Saturday 13 September
2008, San José, Costa Rica
BOLIVIA:
Deaths in the Amazon
By Franz Chávez
LA PAZ (IPS) - The
Bolivian government
declared martial law in
the northern province of
Pando after as many as
15 indigenous supporters
of President Evo Morales
were killed by rightwing
protesters near the town
of Cobija.
A group of public
employees of the
provincial government of
Pando, in the hands of
the rightwing
opposition, intercepted
the victims as they were
heading to a meeting of
Morales supporters from
Amazon jungle
communities, where they
planned to organise
resistance against the
pro-autonomy
demonstrators who have
been occupying public
offices and holding
protests over the past
few days.
The killings occurred in
the context of a wave of
demonstrations that
broke out on Tuesday,
when members of the
rightwing Santa Cruz
Youth Union (UCJ) took
control of public
offices in the central
Bolivian city of Santa
Cruz, after breaking
past the military and
police cordons
protecting the
buildings.
The pro-autonomy
movement led by Santa
Cruz Governor Rubén
Costas and backed by the
regional governments of
Beni, Pando, Tarija and
Chuquisaca, which with
Santa Cruz make up
Bolivia's relatively
wealthy "eastern
crescent," has in
practice put an economic
stranglehold on the
country by blocking the
main highways and
partially cutting off
supplies of natural gas
to Brazil and Argentina.
On Thursday, leftwing
President Morales, the
first indigenous
president in the history
of Bolivia, accused
groups of landowners in
the eastern lowlands
provinces of "financing
a criminal mentality,"
and warned that
"patience also has a
limit."
The Roberto Galindo
hospital in Cobija
presented a dramatic
scene as emergency room
personnel tended those
injured in the attack.
They had deep slash cuts
from machetes and axes,
as well as bullet wounds
from shotguns and
rifles.
Some of the dead had
bullet wounds from
firearms used in the
"ambush" of the
government supporters,
which took place in the
early hours of Thursday
morning with the goal of
preventing a meeting in
the small town of
Filadelfia, 50
kilometres south of
Cobija, according to the
local representative on
the Comité de Vigilancia
(Citizen's Watch
committee), Leyla Tudela.
Former Mayor of Cobija
and leader of the
Movimiento Amazónico de
Renovación Democrática
(MAR, Amazon Movement
for Democratic Renewal)
Miguel Becerra told a
local radio station that
it was "a massacre of
the campesinos
(indigenous peasants),
some of whom were run
over by a truck
belonging to the
governor's office."
For their part,
supporters of the
governor of Pando,
Leopoldo Fernández,
accused Becerra of
instigating the
violence.
The Deputy Minister of
Social Movements, Sacha
Llorenti, a close
Morales adviser, said
the victims were shot in
an armed attack by
"hired killers" in what
he described as "an
outright massacre" in
Cobija.
Llorenti blamed the
incident on Governor
Fernández, a rightwing
landowner with a long
track record in Bolivian
politics.
Fernández called for a
truce in the conflict to
pacify the province. But
in response to the
national government's
statements, he said he
would be "the last to
walk away from the
fight."
On Friday, the executive
branch asked Congress to
take action against
Governor Fernández for
the Porvenir massacre,
according to the
government news agency
Agencia Boliviana de
Información (ABI).
Former President Jorge
Quiroga, the head of the
rightwing Social and
Democratic Power (Podemos)
party, appealed to the
Morales administration
and called on both sides
of the conflict to rein
in their groups of
organised activists.
"This is an entreaty, as
an ex-president I know
that this conflict can
spill over and run out
of control, causing many
deaths," he said.
Violence continued
Thursday in the slum
neighbourhood of Plan
Tres Mil on the
outskirts of Santa Cruz,
which is basically
populated by Aymara and
Quechua Indians from
Bolivia's impoverished
western highlands
provinces.
UJC groups attacked a
neighbourhood market
where indigenous people
sell their wares, and
local residents showed
up to protect the
vendors.
Native people who have
settled in the
neighbourhood,
originally from the
western provinces of La
Paz, Oruro and Potosí,
are in fear of being
attacked by the radical
rightwing youth groups.
Meanwhile, in the town
of Yacuiba, on the
border with Argentina, a
group of demonstrators
swarmed a natural gas
facility that exports
fuel to Buenos Aires,
and managed to cut off
supplies.
Bolivia exports six
million cubic metres a
day of natural gas to
Argentina, Bolivia's
second largest gas
export market after
Brazil.
An attack on the gas
pipeline to Brazil
Wednesday reduced the
volume of gas flow from
26 to 23 million cubic
metres per day, creating
concern among diplomats
at the Brazilian embassy
in La Paz.
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