Last Thursday, Bolivian police shot and killed three men during a firefight in a Santa Cruz hotel. According to President Evo Morales, the men–a unique cast of characters including an Irishman, a citizen of Romania, and a Bolivian-born resident of Hungary–were plotting to take his life. But a recently-released video recorded by the last of these men before he travelled to Santa Cruz casts some doubt on that.
In the recording, Eduardo Rózsa Flores stated that he was returning to Santa Cruz to form an armed force to defend the city and province of his birth. For those not up on Bolivian politics, the country is deeply divided–both ideologically and geographically. On the one hand, Evo Morales enjoys the support of the majority of Bolivians, finding his strongest support among indigenous peoples and others living in the western highlands. On the other hand, he is loathed by many in the eastern lowlands, the so-called “Media Luna,” where Santa Cruz leads the charge for the opposition. Ideologically, the split is driven by Evo’s agenda of socialist reform, which includes greater rights for the indigenous and the nationalization of energy resources concentrated in the Media Luna. Given all this, it’s not that surprising to see extremists in Santa Cruz plotting an armed struggle (though, in this case, the inclusion of folks from Ireland and Romania is puzzling).
But Rózsa specifically said in the recording that he did not intend to oust (let alone assassinate) Morales. Here’s what he planned (courtesy of the The Wall Street Journal):
“I am not going there to organize the attack of La Paz and chase away the president, that doesn’t even cross the easterners’ minds,” he said in the interview, which aired Tuesday on Hungarian station MTV1. “We are ready, within a few months in case co-existence doesn’t work under autonomy, to proclaim independence and create a new country,” Mr. Rózsa said.
If we take Rózsa’s word for it, then, he was not in Bolivia as an assassin but as someone who was preparing for an armed struggle in the name of autonomy. Now, there are probably good reasons to doubt Flores’s word (and, unfortunately, there is no opportunity for interrogation). Yet it seems to me that Morales may be acting too quickly on all this. By labeling it an assassination attempt, Morales gains the benefit of playing the victim, but he also adds fuel to the fire that is dividing the country in two. And I fear I see a pattern developing: Morales is quick to make grave accusations–which may be true–yet slow to back them up with evidence. Morales booted U.S. diplomats from Bolivia last year over allegations of meddling in his country’s affairs, and now he has suggested that the U.S. Embassy in La Paz may have backed this latest plot. If Evo has hard evidence to support these accusations, then he should come forward with it. If not, then he should keep these hypotheses to himself. If Evo wants to play on the world stage, he has to start looking after his credibility.
-N. Fromherz
Hat Tip: The Wall Street Journal(p://online.wsj.com/article/SB124035994232641427.html#mod%3Dfox_australian%26articleTabs%3Darticle)U
UPDATE: The April 27 edition of The New York Times contains an article entitled “Plot Foiled? In Bolivia, Truth is Elusive.” As the title implies, the article follows up on the theme of this post. But it also includes some new facts–evidence that there was not a firefight, for instance–that undermine Evo’s take on the matter. That’s not to say there was no assassination plot; we just don’t know, and the sources close to the scene–both in La Paz and Santa Cruz–are far from disinterested.
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
