From a press release this afternoon:
The Pro-Santa Cruz Committee condemns and rejects the political persecution against Santa Cruz civic leaders.
Again the central government carries out state terrorism through the subservience of the justice system to the government.
Because of this, the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee condemns and rejects political persecutions and human-rights violations in Bolivia.
We sympathize with [...]
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Former head of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee Branko Marinkovic was formally accused by prosecutor Marcelo Soza of financing the alleged terrorist cell that was broken up by Bolivian police last year, according to El Día. The prosecutor is linking Marinkovic, Santa Cruz prefect Rubén Costas, and cattle rancher Guido Náyar in the plot to assassinate [...]
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Posted in opposition on Jan 1st, 2010
Ousted Cochabamba prefect and failed Bolivian presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa is apparently stateside, as a fugitive from Bolivian justice, which is looking into how the onetime army officer and bodyguard is now a very, very rich man (hint: by steering government funds into his pockets).
Also: Real Coca Cola (or Colla) will be available in [...]
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Posted in opposition on Dec 18th, 2009
From El Deber, word that Manfred Reyes Villa, who just lost the presidential election in Bolivia, is wanted by the police for several financial irregularities while he was prefect of Cochabamba department. He is currently hiding out, presumably in Santa Cruz.
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Posted in december election, opposition on Nov 24th, 2009
Bloomberg reports that Bolivian presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villas’s home was “attacked” last night. (The “attack” appears to be only a few broken windows, according to La Razón.) Reyes Villas’s bodyguards detained two men, alleged to be supporters of MAS, Evo Morales’s party. While home invasions by overzealous activists have happened in the past, this [...]
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Last year, before the recall referendum that threw Manfred Reyes Villa out as the prefect of Cochabamba department, I was sitting in a bar in the city of Cochabamba listening to a man spew “Morales is a drug dealer” nonsense. Well, now Reyes Villa wants to subsidize coca chewing in a obvious pander to the [...]
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Posted in december election, opposition on Nov 14th, 2009
What do you do when your presidential candidate was tossed out of power last year, and your vice presidential candidate is in jail for orchestrating a massacre? You beat people up! Nice to see Santa Cruz living up to its reputation (the city, that is–the outlying region is pretty MAS-y).
Hey, a question for Bolivian politics [...]
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The invaluable Bolivia Information Forum shipped October’s news briefing today. There are a couple of items from it that are interesting (along with another item from elsewhere):
President Evo Morales has disbanded the Unit for Tactical Resolution for Crisis (UTARC), a specially trained police force that was involved in the Santa Cruz terror-cell take-down earlier this [...]
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The Indigenous Confederation of the Chaco, East, and Bolivian Amazon (CIDOP) has complained to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations that Luis Nuñez, president of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee (the main opposition business group), is claiming to represent the indigenous through his “Human Rights Council.” CIDOP alleges that Nuñez is engaging in an [...]
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Posted in december election, opposition on Sep 29th, 2009
Evo Morales is set to easily win re-election this December for the presidency of Bolivia. IKN crunched the numbers and broke out Morales’s polling numbers in key constituencies. No surprise that Morales has a commanding 84 percent approval rating in the La Paz/El Alto area, his stronghold. Nor is it surprising that Morales has a [...]
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