Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Tension building in Mideast
Nation in political divide as police kill, injure protesters
Israeli security forces push back a Palestinian paramedic who was trying to treat a wounded protester Saturday during a demonstration at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The demonstration was held after Israel conducted airstrikes on Hamas military sites inside Gaza in response to rockets fired into Israel.
SACABA, Bolivia — Bolivia’s interim president met with a U.N. envoy to discuss the country’s crisis Saturday, a day after security forces fired on supporters of former President Evo Morales in a clash that killed eight people and raised fears that violence could escalate.
On leaving the meeting with interim leader Jeanine Anez, U.N. envoy Jean Arnault said the United Nations is concerned about the violence in Bolivia and hopes it can contribute to an accelerated pacification process leading to elections.
The U.N. human-rights chief, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet issued a statement Saturday calling the deaths “an extremely dangerous development.”
“I am really concerned that the situation in Bolivia could spin out of control if the authorities do not handle it sensitively and in accordance with international norms,” she said in a statement.
“The country is split and people on both sides of the political divide are extremely angry. In a situation like this, repressive actions by the authorities will simply stoke that anger even further and are likely to jeopardize any possible avenue for dialogue,” she added.
Most of the dead and injured Friday in Sacaba, near the city of Cochabamba, had been shot, Guadalberto Lara, director of the town’s Mexico Hospital, told The Associated Press. He called it the worst violence he’s seen in his 30-year career.
The national Ombudsman’s Office said Saturday that the death toll had risen to eight.
Angry demonstrators and relatives of the victims gathered at the site of the shootings, chanting: “Civil war, now!”
Morales, who was granted asylum in Mexico after his Nov. 10 resignation, said on Twitter that a “massacre” had occurred and he described the interim government led by Jeanine Anez as a dictatorship.
“Now they are killing our brothers in Sacaba, Cochabamba,” he said in another tweet.
At least 13 other people had died during weeks of earlier protests against Morales before his departure, according to the Ombudsman’s Office. Several came in clashes between the president’s backers and those accusing him of fraudulently trying to win reelection.
Protesters said police fired when demonstrators, including many coca leaf growers who backed Bolivia’s first indigenous president, tried to cross a military checkpoint. Emeterio Colque Sanchez, a 23-year-old university student, said he saw the dead bodies of several protesters and about two dozen people rushed to hospitals, many covered in blood.
Presidency Minister Jerjes Justiniano told reporters in La Paz that five people had been killed and an estimated 22 were injured.
He accused protesters of using “military weapons.”
Lara, the hospital director, said that 75 people were injured.
Families of the victims held a candlelight vigil late
Friday in Sacaba. A tearful woman put her hand on a wooden casket surrounded by flowers and asked: “Is this what you call democracy? Killing us like nothing?” Another woman cried and prayed in Quechua over the coffin of Omar Calle, which was draped both in the Bolivian national flag and the multicolor “Wiphala” flag that represents indigenous peoples.
Bolivia’s Ombudsman’s Office called on the interim government to investigate if the security forces had acted within the constitution and international protocols on human rights.
“We express our alarm and concern over the result of an attempt to stop a demonstration by coca leaf growers from entering the city of Cochabamba,” it said, adding that it had counted 13 earlier deaths since the protests began.
Earlier Saturday, Anez said Morales would face possible legal charges for election fraud if he returns home from Mexico City.
Anez also has said Morales would not be allowed to participate in new presidential elections, which are supposed to be held within three months.
The ousted leader, meanwhile, contended last week he is still president since the country’s legislature has not yet approved his resignation.
Morales stepped down following nationwide protests over suspected vote-rigging in an Oct. 20 election in which he claimed to have won a fourth term in office. An Organization of American States audit of the vote found widespread irregularities. Morales has denied there was fraud.
Anez, who had been the highest-ranking opposition official in the Senate, proclaimed herself president when Morales resigned, saying every person in the line of succession ahead of her —all of them Morales backers — had resigned.
The Constitutional Court issued a statement backing her claim that she didn’t need to be confirmed by Congress, a body controlled by Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism party.
Much of the opposition to Morales sprang from his refusal to accept a referendum that would have forbidden him from seeking a new term.