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Evo Morales
Bolivia's first indigenous president and leader of the political party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Buenas dias!
Last night was restless, my Father had warned me against eating too much before bed in the high altitude, and I think I should have skipped out on the freshly blended papaya juice at 9pm (but how could I resist?). This morning I awoke to finish unpacking, prepared a breakfast consisting of fresh fruits and half an empanada con queso, and have begun reading up on Bolivian politics. I thought I would take some time now to fill you in on whats going on here, and offer an introduction to my research project:
Evo Morales was elected Bolivia’s first indigenous president on January 22, 2006 with 53.7% of the popular vote. Recently, in December 2009, Morales won presidential elections again and continued to his second term of presidency. He is the leader of the political party called the Movement for Socialism (with the Spanish acronym MAS, meaning “more”), which aims at giving more power to the country's indigenous and poor communities by means of land reforms and the redistribution of natural gas wealth. Morales is also a front-runner in Bolivia’s "cocalero" movement, a federation of coca growers' unions resisting the efforts of the United States government to eradicate coca in the province of Chapare in central Bolivia.
One of Morales's prime electoral promises was to establish a Constitutional Assembly to re-write the Bolivian constitution. After his election in 2006, a Constitutional Assembly was established and was given 12 months to write a new Bolivian Constitution. The draft Constitution was finally approved in December 2007, in a session that took place in Oruro. However, leaders of several opposition parties and conservative civic committees in 5 departments stated they would not recognize the new text, claiming it was approved illegally. Thus, a national referendum was held on January 25, 2009, in order to gain popular approval before the constitution's codification. The referendum promoted the new constitution supported by President Morales, which sought to empower the allegedly long oppressed indigenous majority of the country. The new constitution came into effect on February 7, 2010, with a 61.7%!m(MISSING)ajority vote.
A particular amendment to the rewritten constitution was that of “community justice.” Simply put, it grants the right to a form of justice delivered by a surrounding indigenous community, independent of governmental authority. The purpose of the inclusion of community justice in national law is to recognize the traditional juridical practices of indigenous Bolivians, in an effort to further recognize indigenous rights. However, community justice in practice can often be interpreted as the absence of state authority, leading to an arbitrary system of law that can be used to justify human rights violations (such as lynchings, vigilante violence, and other forms of mob rule).
Many news headlines discuss the issue of vigilante violence under the community justice amendment to the new constitution. For example, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports today , that leaders of indigenous communities in southwestern Bolivia recently lynched four allegedly corrupt police officers. After a peasant assembly, these leaders presented a document in which they request “the application and respect for community justice” on the matter. These are leaders of the Ayllus Guerreros (Warrior Clans) of Potosi, who want La Paz to grant them freedom to trade in contraband merchandise brought in from Chile without any intervention by authorities. The Warrior Clans are so called because of their nearly 200-year-long history of involvement in conflicts over land, responsible for approximately 10,000 deaths since 1830.
So far, the leaders have refused to return the bodies of the four policemen despite requests from the government. The Indians claimed that the lynchings were an exercise of “community justice”, because the policemen were accused of murdering a taxi driver and extorting from local peasants. Indian leaders offered to discuss turning over the bodies on the condition that authorities agreed not to investigate the lynchings, but the government did not accept this offer. The Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti said “There will not be any type of pardon or amnesty. Any crime of this kind has to be investigated, and those responsible (must be) tried and punished.”
The Indians were said to have buried the bodies face down “so that the souls of those who had been killed would not persecute those who had killed them.” Some Aymara and Quechua Indian communities of the Andean highlands say lynchings are part of the indigenous justice system that was recognized in the constitution enacted last year under Morales, but the government rejects that argument. Government officials say the recognition of traditional justice is not a license for vigilantism. Also, the government points to Bolivia’s constitutional ban on capital punishment.
This story is a prime example of how community justice can be misinterpreted and used to support vigilante violence. It is the purpose of my investigation to find out how exactly community justice is defined, how it functions in practice, in which situations community juridical actions are "justified" and according to whom. This is a very recent topic that is reported on daily, so I have lots of homework to do!
For now, I am about to take a walk into San Miguel, about 10 blocks away from my house in Calacoto, in order to exchange currency at the casa de cambia, obtain a sim card for my cell phone, and to buy some forms of entertainment (namely extremely inexpensive bootleg dvd's; unfortunately, Hulu and Megavideo are not available here). I expect that I will go out with my cousins tonight, I mean, it is Friday.
Until next time,
Nejla
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Heather
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I loved your post about justice in Bolivia, etc. It was so interesting! I learned a lot about the Quechua Indians while in Peru, but it must fascinating to be living i the middle of it all! My blog is looking for travel photos, reviews, even social commentary, like what you wrote, to share. If you have the time, check it out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com, or email me at dirtyhippiesblog@gmail.com. I look forward to reading more! Heather :)