement of Tribunal member Dina Chuquimia, appointed by President Luis Arce.
“And it is for this unique party that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal chose not to process a denunciation. A Tribunal resolves the cases submitted to it, it does not hide them, it does not choose what to judge and what not. It is its obligation to process everything, even if only to reject it, in accordance with the law. In this specific case, the existence of two causes of action that could have led to the cancellation of its legal status was denounced, one for the use of State property for the electoral campaign of Evo Morales, and the other for discrimination, explicit in the Organic Statute of the MAS-IPSP approved in 2012, which determined that access to public service corresponds only to party members,” Baptista revealed.
The former Tribunal member said that the denunciations were unsuccessful because the causes of action went from one “direction to another direction” and that there was no response from the officials of the electoral body, who according to Baptista, were threatened in order not to resolve the case.
“I was accused in the Plenary Chamber of inventing the fact that the denunciation was pending, they forgot that I was going around from one direction to another, without anyone wanting to process it. The investigation was carried out; the evidence was obtained, not legalized because the officials in charge were threatened, the Ministers in office refused to hand it over, and all this during the transitory Government. Today, this denunciation is still pending processing, many others filed for the same purpose were resolved, but with different causes of action and without valid grounds, all were resolved in due time; not this one,” Baptista said.
Then, the former Tribunal member demands that changes be made in the State Organs in order to avoid a “tyrant government” and to avoid impunity in favor of Evo Morales.
“Failure to make corrections to the system that makes up all the Organs of public power, distorted by a malicious will that has hijacked the sovereignty of the people in favor of a political party, entails the consolidation of a tyrant government, which has dismantled democracy and will persist in sustaining with impunity those who, like Evo Morales, cling to power by deceiving and betraying the very people they claim to represent, to whom they have done nothing but divide, based on lies,” says part of Baptista’s letter, who does not clarify whether she is in Bolivia or outside the country.
Baptista questioned that there is only one political party in Bolivia, referring to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), and rejected that there is a system of political parties in the country. The former Tribunal member considered that the MAS should lose its legal status and considered that “the circles of impunity and corruption should be broken” so that “those who have hijacked democracy” do not govern.
“Under these conditions, things cannot even be corrected from the inside; the responsible, active and committed participation of the population is required; it is time for citizens to regain their sovereignty, and exercise it directly and legitimately, respecting their diversity, free from pressure, extortion, and manipulation of the ruling power, exercising their right to resort to ‘the supreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression’ considered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when their rights are not protected by a regime of Law. It is not a political issue, it is a Human Rights issue and minimum guarantees to regain the Rule of Law. Changing things requires starting from something, and that something is nothing more than breaking the circles of impunity and corruption. Those who have hijacked democracy to dismantle it cannot govern,” says another part of the letter.
Baptista added that in the week that she was vacationing, 60 officials who do not meet the criteria to join the electoral body were hired. These new public officials –she said– had the endorsement of Tribunal member Dina Chuquimia, who was appointed by President Luis Arce to replace Salvador Romero. The former Tribunal member again denounced that the electoral body has employees who “are under pressure and control from those who operate internally for the MAS.”
“The appointment of personnel must be made through public recruitment. In my absence due to vacation, they appointed more than 60 people, without even verifying if they met the requirements of the position; they refused to do it for six months, starting in April, and in one week, during my absence, they filled all the vacant positions, under the lead of the newly arrived Tribunal member,” revealed Baptista.
The former Tribunal member regretted that she now needs to look for security for fear of reprisals from the current ruling power and the justice [system] for the denunciations that she put forward. In addition, Baptista said that it doesn’t matter where she is at the moment, so she did not specify if she is in Bolivia or abroad.
Below, the letter from Rosario Baptista in full:
MY COMMITMENT TO BOLIVIA
I am Rosario Baptista Canedo, from Cochabamba, I was born in 1965, I am a lawyer and I have worked all my life in the field of human rights, especially the rights of women and indigenous peoples. I decided to run for the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in 2019, after the serious political and social conflict that occurred after the General Elections process of that year. 502 people applied, and after a process of qualification, examination, and merit contest, the Legislative Assembly appointed 6 of us as members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
The position for which we were elected is that of Members, it is a judiciary position of a Supreme Court, in which political rights are protected and the democratic institutionality of the country is safeguarded, through the formation of the organs of the public power through the citizen vote, for which we must be impartial, and ensure that the entire Electoral Body is impartial; we have relations of cooperation and coordination with the other Organs: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial, but it is our obligation to also preserve our independence and separation from them because that is how the organization of the State in democracy is founded. But we must not only be independent from them, but also, and especially, from political organizations, which we regulate, register, and supervise.
As members of a Tribunal, we do not denounce; we receive people’s requests, denunciations, and warrants; we process, respond, investigate and sanction them, when appropriate. That is why we are a Supreme Tribunal. Receiving a denunciation and evading its processing due to the consequences it could have is unethical, undemocratic, violates human rights, generates responsibility for the State, and constitutes a crime. It is lying to the people, it is omitting the obligation to impart electoral justice; is to look away and feign insanity.
In our political system, electoral participation is mediated by political organizations: [political] parties, citizen groups, and indigenous peoples. In the last 15 years, we have seen that a single party of national scope has been consolidated, there are 10 other small, dispersed, some without even militants, which have given rise to a black market of acronyms, borrowed, rented, sold, regardless what their declaration of principles, their government program or the ideological position they have (because they no longer have any of this), which the opposition turns to for each election; other parties, the least, have national legal status, but only departmental presence. The truth is that the political party system practically does not exist. There is a single party.
And it is for this unique party that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal chose not to process a denunciation. A Tribunal resolves the cases submitted to it, it does not hide them, it does not choose what to judge and what not. It is its obligation to process everything, even if only to reject it, in accordance with the law. In this specific case, the existence of two causes of action that could have led to the cancellation of its legal status was denounced, one for the use of State property for the electoral campaign of Evo Morales, and the other for discrimination, explicit in the Organic Statute of the MAS-IPSP approved in 2012, which determined that access to public service corresponds only to party members. On a second occasion in which its legal status was at equal risk, the party itself confessed that the provision, by which in a previous election the legal status of a Beni political organization was canceled, a few days before the voting day, was unconstitutional and this was officially recognized by the Constitutional Court, which on the previous occasion found a way out to avoid saying it.
The justifications for not processing that denunciation can be many; the political conditions that existed just a few weeks before, the threat of a civil war, a political pact between the different forces in conflict, with the endorsement of some Tribunal members, ideological conditioning, financial gifts, personal threats, or simple negligence. None of them are a legal reasons; none of them are in accordance with justice. None of them are given directly to the people, and none of them justifies failing to fulfill our obligations. I was accused in the Plenary Chamber of inventing the fact that the denunciation was pending, they forgot that I was going around from one direction to another, without anyone wanting to process it. The investigation was carried out; the evidence was obtained, not legalized because the officials in charge were threatened, the Ministers in office refused to hand it over, and all this during the transitory Government. Today, this denunciation is still pending processing, many others filed for the same purpose were resolved, but with different causes of action and without valid grounds, all were resolved in due time; not this one.
The problem is not just whether or not there was a fraud (the word does not even exist in our legislation). There is no true transparency, we always had and will have that doubt. Because there were doubts, a new electoral register was requested in the streets, which was made in 2009 and the spurious means of its creation also generated doubts, never cleared, leaving the door open to uncertainty about its legitimacy. And more than 10 years later we are at the same point, with the same doubts, after another questioned election in 2014, the shameful one in 2019, and the supposedly exemplary one in 2020. Not carrying out a thorough investigation makes doubts persist, mistakes are repeated and illegitimacy is installed. The problem is structural, of an electoral system designed to measure, with unconstitutional laws, submissive officials, and all the inaccessible information (the most critical under confidentiality protection). The solution must also be structural and not political. There are general problems and other specific ones. Summarizing, I mention a few:
The Organs of the State with jurisdictional competence, that is, the Electoral and the Judicial, as well as the Constitutional Tribunal, are formed through the Legislative Organ, which is eminently political, with an absolute majority of a single political party, the citizen vote in judicial elections only legitimizes the party’s candidates, maintaining an iron submission over them.
The Constitution and the main laws are the product of agreements emerging from high-conflict situations, in which politicians made and make agreements responding to their interests, often personal, because they do not have a political party and they omit the interests of the population, for their benefit.
The political party system has been completely destroyed, leaving a few surviving parties, by decision and will of the hegemonic party, to which they are functional. The politicians join in, paying the “rent” of the initials for each election, participating in this farce with all enthusiasm. This system is maintained despite its democratic ineffectiveness, but independent participation without political organizations is prevented.
When the system cannot manipulate the results in its favor, it simply ignores them, as it did with the 2016 referendum, violating the Constitution and the laws. Not only did the Supreme Electoral Court itself do it, which enabled Evo Morales for the third time in 2014 and for the fourth time in 2019; the Constitutional Court also did it in 2014, 2016, and 2019; and the politicians also did it by participating in elections with an absolutely illegal candidate, without questioning anything. They legitimized him with their presence; now they demand my presence to legitimize the acts of this Supreme Electoral Tribunal, to which my dissident position benefited to simulate a “balanced” conformation, and we citizens have legitimized it with our vote, the vote that when it is doesn’t suit their interests they do not want to respect.
The electoral legislation is unconstitutional; this was recognized by the MAS itself when its legal status had to be canceled, as they did without blinking in 2015 against a political adversary, but it also violates due process, putting individual rights in the hands of the party delegate, thus allowing corruption and sale of candidacies and preventing internal democracy in political organizations. Law 1096 is unconstitutional; it violates political rights, giving political organizations (the single party) the political right to be elected. Filing actions of unconstitutionality only serves for the record, because the Constitutional Tribunal will not do its job impartially and will only consolidate them, with all its arbitrariness.
The system tolerates torture exercised against women in elective office, to achieve their resignation in favor of their substitutes or that their actions be subjected to the interest of the party. Violence against women, especially in municipalities and departmental assemblies, is not addressed effectively, the treatment of a regulation that sanctions political parties for these acts has been omitted, which has been seen in the cases brought to the attention of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), respond to organic decisions, especially and mainly in the case of the MAS.
In the technological, legal, and jurisdictional field, it is avoided to open the sources, to allow the observation, supervision, and real and effective citizen control; they expect an act of faith from the people, to justify the absence of institutional transparency. There is no need to carry out an “archeological [study]” of the electoral register. They want to convince about the integrity of the electoral register through publicity, with slides and exhibitions. Technology must be open, subject to public scrutiny, all the time, permanently. There is no reason why it should not be. Confidentiality clauses only raise doubts. Everything can be fine, it is a possibility. But nothing indicates that it is. What cannot be verified, cannot be validated, and much less legitimized. There are enough reasons to doubt. But there are also mechanisms to clear up these doubts and they are not being used.
The appointment of personnel must be made through public recruitment. In my absence due to vacation, they appointed more than 60 people, without even verifying if they met the requirements of the position; they refused to do it for six months, starting in April, and in one week, during my absence, they filled all the vacant positions, under the lead of the newly arrived Tribunal member. In the electoral period, designations were made on the basis of merit, but it was agreed that after the elections, designations would be done through public recruitment, which was complied with. They are dubious designations, with their backs to the people and, above all, faithful to their Statute.
People do not have access to information, elementary things are kept in reserve; there are no means for the population to verify the conditions of an election or challenge it. The algorithms should be public, open; the algorithms of the [electoral] calculation, of the jury random selection, should be visible so that citizens who understand the issues can verify that they are okay; the sessions, recordings, and minutes of each plenary session must be public, they are essential elements to generate public confidence, as well as the processes of hiring electoral notaries and many etceteras.
The participation of indigenous peoples has been limited, it is unacceptable that the first time they participated directly without party mediation for the election of special indigenous seats was as recently as 2020, eleven years after the approval of the Constitution, and 3 elections later; but even so, they were forced to compete against the party. The possibility of participating as political organizations was recognized, but their participation in single-member constituencies, for example, is prevented. The MAS has divided the indigenous, native, and peasant organizations, preventing the defense of their rights and subjecting once again the interests of their peoples to the party. And there are the issues of the prior, free and informed consultation that the Electoral Body supervises, nominally and seeing mining, logging, and hydrocarbon concessions pass, without complying with this constitutional requirement, in addition to invading their territories, again and again, to hand them over to corrupt interests.
The form of allocation of multi-member seats in the departmental assemblies has been designed so that regardless of who assumes the governorship, the assembly is always in control of the MAS, by far. The presidential system (which is not the best anyway), planned at the national level, has been broken, whereby the vote obtained by the Executive determines the percentage of multi-member deputy delegations. At the departmental level, the Governor goes alone, which would not be bad at the national, departmental, and municipal levels, so that all representatives, in all legislative assemblies, be elected individually and democratically. But as currently designed, the percentage allocation by political organizations clearly creates benefits for a single party.
But this is not all.
I understood that my presence not only legitimized impunity; my presence was generating a mirage that prevented us from seeing how the Electoral Organ is kidnapped; although initially professional, committed to democracy, efficient and reliable personnel were appointed, today they are under pressure and control from those who now operate internally for the MAS.
We must not forget the already open, shameless, and shameful defenestration carried out by President Luis Arce of six Tribunal members of the Departmental Electoral Tribunals of Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz, Potosí, Oruro, and Tarija, three of them who held the presidency, nor the complicity of the Constitutional Court for a similar act, to remove with the stroke of a pen four Tribunal members of the Beni Departmental Electoral Tribunal, legitimately elected and appointed as determined by the Constitution, now in legal limbo due to a constitutional protection action granted to a person who was disqualified in the selection process, and for which the appointment process of four Tribunal members who were in office has been annulled, leaving from July 21 an entire Departmental Tribunal without authorities (except for the Tribunal member imposed by President Arce).
And to date, four months later, that Tribunal is in the hands of a single Tribunal member, who is the “trusted” member of the President and is administered by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). But, above all, it should not be forgotten that the Electoral Body maintained public silence in both cases and that internally they received and welcomed the presidential Tribunal members. And now, only a few Tribunal members are waging a solitary struggle defending themselves not only from the indifference and passivity of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal itself, but from the many criminal proceedings initiated against them and the “procedural burden” that prevents the Constitutional Court from addressing in a timely manner the constitutional actions filed.
I showed my dissent, they were published; I exposed them, despite the gag of the sole member’s position. I have not seen those who now regret the “take over” of the Electoral Body, regarding the Organic Statute of the MAS, with which they not only appropriate the Electoral Body but the entire State, unabashedly. It states that THERE ARE NO NEUTRAL OR INDEPENDENT AUTHORITIES IN ANY STATE INSTITUTION. And I have not seen those who now regret a biased Electoral Body get outraged. Those who exercise functions in positions that require independence and impartiality have two paths: either join the party, make monthly contributions and accept the mandatory consultation with their National Directorate to make decisions, or leave. Unless, as the Tribunal members say, the militants do not agree and file the “corresponding actions to determine their unconstitutionality,” which should have been determined by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. They made their decision, and they stay. We know under what conditions, the Statute they registered sets said conditions.
When the political and social crisis of 2019 occurred, which was nothing other than the overflow of an already inadmissible situation generated by the MAS-IPSP, to impose itself violently and remain in power indefinitely as a mechanism to guarantee its impunity; those called to respond to this situation to give the population a truly democratic, honest and justice-framed option, with a vocation for service and loyalty to the citizenry, acted away from that clamor, they did so from pride, taking advantage of the situation to postulate their candidacies in a voracious struggle, leaving people –once again– without options that truly respond to their needs, adding another factor of advantage to the many already existing in the system, to perpetuate in power those who have criminally dismantled democracy.
It is important not to lose the horizon of the structural. If only one issue is resolved, it is not enough to correct the system. The agenda indicates that later will come the legislative reform of the laws on electoral matters; the population and housing census, which will lead to the redistribution of single-member districts; the judicial elections, and then again the cycle of general, departmental, regional and municipal elections, successively, all this without making open corrections, with citizen participation and observation.
A binding means of verification, carried out by citizen input, open to those who freely assume the responsibility of verifying with the endorsement of the scientific research method, the processes and the application of human rights in the Constitutional, Justice and Electoral Tribunals, in order to verify the impartiality, independence, and adherence to the Constitution and the laws that apply in the cases submitted to its jurisdiction and competence, is the way to restore justice, establish guarantees and with it, democracy, restoring the rule of law, restoring sovereignty to whoever belongs in an inalienable way: the people. And the people are all of us, not just the militants of one party.
In the meantime, there will be no other solid political organizations, nor will citizens be adequately informed, nor will respect for the vote be guaranteed. Failure to make corrections to the system that makes up all the Organs of public power, distorted by a malicious will that has hijacked the sovereignty of the people in favor of a political party, entails the consolidation of a tyrant government, which has dismantled democracy and will persist in holding with impunity those who, like Evo Morales, cling to power, deceiving and betraying the very people they claim to represent, whom they have done nothing but divide, based on lies.
Under these conditions, things cannot even be corrected from the inside; the responsible, active, and committed participation of the population is required; it is time for citizens to regain their sovereignty, and exercise it directly and legitimately, respecting their diversity, free from pressure, extortion, and manipulation of the ruling power, exercising their right to resort to “the supreme recourse of rebellion against tyranny and oppression” considered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when their rights are not protected by a regime of Law. It is not a political issue, it is a Human Rights issue and minimum guarantees to regain the Rule of Law. Changing things requires starting from something, and that something is nothing more than breaking the circles of impunity and corruption. Those who have hijacked democracy to dismantle it cannot govern.
I want to express my appreciation for all the expressions of solidarity, appreciation, and support, thanks to which I feel good, with the spirit to continue, always. I regret having to seek protection, not only from those who exercise power, but also from our justice system, which is the one I should trust and the one that should protect me, but, on the contrary, it has become a servile tool of persecution and extortion. It doesn’t matter where I am. I am with my country, seeking that human rights and justice be restored.
Rosario Baptista Canedo
Source: https://eldeber.com.bo/pais/exvocal-baptista-advierte-que-si-no-hay-cambios-en-el-sistema-electoral-se-consolidara-un-gobierno-t_256067?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#.YZzF10XOs70.twitter
FIDEL, PINOCHET AND PROSPERITY
Former Mayor, Minister of State, and Chancellor of the Republic of Bolivia
2 November 2021
Fidel, Pinochet and Prosperity
I have extracted from my memoirs a colossal incident. In the early 1990s, the Cuban Ambassador to Chile visited Andrónico Luksic Abaroa, the great-grandson of the Bolivian hero Eduardo Abaroa Hidalgo and an important businessman, to extend an invitation to visit his country. As Andrónico was about to accept the proposal, the Cuban Ambassador clarified that the businessman would be received by Fidel Castro.
Faced with this singular invitation, Andrónico and his son Guillermo flew to Havana and were received by Fidel at the House of the Revolution late at night. Andrónico, who expected to face the tropical heat, wore a thread guayabera shirt, while Castro received them in an olive green uniform and military cap, warmly clothed for the freezing, fully air-conditioned room.
Andrónico, who in addition to his son was accompanied by the Chilean Ambassador to Cuba and his counterpart in Santiago, had been warned that he had to expect long monologues from the Commander. Nothing like that happened. Castro was all ears that night. He asked Andrónico about the economy in Chile, private investments, the business climate, etc. And he raised the possibility that Luksic Abaroa could invest in Cuba in the beer industry.
Towards the end of the night, Castro asked Andrónico to summarize the economic and social situation in Chile in his opinion. Andrónico explained to Castro the dynamics of economic reforms in Chile during the previous two decades and how this country had achieved a degree of economic progress with its consequent social transformation translated into general prosperity of the middle classes and a radical reduction in poverty. Andrónico explained that this new situation that placed Chile at the head of South America had also generated high expectations in the people, who would not accept in the future anything less than maintaining economic progress and sustaining the prosperity achieved.
Andrónico said that Castro kept a long silence, after which he said verbatim: “That, boy, prosperity, you owe it to Pinochet!” Andrónico, very confused, believed he had misheard, and to his disbelief, Castro repeated his statement: “Yes, boy, you owe it to Pinochet.”
Back in Santiago, a few days later, Andrónico received an invitation from Pinochet to a formal dinner. The dinner was attended by the entire military hierarchy, the Chilean Ambassador in Havana and Andrónico. At dessert time, Pinochet addressed the latter and asked him to tell the audience what Castro had said. Surely the Chilean diplomat accredited to Cuba had reported that curious as well as implausible conversation. Unsure, Andrónico asked Pinochet to specify what he was asking him to tell. To which Pinochet clarified: “That, what Castro said about me and prosperity.”
For many years I have kept this family anecdote, reserved for my memoirs. But in these unfortunate moments for Bolivia, with a tyrannical, abusive, inept, and arrogant government, I wonder if Castro, deep down inside, was not questioning himself about the path he adopted for his miserable Cuba, unlike the one chosen by the other dictator that transformed Chile. Pinochet was also a tyrant, but he made his country modernize and develop, not impoverished, as was the case with Castro. And, in addition, he kept his word, respected the result of the referendum, organized free elections, and left power.
I sense that Andrónico was correct in his diagnosis: Chileans have already tasted prosperity, and no matter how unhappy they may be today, they will not hand over their fate to the Chilean left-wing. Between the extremes, they will choose who will continue along the capitalist route that has modernized Chile.
Source: http://www.cabildeodigital.com/2021/11/fidel-pinochet-y-la-prosperidad.html
THE FAILED SPECTACLE OF THE MAS AT THE OAS
Career Diplomat, former Bolivian Ambassador to the United States
24 October 2021
The failed spectacle of the MAS at the OAS
A curious fauna of colorful characters: nostalgic for Che Guevara, statistical scholars under a contract of a radical NGO, compulsive liars, and a North American activist defender of the coca leaf to whom the wise phrase of Oscar Wilde applies that “every time a person says something completely stupid, it is always for the noblest reasons,” were summoned to the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS), by the permanent missions of the populist regimes of Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico, in order to evaluate the fraudulent Bolivian elections of 2019.
In this event, some actors have put on the table their resentments, their visceral hatred towards liberal democracies and their ghosts about conspiracies, alleged arms trafficking from Argentina and Ecuador to Bolivia in a non-existent new Condor Plan, fictions about plots of the financial capitalism to destroy them, imaginary schemes attributed to Luis Almagro to destabilize them and other fantasies to collectively victimize themselves in a group therapy session.
Statistical experts, authors of reports that were already rejected by the OAS two years ago, were not well trained and were unable to deny the breaks in the voting trend after the cut-off of the data transmission from the Transmission of Preliminary Electoral Results (TREP), but they limited themselves to merely justify them. But what effectively invalidates all their analysis is that they only analyzed graphs and statistics, and left aside the evidence provided by the OAS on the innumerable electoral crimes that irreversibly contaminated the election.
This spectacle by the Puebla Group, aimed at discrediting the Report and the binding Audit of the OAS on the presidential elections in Bolivia, meant a new diplomatic setback for the Government of Luis Arce, which insists on trying to hide the electoral crimes duly proven by the OAS audit, as well as the shameful escape of Evo Morales to Mexico. However, the intention of the delegations of Argentina, Mexico, and Nicaragua to dismantle and weaken the electoral observation system of the OAS, the most solid, independent, and professional in the world, along with that of the European Union, is still worrying. That fact and that attitude is the one that should concern the international community the most. The Electoral Observation Missions (EOMs) of the OAS, which are the only guarantee that elections in the region are credible and transparent.
The strategy of using international events for circumstantial domestic policy purposes never favors the objective of a professional foreign policy, which is the defense and promotion of the permanent interests of a State. Proof of this improvisation is that they have chosen the OAS headquarters to organize a political event aimed at victimizing Evo Morales, discrediting the OAS electoral observation missions, and personally attacking the OAS Secretary-General. None of these objectives has been achieved: First, because the presentation did not have a significant audience and even Bolivians who wanted to participate were not allowed to enter. Second, the limited virtual participation was overwhelmingly from the opposition and forced the moderator to cancel the questions. Third, the political speeches left no doubt that it was a gathering between representatives of Latin American populism for the purposes of propaganda and spreading false narratives. The Argentine Representative, a dilettante of radical Kirchnerism, punished the audience with accusations of conspiracy against the former Argentine President, Mauricio Macri, and a speech from the sixties that confirms the idea of how dangerous it is to leave the destiny of our freedom in the hands of noisy demagogues.
Another dangerous element that reveals the true objective of the event is a phenomenon that transcends the very issue of the Bolivian elections and is that of the increasingly widespread practice of misrepresenting the truth. Populists presume that, currently, it is not the facts that matter but who dominates the narrative with which they acquire meaning. Under this vision, they try to impose their narrative using the lie repeated and disseminated countless times through different media. This practice generates what the Oxford Dictionary considered the word of the year for 2016: The “post-truth” or false narratives that prevail in the current global information system.
One of those gears of post-truth in the region is that of the Puebla Group and its machinery that, with the support of extra-continental powers and other obscure financings, uses propaganda for the dissemination of false narratives, actions, and coordinated speeches among its operators in governments, the international press, certain NGOs, some human rights organizations, organic intellectuals, bureaucrats, the Cuban intelligence service, whose objective is to consolidate a hegemonic power project of mafia populism in Latin America. These strategies, both left-wing and right-wing, are nourished by the methods of 20th-century European fascism and Cuban Castroism. It is not a fantasy that the ghost of that fascism is once again threatening our societies and the reality is that liberal democracies in the region are at risk of becoming their opposite: democracies of masses deprived of democratic behaviors.
Source: https://publico.bo/internacional/el-fallido-espectaculo-del-mas-en-la-oea/
WHAT MAGNICIDE?
21 October 2021
What magnicide?
Minister Eduardo Del Castillo reports that between October 16 and 23 of last year, former Captain Germán Rivera García was passing through Bolivia. A Colombian national and known as “Mike”, his military nickname, this 40-year-old retired military man would have stayed in a room located on the 14th floor of the “Presidente” hotel in La Paz.
He wasn’t alone. According to Del Castillo, he was accompanied by a former police officer, the Colombian Ronald Alexander Ramírez Salamanca, and two businessmen: Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, better known as “Gabriel”, and the Venezuelan Antonio Intriago Valera, “Tony”, both from a Miami suburb called Doral. Everything indicates that they did not come to Bolivia to follow up on the elections held two days after their arrival. The composition of the delegation suggests a business trip. What do these gentlemen sell?: Violence.
Eight months after passing through Bolivia, former Captain Rivera and Sergeant Duberney Capador arrived in Haiti with a contract in their suitcase. From Miami, they were convinced to risk their lives on a mission that would open the doors to a stable job as members of the Haitian presidential guard. To achieve this, they had to first arrest Jovenel Moïse, the acting Head of State. The commando made up of 21 men, six trucks, and 16 rifles had a set date and time for the incursion: July 7 at dawn. CTU, Tony and Gabriel’s company, openly purchased the remaining 19 airline tickets. None of the intruders concealed their identity or used any ingenious method to mislead the Police; so sure were they of the change of government and subsequent official protection in Port-au-Prince.
Distributed in five groups of four, the attackers took 30 minutes to complete the operation. It should be noted that three days before, the order had been modified. It was no longer going to be an arrest, but an assassination. Moïse was riddled that morning with 12 projectiles aimed by the Colombian Víctor Pineda in the unprotected room he shared with his wife, a miraculous survivor of the assassination. The attackers took with them two boxes and two suitcases, which contained 45 million dollars. That was the succulent loot calculated from Miami. It was to be distributed among the 21 participants and the CTU.
When, as planned, the caravan approached the presidential palace to greet the change of command, it was repelled by the guard. Something had started to go wrong. The Colombians roamed the capital without a clear direction. They ended up hiding in the Taiwanese Embassy, where Haitian troops came to hunt them down. The siege was preceded by the explosion of two war grenades. Former Sergeant Capador and two other men lost their lives in this unexpected counterattack. The 18 rented combatants are in jail today, including former Captain Rivera García.
These retired soldiers expected money and impunity. Did they seek a similar treatment in Bolivia? It is clear that they did not succeed. Their contractors in Haiti showed them a false arrest warrant for Moïse and it was Haitian politicians who pushed them into the abyss.
It is estimated that Miami has served as a recruiting platform for at least 6,000 former Colombian military and police officers, people desired by Arab monarchies or security companies in places as diverse as Dubai or Kabul. Dimitri Hërard, the head of security for the assassinated president, traveled to Colombia seven times this year. It is assumed that he did it to supervise the implementation of the plot. With the Government’s permission, he had set up an arms import company to the island. In this way, he provided lethal material to the Caribbean criminal gangs, thanks to which he multiplied his fortune.
The previous description proves that the CTU delegation that was in Bolivia last year did not represent an amateur club. It was the spearhead of what could be defined as the privatization of geopolitical action. Minister Del Castillo assumes that the group arrived in Bolivia to sign a contract, the central clause of which was the assassination of Arce Catacora. The denunciation suffers from an absence of evidence that borders on a public spectacle. Even worse. The case awakens memories of the speedy annihilation in 2009 of the group led by Eduardo Rózsa Flores in a hotel in Santa Cruz. Could it be that soon we will see the photo of former Captain Rivera with some leader of the opposition to the MAS?
Source: https://www.paginasiete.bo/opinion/2021/10/21/cual-magnicidio-312747.html
LONGARIC AND APARICIO: IACHR’S REJECTION OF AÑEZ’S REQUEST OPENS THE WAY FOR MORE VIOLATIONS IN BOLIVIA
10 October 2021
Longaric and Aparicio: IACHR’s rejection of Añez’s request opens the way for more violations in Bolivia
Former Foreign Minister Karen Longaric and former Bolivian Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Jaime Aparicio, have harshly criticized the recent rejection of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to the request made by former President Jeanine Añez to be granted precautionary measures in that instance and said that the IACHR puts its political affinities before its obligations with the Inter-American System.
In a statement released this Sunday, Longaric and Aparicio warned that the IACHR’s rejection of the former President’s request –which they describe as unfair and guided by “political and personal interests, oblique and deviant”– “opens the way for more violations of human and political rights in Bolivia.”
At the same time, they warn that this rejection will have serious consequences in the country because, in their opinion, it leaves many citizens not trusting national justice and who saw in that high court a hope of obtaining justice in their possible demands.
“The IACHR’s rejection of precautionary measures in favor of the former constitutional President of Bolivia, Jeanine Añez, means that the commissioners of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) have made a political decision rather than a legal one, putting their ideological affinities before their obligation to ensure the protection of human rights within the framework of the Inter-American System,” they said in the document.
“This decision leaves many Bolivian citizens helpless who cannot trust national justice and who saw the Inter-American Human Rights System as one of the last guarantors of democracy and the rule of law in the country. With this, the IACHR sets a dangerous precedent in the region. It fails in its role as guardian of human rights and gives a blow to the credibility of the Inter-American System, which has been so important in the history of the continent and which has cost so much to build,” they added.
In a ruling that has been especially criticized by opposition sectors in the country and welcomed by the Government, last week the IACHR decided to reject the request for precautionary measures presented by former President Añez and closed her case, as confirmed at that time by the Executive Secretary of that organization, Tania Reneaum Panszi.
The IACHR, according to Reneaum Panszi’s letter, urged the Bolivian State to guarantee, in favor of the former President, “decent conditions of detention, in compliance with the minimum inter-American standards on the matter, providing adequate, specialized and continuous physical and mental medical care and/or treatment, either inside or outside the penitentiary, seeking, as far as possible, consensus with the trusted doctors of the proposed beneficiary and their informed consent.”
In their statement this Sunday, the former diplomatic authorities said that from that letter it can be interpreted that the IACHR assumed as true all the arguments presented by the Government before that instance, ignoring even the warnings of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) “on the lack of independence of the Judicial Power in the country and on the total control that the Executive [Power] has over judges and prosecutors.”
“The Commission should have minimally considered the lack of independence of the Bolivian Judicial Power, the flagrant abuse of the figure of preventive detention in Bolivia verified by the GIEI itself, and the consequent procedural and prison abuses against Jeanine Añez, which under international standards constitute acts of torture and degrading treatment,” they say.
“It is also clear that the IACHR does not consider that the evidence and arguments presented in favor of former President Añez show that her physical integrity is at immediate, serious, and irreparable risk. For the IACHR, the daily psychological and physical pressure suffered by Jeanine Añez, either due to the aggressive protests of inmates against her in prison, the inexplicable transfer from one prison to another, the lack of quality medical care, the refusal to transfer her to a hospital, the prohibition of visits, or the constant humiliations that have led her to attempt suicide, do not pose a serious and irreparable risk to the physical integrity of Jeanine Añez,” they add.
But, in addition, Longaric and Aparicio say that by exhorting the former President “to cooperate in a positive way with the State in the implementation of the measures in [her] favor,” the IACHR humiliates the former President because “it exhorts her to be kind to her oppressor.”
Source:
Diplomatic fiasco at the CELAC Summit
Career Diplomat, former Bolivian Ambassador to the United States
26 September 2021
Diplomatic fiasco at the CELAC Summit
States with a professional foreign service know that it is never wise to announce a foreign policy initiative whose chances of failure are far greater than those of success. In Bolivia, the opposite happens, both during the Government of Evo Morales and in the current one of Luis Arce, both enthusiastically embarked on all the ships with the possibility of sinking. It seems that it has become a custom of the foreign policy of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) to go for wool and get shorn.
It began with the failed maritime strategy designed by the Government of Evo Morales, to present a claim against Chile before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), under the strange premise that they would achieve a Judgment at The Hague that would force Chile to negotiate a sovereign outlet to the Pacific Ocean by virtue of unilateral commitments that Chile would have historically and unilaterally contracted with Bolivia. This maneuver, similar to buying a lottery ticket or betting on roulette, was publicized urbi et orbi (to the city and the world) and they thought that its success would secure Evo Morales into power until the end of time. The result was that Evo Morales will go down in history as the gravedigger of the maritime issue.
This tendency to disgrace the foreign policy continues with the current Government. They announce a series of international actions and all they obtain are embarrassing setbacks. They mount a political and media show to announce the presentation of the report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) regarding the events of violence that occurred in Bolivia between September and December 2019, until they find the unpleasant surprise that among the findings of the GIEI, there are also serious human rights violations attributable to Evo Morales and a recommendation that responsibilities should be established in all acts of violence that occurred during the last two governments. As if that was not enough, the GIEI adds that the Bolivian judicial system is not in a position to provide the minimum guarantees for a fair trial, of impartiality and of due process, due to structural problems and in particular of its consolidation and that “it verified its lack of independence from the Public Ministry, the abuse of preventive detention and its use for the purposes of political persecution.” For this reason, the silence and oblivion in which the GIEI’s recommendations have been confined is not surprising.
These failures would have led any sensible government to reflection, not the Bolivian one. A few weeks ago they invented another international strategy for domestic policy purposes: to go to the Permanent Council (PC) of the Organization of American States (OAS) to denounce the Secretary-General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, and the Secretariat for Strengthening Democracy (SSD) due to a public statement confirming that the Government of Evo Morales committed serious malicious manipulations in the presidential elections of October 2019, at all stages of the process. The failed attempt to attack the OAS was counterproductive for the Bolivian delegation made up of the Ministers of Justice and Foreign Affairs. Except for the support of Argentina, Mexico, and the Nicaraguan dictatorship, the rest of the countries praised the OAS Electoral Observation Missions (EOMs) for the excellent role they play in the region in defense of democracy. As if that was not enough, Francisco Guerrero, Secretary of the SSD, recited the rosary of malicious manipulations committed throughout that election, each of them verified and documented by the electoral forensic experts who went to Bolivia to carry out the binding audit of the OAS and solidly dismissed the little or no value of the report by the lonely professor at the University of Salamanca and two of his students, who for some time made the wise decision to disappear from the map.
Finally, as it seems that the current authorities do not learn by the experience of their continuous disasters and that, to add insult to injury, they lack career diplomats since at the beginning of their government they decimated the Diplomatic Career, they dedicated themselves to announce to everyone that at the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Mexico, they would present a joint initiative with Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Mexico, to replace the OAS with another organization and thus end Luis Almagro. As expected, they were again ridiculed and none of that happened. Rather, the OAS came out strengthened in the face of an incoherent organization such as the CELAC, which claims to be a defender of democracy and invites the dictatorships of Diaz Canel, Ortega, and Maduro to its Summit and the candidate to be admitted to that club, Evo Morales’ scribe, Luis Arce.
These constant failures damage the country’s already precarious image and its ability to act in good faith in its relations with the world.
Source: https://publico.bo/internacional/fiasco-diplomatico-en-cumbre-de-celac/
Chile eases border restrictions for nationals and resident foreigners
The borders remain officially closed, Chileans and residents who have completed their scheduled vaccines will be able to leave and enter the trans-Andean country.
22 July 2021
Chile eases border restrictions for nationals and resident foreigners
The Chilean health authorities indicated this Thursday that restrictions on the country’s borders, which have been closed since April, will be eased for nationals and residents who are vaccinated.
The measure will take effect from Monday, July 26 and, although the borders are still officially closed, Chileans and residents who have completed their scheduled vaccines will be able to leave and enter the southern country, not foreigners, who will only be able to cross the border in exceptional cases and with consular permits.
Those who leave the country must prove a negative PCR test (swabbing) 72 hours prior to their flight and their vaccination card, and when they return they must arrive with a negative PCR test and do a 10-day home quarantine.
The change comes after a “gigantic decrease” in the cases of daily infections, according to the Health Minister, Enrique Paris, who reiterated that although the statistics are favorable, it is necessary to maintain the sanitary recommendations.
“There is evidence of a decrease in new confirmed cases, however, we have repeatedly said that we do not consider ourselves triumphalist or that we have defeated the virus, quite the opposite,” said Paris.
This Thursday the country registered 1,861 new cases and 181 deaths, accumulating 1.6 million cases and almost 35,000 deaths since the first case was registered on 3 March 2020.
Paris confirmed a decrease in new infections of -32% in the last seven days at the national level, while the successful vaccination process already reaches 11.8 million immunized people (77.91% of the 15.2 million that comprise the target population) out of a total of 19 million inhabitants in the country.
Chilean Senators hope that Bolivia’s refusal to negotiate rates is not an “artificial conflict”
The legislators indicated that they hope that this attitude is not part of a strategy to generate an artificial conflict of a bilateral nature. “The negotiations must continue to be framed in the commercial sphere, as was done in 2019,” they said.
22 July 2021
Chilean Senators hope that Bolivia’s refusal to negotiate rates is not an “artificial conflict”
A call to the Bolivian authorities to facilitate commercial negotiations between the Port of Arica and the Administration of Port Services-Bolivia (ASP-B), was made by the Senators of Arica and Parinacota, Jose Miguel Durana and Jose Miguel Insulza, after learning that the neighboring country’s public company unilaterally suspended meetings with the Port on July 6, the purpose of which was to access tariff discounts for 22 services for Bolivian import cargo.
In this regard, Durana indicated that “it does not seem logical that while the Port of Arica expresses all its willingness to facilitate a new agreement, on the other hand, the Administration of Port Services-Bolivia (ASP-B) abandons the meetings and does not fulfill its promise to return to Arica to negotiate its discounts. Hopefully, this attitude is not part of a strategy to generate an artificial bilateral conflict. “The negotiations must continue to be framed in the commercial sphere, as was done in 2019,” they said.
In this sense, the parliamentarian mentioned that it is necessary for the Bolivian Government to leave behind its vision of resentment against Chile since this prevents progress in commercial, cultural, and social matters. “Let’s hope that with the Port of Arica, the same thing that happened with the Arica-La Paz Railroad last May does not happen, where the Government of President Luis Arce unilaterally suspended the technical test of the train with cargo from his country. That decision halted the possibility of reactivating this mode of transport, the same one for which we have been accused in international forums of not reactivating it.”
Finally, the legislator called on the Bolivian Government to resume negotiations as soon as possible. From the Port of Arica, they indicated that it is a gravitating terminal in the development of Bolivian foreign trade. “In a pandemic, it has grown in its cargo movement, despite Bolivia’s attempts to promote other ports. Arica has the most convenient and efficient rates and services, but it cannot be claimed that they have zero cost, because behind it there are investments and jobs to be settled,” says an official statement.
For his part, Senator Jose Miguel Insulza expressed the need for the Administration of Port Services-Bolivia (ASP-B) to urgently resume negotiations with the Port of Arica, “especially because the current rate agreement that they themselves signed in October 2019, expires next August 4th. I don’t think they want to promote a conflict like the one that took place two years ago, by refusing to negotiate.”
He added that “the Port of Arica has carried out intense work that has directly benefited Bolivian cargo, with tariff incentives for the fluidity of cargo, improvements in infrastructure to bring larger ships, efficient programming of road transport, reduction of the port closure hours due to storm surges, and the incorporation of technology into operations.”
The legislator affirmed that –it is entirely logical– that the tariff negotiations take place in the Port of Arica, “since the port operations are carried out in the maritime terminal, not in the city of La Paz in Bolivia. It is very useful and illustrative to have the immediate possibility of entering the port, in case there are doubts while the talks are taking place. It is to be hoped that Bolivia understands this and understands that in the Port of Arica there is a spirit of facilitating its trade, but under commercial reasonableness, as occurs in all ports worldwide.”
Rodriguez Elizondo: “Chile did not give Bolivia the authority to investigate it”
Richter reported over the weekend that the Government is investigating whether Chile and Brazil had any involvement in the 2019 events in Bolivia.
Regarding the announcement by the presidential spokesperson of an investigation to Chile and Brazil for alleged participation in the so-called “coup”, the international policy advisor to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jose Rodriguez Elizondo, points out that neither the Chilean Government nor International Law gave the Bolivian governmental administration the authority to investigate that country.
Over the weekend, spokesperson Richter informed the AFP agency that the Government is investigating whether Chile and Brazil had any participation in the 2019 social unrest, after accusing Ecuador and Argentina of sending armament and anti-riot equipment.
After Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta showed a note that was allegedly signed by General Jorge Terceros to thank the Argentine Ambassador Normando Alvarez for the supply of “military armament”, President Arce pointed to an international “conspiracy” to remove Evo Morales from power.
Representatives of the ruling party, including Richter, point to Brazil and Chile since the Presidents of these countries are not from the ideological line of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
As for the Chilean State, relations with Bolivia were broken in 2013 due to the Maritime Claim filed by the Morales administration. This claim was won by the neighboring country. In March of this year, there were approaches to reestablish bilateral relations between the two nations. However, the announcement of an investigation into a suspicion could affect this process.
On the subject, Chilean expert in diplomacy Jose Rodriguez Elizondo wrote to Pagina Siete [Newspaper] from Santiago.
How will the Chilean Government take the Bolivian announcement of an investigation?
Rodriguez Elizondo: I imagine it was not received as positive news or as something to normalize relationships.
Could the announcement of the Bolivian Government hinder the rapprochement of Bolivia and Chile?
In no case can it favor it.
Can the Government initiate an investigation of other States for a case that is being investigated in its own country?
I do not know what evidence exists, -if there is any-, of a coup d’État with the participation of other countries.
Does the Bolivian Government have powers to investigate the Chilean Government?
Neither Chile nor International Law has given [Bolivia such powers].
Should Bolivian authorities be more measured in their statements regarding Chile, since there is a beginning of a dialogue between the two countries?
The answer is implicit in your question. The aforementioned excess shows that the ideological “diplomacy of the peoples” is not functional. It does not contribute to the necessary good relationship between our countries.
Source: https://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2021/7/19/rodriguez-elizondo-chile-no-le-dio-bolivia-la-atribucion-de-investigarlo-301417.html