It took Ellen Arnstein the better part of two years to win the trust of the people of Camargo, a farming town of 5,000 in southeastern Bolivia.
The mayor agreed to partially fund the Peace Corps volunteer’s proposal to have children plant fruit trees on main avenues.
Arnstein, 27, was about to be interviewed by a local TV crew when she got the call: The Peace Corps was pulling all 113 of its volunteers out of Bolivia.
“I just started crying. I was like, I don’t want to go!” recalled Arnstein, a native of Monroe, New York, as she sat in a cafe in Lima, Peru.
She is among more than 70 volunteers who quit the Corps rather than start over in a different country.
The hasty pullout came directly on the heels of Bolivian President Evo Morales’ Sept. 10 expulsion of the US ambassador for allegedly inciting opposition protests. Arnstein was among disappointed volunteers who believe their government overreacted, hurting US interests with the blanket withdrawal. True, some parts of Bolivia were dangerously unstable, but most volunteers felt no security threat, several told reporters.
“Peace Corps, unfortunately, has become another weapon in the US diplomatic arsenal,” said Sarah Nourse, 27, of Mechanicsville, Maryland, another volunteer who opted out.
Nourse had been developing trash management projects in a small town in the eastern state of Santa Cruz, the center of opposition to the leftist Morales. She questioned the wisdom of depriving Bolivians of a rare firsthand opportunity to weigh Morales’ anti-US rhetoric against real US citizens.
The top US diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, said that security was the only reason behind the “saddening” pullout.
“We don’t politicize the Peace Corps,” he said.
“Remember, the Bolivians on at least two occasions that I’m aware of said that they thought the Peace Corps was part of a larger intelligence network that they thought we had constructed in Bolivia. Those kind of statements we find very worrisome,” Shannon said.
In fact, a US embassy security officer suggested to a group of Peace Corps volunteers during a briefing last year that they report any sightings of Venezuelan or Cuban activists. After the incident was publicized, the embassy said the officer had not been authorized to make such a request and he left the country.
Currently, 2,174 of the Peace Corps’ 8,079 worldwide volunteers work in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are based in 21 countries in the region.
Honduras and Nicaragua have the largest presence with 194 volunteers each. They are followed by: The Dominican Republic with 193; Paraguay with 187; Guatemala with 184: El Salvador with 175; Panama with 174; Peru with 168 and Ecuador with 155.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their