AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL
REPORT 1996
[This report covers the period
01/01/95-31/12/95]
BOLIVIA
Hundreds of trade unionists were
detained without charge for short periods after a state of siege
was imposed across the whole country. The use of torture and
ill-treatment by the police was reported. At least two people were
shot dead by police in circumstances suggesting possible
extrajudicial executions.
Conflict between trade unions and the
government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada continued
throughout the year. There were widespread protests, some violent,
against government economic policies. The Central Obrera Boliviana
(cob), Bolivian Labour Confederation, called a
general strike in March in support of teachers campaigning against
a law to reform the education system. A 90-day state of siege was
imposed on 18 April, giving the security forces powers of arrest
without warrant and imposing a curfew. Hundreds of people were
arrested in the days around 18 April and held in military bases and
police installations. The state of siege was extended for a further
90 days in July and was lifted in October.
Hundreds of peasants who subsist by
growing coca-leaf, and community leaders, were detained briefly in
the area of El Chapare, Cochabamba Department, after the
declaration of the state of siege. The arrests were carried out
during a government drive to eradicate coca-leaf crops, in
accordance with agreements made with the usa.
In March former President Luis
García Meza was extradited from Brazil to serve a 30-year
prison sentence imposed by the Supreme Court in November 1993. He
was held in the high-security prison of Chonchocoro, near the
capital, La Paz. Luis García Meza and 46 of his
collaborators had been convicted of various crimes including human
rights violations committed at the beginning of the 1980s (see
previous Amnesty International Reports).
In July the Human Rights Commission of
the Chamber of Deputies made public its report on human rights
violations committed between 1989 and 1993 against people accused
of armed uprising (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The
report documented formal complaints of torture and extrajudicial
executions by members of the security forces and cases in which
defendants had been denied a fair trial. In its recommendations,
the Commission asked for those found responsible for human rights
violations to be brought to justice, and called for a judicial
review of cases where the right to defence and due process had been
violated.
In March over 20 teachers' union
leaders were violently arrested. Around 100 armed members of the
national police and security services, some hooded and dressed in
civilian clothes, raided the Casa Social del Maestro, the premises
of the Urban Teachers' Union, in La Paz. The trade union
leaders were arrested without warrant and were held in the custody
of the judicial police. Most were released after short periods, but
two – Wilma Plata and Gonzalo Soruco – were charged
with several crimes including sedition and conspiracy. Wilma Plata
publicly stated that she and other detainees had been ill-treated
at the Women's Prison of Obrajes in May by police who entered
the prison to forcibly end her hunger-strike. She said she was
taken out of her cell in her underwear, beaten and dragged down the
stairs. Wilma Plata and Gonzalo Soruco were released on 26 May.
Subsequently the charges against them were dropped.
On 18 April scores of Bolivian trade
unionists were arrested without warrant by police in La Paz and
Copacabana, La Paz Department. Also detained were a number of
foreign nationals attending a conference of coca-leaf growers from
the Andean countries. A few hours later the state of siege was
declared. All the foreign nationals were released within 48 hours
and expelled from the country. However, some Bolivian trade
unionists were held incommunicado for up to seven days and
allegedly tortured and ill-treated shortly after arrest. Many were
transferred into internal exile in isolated and unhealthy locations
around the country. At least four of them were suffering from
ill-health. They were all subsequently released without
charge.
Two leaders of the coca-leaf growers,
Crisólogo Mendoza and Modesto Condori Cuisa, told the Human
Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies that while in
detention they had been beaten by hooded individuals who pierced
their testicles and buttocks with pins and subjected them to death
threats to force them to give evidence against another
leader.
There were other allegations of
torture and ill-treatment by the security forces. Aída
Añez was arrested in Cochabamba in April by members of the
Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotráfico
(felcn), Drug Control Special Unit, together with
eight other people, on suspicion of drug offences. According to her
testimony, they were beaten, blindfolded and taken to an
unidentified location where they were tortured for two days.
Aída Añez said she was raped several times and beaten
until she lost consciousness. She had a miscarriage a few days
later.
At least two people were shot dead by
police in circumstances suggesting possible extrajudicial
executions during protest demonstrations, some of them violent,
staged by coca-leaf growers. In August members of the Unidad
Móvil de Patrullaje Rural (umopar), Mobile Rural Patrol Unit, shot dead Juan
Ortíz Díaz, a member of the Peasants' Union of
Ayopaya, Ichoa Central, in Cochabamba Department, during an
operation to counter drug-trafficking. Also in August, in the
locality of San Gabriel, in the Isiboro Sécure National
Reserve Park, one peasant was shot dead and at least five were
wounded by umopar. José Mejía Pizo, a
68-year-old coca-leaf grower, was reported to have been
deliberately killed by umopar members while lying wounded and defenceless
on the ground. He had been wounded by umopar after firing a shot at them with a
rifle.
Amnesty International called in June
and August for thorough and independent investigations into the
reported human rights violations and for the findings to be made
public. Replies from the Ministry of Justice in September and
October stated that the Ministry was committed to monitoring
investigations into human rights violations. Amnesty International
remained concerned that the government did not provide any
information on the progress of such investigations.
