NUEVO AMANECER

NUEVO AMANECER

July 19, 1994

For the past few weeks there have been more incidents at the security blocks on the road and more military movements everywhere.  Last week the UMOPAR started doing checks on the road to see who didn't have their ID card on them.  Anyone who didn't was detained immediately, and if they happened to be peasant leaders they were badly mistreated. Several people had their faces smashed in when they were beaten with rifle butts.  They also broke into people's homes at night forcing the whole family to leave - men, women and children.  One pregnant women was knocked over on her stomach and miscarried afterwards.  Edgar tried to be of help while maintaining a low profile, by distributing medicine from our First Aid kit and giving people some money so they could see a doctor.

One of the officials in charge of this round-up said that the aim of the exercise was being achieved and that was to make all the people who grow coca come out.  Then, according to the government under-secretary, over the course of the next two months "we will hit them with all we've got".  All they've got would seem to involve 2 US AWACS and a refueling plane which Robert saw on the tarmac at Sta. Cruz airport.  These AWACS are the most sophisticated weapons of war around equipped with all the latest surveillance gadgetry which allows them to control absolutely everything which goes on on and under the ground as well as in the air.

The campesino leaders were to have met yesterday at the HQ next door to Robert's office in Chimoré but the UMOPAR prevented them from doing so.  The idea behind this is to provoke the campesinos into reacting violently but some behind-the-scenes persuading has been going on to convince them that the very last thing they should do is play into their hands, so it has now been decided that they will have a meeting in Cochabamba with the press and representatives of the Church present.   This is supposed to take place tomorrow (July 20th).

The last week of July they have continued to harass people, breaking into their homes at night and rounding them up and taking them to jail.  The other day Robert and Edgar went to the UMOPAR jail to try and get an association member freed.  He had been taken into custody because he did not have his ID card and had been in jail for three days.  They got him out.  He told us that they are given 2 plates of soup per day and are taken to the bathroom once a day.  If you need to go again at any other time, that is too bad because they will not allow it.  They are not allowed out for any exercise but must alternate between lying and sitting.  That day there were 260 men and boys in the cell.  Women are kept in a separate place and he did not know what happened to them.  People can be held for any length of time without charges until the Prosecutor gets around to dealing with their case.  


The saddest and most worrying aspect of all this is that the Government people believe their own propaganda.  Last Sunday the lawyer who is supposed to be dealing with the matter of preparing to privatise these plants came from La Paz.  He is a nephew of the President.  When he arrived in Cochabamba he did not report at the office but just phoned after 4p.m. which is the time when the drivers are supposed to leave on Sundays in order to get to the Chapare not too long after dark.  When he was told that he had to hurry because these were the rules, he nearly had a fit, called Robert insulting him like mad and saying that nobody would tell him when to come or go when "he was putting his life at risk by coming to the Chapare".  They firmly believe, because they have convinced themselves of it, that these people are all bigtime traffickers and that they are the saviours of the country and the world by beating them all up.  Robert told him that if he thought he was putting his life at risk he should turn around and go straight back to La Paz.  Of course he came, and the next day, when Robert tried to investigate the issue, he told him a string of lies about how he never said this or did that, but the reports that Robert got the other people who were there to write all agree and conflict with his version of events.  

This kind of behaviour is another indicator that Bolivia has a long way to go, because these people think that they have feudal rights and can behave any way they wish.  They are above the ordinary population who must kowtow to them and be grateful for the crumbs falling from their table.  Totally reprehensible.