AI
REPORT 1997: BOLIVIA
A prisoner of conscience was detained for 42 days. Trade unionists and peasant leaders were repeatedly detained for short periods. There were reports of ill-treatment by police during arrest and in custody. A military conscript received disciplinary punishments amounting to torture. Investigations into human rights violations against political prisoners documented in previous years remained unresolved.
Throughout the year there were widespread strikes and protests, some of them violent, against the economic and agrarian reforms of the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Scores of peasants and trade unionists were arrested in La Paz, the capital, and Cochabamba and Potosí Departments during and after these demonstrations. At least 13 people were killed in disputed circumstances during confrontations with the security forces. They included a police colonel and nine miners and peasants killed during mine occupations in Potosí Department in December.
Manuel Morales Dávila, a 69-year-old lawyer and president of the Comité de Defensa del Patrimonio Nacional, National Heritage Committee, was arrested in March in La Paz after he publicly criticized President Sánchez de Lozada's policy of ''capitalization'' – which some see as privatization – of Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (ypfb), the state-owned oil and gas company. He was taken to San Pedro prison, held incommunicado for five days and charged with sedition and contempt of presidential authority. He was released on bail after 42 days in detention. He was a prisoner of conscience.
Trade union leaders were repeatedly detained, in most cases briefly, in what appeared to be a pattern of harassment to exert pressure on trade unions to support government proposals. In April, four peasant leaders, including Alejo Véliz and Luis García, Secretary General and Press Officer, respectively, of the Federación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Cochabamba, Cochabamba Peasant Workers' Trade Union, were arrested without warrant in Cochabamba one day before a demonstration was due to take place during a Summit of Ministers from the European Union and ''Rio Group'' of Latin American countries. Their place of detention was unknown for two days. Three of the men were subsequently released without charge. Alejo Véliz was charged with incitement to commit crimes. He was released in May, but legal proceedings against him were continuing at the end of the year.
There were several complaints of ill-treatment of people by the police during arrest and in custody. In April, 78 people were arrested by police in La Paz after a demonstration in protest against the ''capitalization'' of the ypfb and in support of demands for salary increases by the Central Obrera Boliviana, Bolivian Labour Confederation. The arrests were reportedly carried out violently and without warrants. Two men, Mario Andrade Peñaloza and Adrián Monzón, sustained serious head injuries. The 78 were held for several days at the Criminalística, the police centre for criminal investigations, in one cell 24 metres square. Sanitary conditions were poor and the detainees had to take turns sitting and sleeping. All were later released without charge.
There were reports that peasants were ill-treated during police operations. For example, in September, Modesto Peña Jiménez reportedly required hospital treatment for injuries sustained during his arrest by members of the Unidad Móvil para el Patrullaje Rural, Mobile Rural Patrol Unit, in the locality of Chipiriri, Cochabamba Department, during a police operation to forcibly eradicate coca-leaf crops. The same month, seven peasants publicly complained that they had been ill-treated by the police during their arrest in La Paz following a police raid on the neighbourhood of Villa Fátima. One of them, Eulogio Mamani Tapia, was reportedly taken to the Hospital de Clínicas, a state-run teaching hospital in La Paz, to be treated for his injuries.
A military conscript received disciplinary punishments amounting to torture. In September, Wilson Pucho Alí, a conscript in the Bolivian Air Force, was reportedly tortured by three officers and two civilians at the El Alto Air Force barracks because he had misplaced his rifle. According to public complaints made by the Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos de la distrital de El Alto, El Alto Permanent Assembly for Human Rights – a local non-governmental organization – Wilson Pucho Alí was kept in chains for a week and tortured by being hung upside-down, immersed in water, beaten with a stick and subjected to mock executions. He was reportedly taken to the Military Hospital with extensive bruising and fractured ankles.
The authorities failed to clarify numerous cases of human rights violations committed between 1989 and 1993 against political prisoners accused of participating in armed uprisings (see previousAmnesty International Reports). The alleged violations, which included extrajudicial executions, torture, ill-treatment and denial of defence counsel, had been extensively documented by the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies (see Amnesty International Report 1996).
Amnesty International appealed to the authorities to investigate all reported cases of human rights violations and to bring to justice those responsible. Amnesty International delegates visited Bolivia in April and presented the organization's concerns to national and departmental authorities. The organization requested information about any investigations initiated into the deaths in previous years of at least three conscripts in army barracks in Santa Cruz Department and called for the immediate and unconditional release of Manuel Morales Dávila.
In a report published in September, Bolivia: Awaiting justice – torture, extrajudicial executions and legal proceedings, Amnesty International reiterated its concern about human rights violations against political prisoners in previous years and at the failure of the authorities to adopt the findings and recommendations of the investigation undertaken by the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. The organization urged the government to ratify the un Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture.
