IPS-English BOLIVIA: String of Bomb Attacks Prompts Hunger for Truth
 
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:44:27 -0800

 
Franz Chávez

LA PAZ, Dec 28   (IPS)  - On the fourth day of a hunger strike held
in a room sealed off with bricks and cement in place of the wooden
door that was blown off in a recent explosion, three Bolivian labour
leaders are pressuring the government to clarify the dynamite attack,
one of seven carried out in the last five months.

One of the three fasting leaders of the Central Obrera Boliviana
(COB) trade union confederation, Pedro Montes, blamed the Dec. 24
dynamite blast on rightwing currents linked to the pro-business civic
committees and to the governments of the departments (provinces) of
Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija, which are pushing for regional
autonomy.

However, the police have not yet reported on the results of the investigation
into the attack.

Speaking with IPS through a hole the size of a brick -- the only
opening left for communication with people outside of the room --
Montes, executive secretary of the COB, said he and his fellow trade
unionists were holding the hunger strike to demand that the authorities
uncover the identity of those who threw dynamite at the building.

The hunger strikers have blocked off the doorway in the COB office
to keep themselves isolated and demonstrate that no food is being
introduced into the room.

Bolivia is polarised between the impoverished western highlands,
home to the country's indigenous majority, and the wealthier eastern
lowlands, where Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando and Tarija are pressing for
autonomy and for greater control over the country's natural gas reserves
and prime farmland, which are concentrated in the east. The four departments
account for around two-thirds of Bolivia's gross domestic product
(GDP).

As tension has risen between the indigenous and social movements
that support the government of leftist President Evo Morales and the
rightist opposition, a string of explosions since July have targeted
the homes of politicians allied with Morales, public offices, and
most recently, the COB offices in La Paz.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Interior Minister Alfredo Rada blamed last Monday's blast on an unnamed
”terrorist” organisation, and said the string of attacks were ”a challenge
to Bolivia's democratic society.''

The attack was apparently aimed at Montes, because his sleeping quarters
in the COB building were the direct target. However, he was travelling
at the time, and there were no casualties. The trade union is demanding
a new building, as its headquarters were significantly damaged.

In the sprawling working-class city of El Alto, next to La Paz, town
councillor Roberto de la Cruz, one of the leaders of the month-long
protests that toppled the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
in late 2003, told IPS that ”wherever it came from, the attack is
reprehensible because the COB is the ‘home' of both formal and informal
sector workers.”

Rada said the government must step up measures against terrorism,
and warned of the possibility of further incidents.

Bolivian history has shown that such attacks can be a prelude to
an attempt to destabilise democracy.

Between January and July of 1980, the second year of the democratic
government of caretaker president Lidia Gueiler, a series of assaults
on leftist leaders and the brutal torture and murder of Spanish priest
Luis Espinal preceded the rightwing coup staged by General Luis García
Meza. (The dictator, who himself was ousted in an August 1981 coup,
is now serving a 30-year sentence for crimes against humanity.)

Opposition movements have stepped up their efforts to block the changes
promoted by the Morales administration, which convened elections for
a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution with the aim of
creating economic equity and social justice in South America's poorest
nation, where indigenous people -- the president's main support base
-- have long been marginalised.

After the opposition delegates boycotted the constituent assembly,
in which pro-Morales representatives hold a majority, the assembly
met early this month to approve a new draft constitution, which will
now go to referendum.

Six days later, the department of Santa Cruz -- Bolivia's richest
-- approved a statute declaring autonomy for the region, stating the
aim of creating an independent provincial government, and stipulating
that the department would hold on to nearly two-thirds of the tax
revenues that it now turns over to the central government.

”We will no longer tolerate the violence,” national police chief
Miguel Vásquez said Thursday.

COB leader Montes, who emerged from the ranks of militantly leftwing
miners in Huanuni, an area rich in tin in the western department of
Oruro, is critical of some of Morales' policies.

For instance, even though the president renationalised the country's
abundant natural gas reserves -- the largest in South America after
Venezuela's -- Montes believes the process did not go far enough,
and that the government's renegotiation of contracts with the foreign
oil companies stopped short of true nationalisation.

He is also demanding the elimination of labour laws that allow workers
to be hired and fired under a flexible system that benefits employers.

But town councillor de la Cruz said that the COB has not mounted
an offensive against either the government or ”the Santa Cruz oligarchs,”
and that he can see no reason for the Dec. 24 attack targeting the
trade union.

On Saturday, Dec. 22, unidentified assailants lobbed a grenade at
the home of Carlos Romero, a constituent assembly member representing
the governing Movement to Socialism (MAS) party. Although his family
was not hurt, the house suffered significant damages.

And on Sunday, Dec. 23, the police found that dynamite had been thrown
at the garage of a hotel where Morales has stayed when visiting Santa
Cruz.

On Dec. 15, while opposition demonstrators were celebrating the ”autonomy
statute” in Santa Cruz, a grenade went off on the sixth floor of the
high court building in that city, destroying furniture and causing
damages to the building.

Two grenades also exploded on Dec. 10 in the home of MAS town councillor
Osvaldo Peredo. Again, damages were caused but no one was injured.

And on Oct. 22, sticks of dynamite were thrown at a residence for
Cuban doctors and a house next to the Venezuelan consulate, in the
city of Santa Cruz.

The home of MAS constituent assembly-member Saúl Ávalos in Santa
Cruz was the target of another explosion, on Jul. 18. And on Aug.
2, the offices of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee were hit by a homemade
bomb.

The government has urged the office of the public prosecutor to investigate
the attacks, but so far no results have been announced.



(END/IPS/LA IP HD CS/TRASP-SW/FCH/07)


 
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