Reply #5: BASN statetement about Violence against Indigenous Guarani people and Autonomic Referendum

[Judi Lynn]

BASN statetement about Violence against Indigenous Guarani people and Autonomic Referendum
Fri, 04/18/2008 - 00:47 — tupaj
BASN statement
On April 13, an unarmed and peaceful delegation of indigenous Guarani delegates was attacked by an armed gang in the service of large landholders in the Bolivian province of Santa Cruz. More than 40 of the Guarani were injured, some seriously, and 11 are missing.

The Guarani delegation was accompanying officials from Bolivia’s National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), who were trying to regularize ownership of illegally occupied territories, where Guarani people are being held in conditions of enslavement, as witnessed and reported by UN Rapporteur, the Catholic Church, and other institutions.

The Morales administration is trying to change the unjust and illegal tenure of land for the benefit of Bolivia’s majorities – the Indigenous Peoples who make up 81% of the population, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
We emphatically condemn the desperate and brutal attacks of the Bolivian oligarchy and its armed shock groups against Indigenous Peoples and State officials trying to restore the rule of law.

We also condemn the attempt of breaking up the unity of the country through an illegal “referendum on autonomy,” to be held May 4, 2008. This vote has been denounced by several multilateral organizations, the European Union, individual governments and regional governmental organizations, like the Andean Pact. Such a rigged poll, held under conditions of severe and unrestrained right-wing violence, endangers stability and peace throughout Latin America.

http://grupoapoyo.org/basn/node/83