La Paz, October
29, 2007
P.R.Nº 209-07
VIII National Congres of ASOFAMD:
Distinguished
Friends and Supporters:
This
notice is to inform you that from the 26th to the 28th of October of this year,
the Association of the Families of those Disappeared under Detention held its
VIII National Congress under the banner, “25 Years of Struggle Against Forced
Disappearance, for Truth, Justice, and our Historical Memory and Against
Impunity.”
Family
members from the departments of
At
the same time the Congress elected the New National Governing Board for 2007 –
2009 which is composed of the following members:
- PRESIDENT: Delia Cortez Flores (La Paz)
- EXECUTIVE SECRETARY: Loyola Guzmán Lara (La Paz)
- SECRETARY OF RELACIONES: Nelson Cossio
(Cochabamba)
- COORDINATING SECRETARY: Cristina Moreira Ramírez (La
Paz)
- FINANCE SECRETARY: Edith Montecinos (La Paz)
- PRESS SECRETARY: Anita Urquieta Paz (Cochabamba)
- 1st TRUSTEE : Ludwing Vega Plaza (La Paz)
- 2nd TRUSTEE: Martha Manzaneda (La Paz)
- 3rd TRUSTEE: Hilda Cartagena (La Paz)
- TRUSTEE: INTERIOR: Hugo Ticona (Oruro)
- TRUSTEE: INTERIOR: Julio Ortiz (Cochabamba)
We appreciatethe suppport of all of our sister and brother
Institutions and Organizations who have
demonstrated their unconditional support to our struggle as though it were
their own.
Finally,
we send our very best wishes.
Leonardo Benito Peña
ASOFAMD COORDINATOR
DICTATORSHIP OF HUGO BANZER SUAREZ
August 21, 1971 -1978
We are living in an era in which forgetfulness would like to reign, but happily there is a large sector of the Bolivian people that, in spite of the times, and the amnesiac trend thinks that A PEOPLE WITHOUT A MEMORY IS A PEOPLE WITHOUT A HISTORY.For that reason, today the 21st of August, 2007, we remember thirty-six years ago and the military coup lead by General Hugo Banzer Suárez, his military accomplices, politicians from the National Revolutionary Movement and the Bolivian Social Falangist Party.
For those who have forgotten, and especially for the youth who were not alive at the time, we wish to point out a few of the most egregious violations of human rights of the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer Suares
1. On the 21st ofAugust de 1971 one of the bloodies coups in the history of the country occurred, and from that time on a regime founded on the Nacional Security Doctrine, unleashed a program of state terrorism similar to the dictatorial regmes in Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina at the time.
2. During this dictatorship, the Bolivian Political Constitution and theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights were violated; the general juridical order was ignored, particularly the Penal Cold; and the UN Convention on Asylum and Refuge and their Protocol were also overlooked .
3. Among the violations of civil andpolitical rights we can point to these in particular::
- Illegal and arbitrary detentions, prisoners held incommunicado for prolonged periods, and denial of the right to a fair trial and the right to defend oneself. In seven years of dictatorship 14,537 citizens were detained illegally and arbitrarily, among them, pregnant women and minors.
- The existente of illegal detention centres called, Secure Houses , concentration
camps: the based of the “Bolivar” Regiment in Viacha, the ranch at Achocalla,
Chonchocoro, the
- The organization of irregulars or paramilitary groupswhich were later used by the ex-dictator Luis Garcia Mesa for purposes of repression..
- The systematic practice of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment against hundreds of persons.
- Massacres: at the University of "Gabriel René Moreno" in Santa Cruz, the violent occupation of the “Higher University of San Andrés” in La Paz, and violations of University Autonomy.
- Massacres of rural
peasants inTolata and Epizana (
- Massacre of miners during the 1976 strike
- The murder of forty-six jailed political prisoners allegedly trying to escape, and justifying the acts by alleged confrontations
- The Forced Disappearance of thirty-seven persons whose fate remains unknown to this date
- Exchanges with the
dictatorial regimes of Videla (
- Complicity with the Argentine dictatorship in
the assassination and disappearance of thirty-five Bolivian citizens in the
- Complicity with the Pinochet
dictatorship in the disappearance of 6 Bolivian citizens among those
assassinated in
-
Assassination ofCnl. Juan José Tórrez.
- Suppression of freedom of the press, the persecution, detention and exile of journalists, the destruction of radio stations, and the censorship of the media
4. Violation of the economic, social and cultural rights of the Bolivian people.
- Expropriation of lands belonging to rural peasants and the granting of loans to supposed agro-businesses
- Utilization of the Miliatry-Peasant with the intention of provoking confrontations with the miners and other sectors of workers
- Putting in hock the future of the
following generations by contracting an unjustifiable increase in the external
debt, the consequences of which we continue to suffer
This is a brief recount of the actions of the “democratic” Hugo Banzer Suarez and his collaborators. Many of the crimes committed under his dictatorship are CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY and for this reason are unpardonable and should be punished, however he has been considered untouchable and the debate muted, when the truth is that he was saved by the putsh of Garcia Mesa.
Press Release, July 18, 2007