Freedom in the World 1999 - Bolivia

1999 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 2.0
Civil Liberties: 3
Political Rights: 1

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Bolivia receives a downward trend arrow due to a series of high profile government corruption scandals.

Overview

In 1999, President Hugo Banzer Suarez, the former dictator turned democrat who had been returned to office two years earlier, presided over a government increasingly mired in corruption scandals that resulted in the resignations of several ministerial and subministerial officers. However, his tough "Dignity Plan," aimed at eradicating all illegal coca crops by the year 2002, appears to have made significant gains. In nationwide municipal elections held December 5, conducted using the electoral code and political party legislation recently approved by congress, the ruling coalition made a strong showing, although the opposition Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) won the largest number of council seats and votes as a single party.

After achieving independence from Spain in 1825, the Republic of Bolivia endured recurrent instability and military rule. However, the armed forces, responsible for more than 180 coups in 157 years, have stayed in their barracks since 1982.

As a result of recent reforms, presidential terms run five years and congress consists of a 130-member house of representatives and a 27-member senate. The principal parties are Banzer's conservative National Democratic Action (ADN); its governing coalition partner, the social-democratic Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR); and the center-right MNR. Banzer had come in first in elections in 1985, but a parliamentary coalition instead selected the octogenarian former president Victor Paz Estenssoro, the founder of the MNR. In 1989 the MIR's Jaime Paz Zamora, who had run third in the polls, became president through an alliance with the ADN.

In 1993, the MIR-ADN candidate was retired general Banzer, who came in second to the MNR's Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada, a planning minister in Paz Estenssoro's 1985-1989 administration. Sanchez de Losada oversaw the massive privatization of Bolivia's state-owned enterprises and, under U.S. pressure, stepped up coca eradication. A series of labor strikes and mass protests in early 1995 was followed by the imposition by Sanchez de Losada of a six-month state of siege.

Throughout 1996, the government privatization program brought regular street protests. As Sanchez de Losada's term ended, a government otherwise hailed for initiatives such as improved access to the courts, efforts to reform a corrupt, inefficient judiciary, and broad decentralization was mired in increasingly bitter labor disputes.

In 1999 Banzer's opponents have used the continued detention in Britain of Captain General Augusto Pinochet of Chile in efforts to focus attention on Banzer's alleged involvement in Operation Condor, a 1970s plan by regional military regimes to eliminate leftists.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their government through elections. In 1997, congressional elections were held under new legislation in which in half of the 130 lower house contests were elected individually and directly, rather than from party lists, with the top votegetter representing a single constituency. The national elections held that year were free and fair.

The judiciary, headed by the supreme court, remains the weakest branch of government. Like Bolivia's mayoral, customs, and revenue offices, it is rife with corruption, and is manipulated and intimidated by drug traffickers. Both the Sanchez de Losada and Banzer governments have made serious efforts to improve the administration of justice, including making it more accessible. Since taking office, Banzer has moved to implement previously agreed-upon innovations such as the creation of an independent council in charge of judicial appointments, a public ombudsman, and a constitutional tribunal chosen by congress. The judicial council has suspended dozens of judges and fined or placed on probation hundreds more based on findings of incompetence or unlawful delays of the legal process. In 1999, the head of the federal police was forced to resign following revelations that he helped impede an investigation of corruption in the force.

Government-sponsored as well as independent human rights organizations exist, and they frequently report of security force brutality. The congressional Human Rights Commission is very active and frequently criticizes the government. Activists and their families are subject to intimidation. Prison conditions are poor, with some 5,500 prisoners held in facilities designed to hold half that number, and nearly three-quarters of prisoners are held without formal sentences. In mid-1999, the government announced that the Bolivian military will backstop law enforcement efforts in violent, crime-plagued sections of major urban areas.

Bolivia is the world's second largest producer of cocaine. Evidence abounds that drug money has been used to finance political campaigns and buy government officials, including police and military personnel.

A U.S. sponsored coca-eradication program has angered peasant unions representing Bolivia's 50,000 coca farmers. Critics say that Law 1008, The Law to Regulate Coca and Controlled Substances, passed in 1988, is excessively harsh, restricts suspects' constitutional rights, and violates international norms and standards of due process. Government forces, particularly the troops of the Mobile Rural Patrol Unit (UMOPAR), have in past years committed serious human rights abuses, including murder, arbitrary detention and the suppression of peaceful demonstrations, during coca-eradication efforts in the tropical lowland region of Chapare. Despite recent government successes in eradicating coca crops, local consumption of drugs is reportedly rising.

The constitution guarantees free expression, freedom of religion, and the right to organize political parties, civic groups, and labor unions. However, freedom of speech is subject to some limitations. Unions have the right to strike. The languages of the indigenous population are officially recognized, but the 40 percent Spanish-speaking minority still dominates the political process. More than 520 indigenous communities have been granted legal recognition under the 1994 popular participation law, which guarantees respect for the integrity of native peoples. Nevertheless, some Indians are kept as virtual slaves by rural employers through the use of debt peonage, with employers charging them more for room and board than they earn.

The press, radio and television are mostly private. Journalists covering corruption stories are occasionally subject to verbal intimidation by government officials, arbitrary detention by police and violent attacks.

Violence against women is pervasive. In 1999, there was increasing cooperation between Bolivian and Argentine authorities to clamp down on the illegal exploitation of Bolivian children who are lured to work in sweatshops in Argentina.