Bolivia’s leftist government and rebel rightwing governors were readying yesterday for negotiations aimed at ending a bitter and enduring political conflict that last week blew up into deadly violence.
Bolivian President Evo Morales was expected to engage his foes in the talks after South American presidents holding a crisis summit on Monday gave him their “full and firm” support and rejected any breakup of Bolivia.
His vice president and ministers met over Monday night with one of the five governors demanding autonomy for their eastern states to fix the parameters of the upcoming talks.
The conflict has been bubbling along since Morales, a former coca farmer and union leader, became president in 2006 and set about imposing reforms designed to benefit the indigenous majority he belongs to.
Matters came to a head last month when Morales called a Dec. 7 referendum on a rewritten Constitution that would break up big land holdings and redistribute revenues from natural gas.
Anti-government rallies sprang up in the rebel states, where the governors demanded more control over gas fields and militants set up roadblocks to separate the economically vital eastern lowlands from the poorer Andean western half of Bolivia. Government offices and airports were taken over by stone-throwing mobs, and residents clashed in several areas. In the northern state of Pando, they turned deadly, with at least 18 people dead and 100 wounded.
Defense Minister Walker San Miguel said 11 people suspected of “heading or instigating” gangs alleged to have gunned down people in Pando had been arrested and taken to La Paz.
The government has accused Pando’s governor, Leopoldo Fernandez, of having a hand in the killings. His state has been under martial law since Saturday. One soldier and one civilian were killed over the weekend after the military moved in.
Morales, when he arrived in Santiago, Chile, for Monday’s six-hour summit, charged that the coalition of rebel governors had tried to mount a “civic coup” against him.
The meeting with the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela resulted in a unanimous statement warning that all the governments represented “energetically reject and will not recognize any situation that attempts a civil coup and the rupture of institutional order and which could compromise the territorial integrity of the Republic of Bolivia.”
It also condemned the deaths in Pando and called for a commission to investigate allegations of a “massacre.”
The harsh words Morales reserved for his political enemies did not augur well for the planned talks.
Morales was also embroiled in a diplomatic row with the US, after ordering the US ambassador out of the country for allegedly giving support to the opposition.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the Bolivian leader’s main ally, followed suit, expelling the US ambassador to Caracas.
The president of Honduras added to the show of solidarity by refusing a new US envoy, while Nicaragua’s leader, Daniel Ortega, snubbed an invitation to meet US President George W. Bush on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly later this month.
A furious Washington expelled the Bolivian and Venezuelan ambassadors in retaliation.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique