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Amnesty International Report 2006 - Bolivia

Peasant farmers, indigenous communities and human rights activists were threatened and violently evicted in land conflicts. Indigenous people were exploited as slave labour on farms and in homes in return for food, clothes and schooling. Judicial investigations into killings during political unrest in 2003 were delayed. Prison inmates protested at severe overcrowding and the lack of minimum facilities.

Background

There was widespread political unrest. Public demonstrations and road blockades led to the resignation of President Carlos Mesa Gisbert in June. The protests were staged mainly by indigenous communities, peasants and miners, who called for early elections and a greater role in determining economic policy. Following popular rejection of traditional political parties and of the constitutional succession of the Presidents of the Senate or Chamber of Deputies, President of the Supreme Court Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé was appointed interim head of state.

In general elections in December, Evo Morales Ayma of the Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) was elected President.

Land and economic rights

Several disputes over land rights were reported, involving violent evictions. Indigenous groups, peasant farmers seeking land rights and members of non-governmental organizations representing them faced threats and assault. The economic rights of indigenous peoples were not respected.

• In January members of the Association of Ranchers and Foresters of Riberalta (ASAGRI) destroyed and looted equipment at the offices of the non-governmental Centre for Legal Studies and Social Research, in Riberalta, Beni Department. The attackers also burned documents related to land ownership and threatened to burn lawyer Cliver Rocha alive. The Centre offers legal aid to indigenous and peasant communities. ASAGRI members had previously warned the Tacana people in the Miraflores area of Beni to leave communal land officially granted them in 2002, or be evicted by force.

• In May, Silvestre Saisari Cruz, President of the Landless Movement of Santa Cruz Department, was beaten and kicked by men allegedly linked to a local landowner. He had denounced the burning of the community's recently harvested crops of rice and pineapples.

In August the Ombudsman called on President Rodríguez Veltzé to promote the correct implementation of Law 1715 in the Province of Guarayos, Department of Santa Cruz. Law 1715 regulates entitlements to communal land and use of natural resources by indigenous communities. In November he urged the authorities to end the exploitation and slave labour of 14,000 indigenous Guarani people in Chaco, Chuquisaca Department. Indentured labourers received food, clothes and a daily payment of under US$2, and children did farm or domestic work in exchange for a school education.

Delayed investigation into killings

Investigations into killings of civilians in October 2003 were further delayed. In October senior armed forces officers refused to testify to the court investigating the killings on the grounds that they had acted within the Constitution. In November the Supreme Court confirmed the court's request for their testimony, and President Rodríguez Veltzé, as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, authorized them to testify.

In November former head of state Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was served in the USA with judicial documents related to the criminal investigation in Bolivia into his responsibility for crimes committed at that time including human rights violations.

Prison overcrowding and protests

There were riots and hunger strikes as a result of overcrowding and the lack of essential facilities.

• In September over 1,000 inmates of the seven prisons in Cochabamba Department started a hunger strike to press for food subsidies.

• In October inmates rioted after telephone use was restricted and visits were cancelled in the women's wing of Cantumarca prison, Potosí Department.

The director of San Pedro prison, La Paz, stated in June that inmates had been forced to construct makeshift shelters inside the prison. Built for 380 people, the prison was housing 1,300.

Children's rights

Among recommendations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in January was the formulation of an action plan to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The Committee recommended that sexual and economic exploitation and trafficking of children be made criminal offences, and that children subjected to these crimes be treated as victims and the perpetrators prosecuted. It also requested assistance for street children; the development of alternatives to imprisonment as a punishment; significant improvements in conditions for imprisoned juveniles; and ratification of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

Topics: Economic, social and cultural rights, Childrens rights, Prison conditions,