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F eat ures C R E D I T: A P P h o t o / J u a n K a r i t a / A l a m y LEFT: Bolivian President Luis Arce raises a defiant clenched fist in La Paz after an attempted coup press freedom, freedom of expression and the right to freedom of assembly. The 26 June attack was particularly disturbing because it carried echoes of the crisis that forced former president Evo Morales from office in November 2019. After controversial electoral fraud accusations against Morales sparked a wave of lethal protests, the police mutinied, and the army “suggested” Morales step down – in what many decried as a coup. Bolivia was ruled for a year by the caretaker government of former far-right senator Jeanine Áñez before Arce was elected. Some 37 people were killed during the crisis, and there were attacks on the press all over the country, with journalists suffering physical attacks and having their offices and equipment destroyed and burned. The security forces as well as protesters and partisan shock groups were behind the violence. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights declared in a report on the state of human rights in the country that “never before had it been so difficult to exercise journalism in Bolivia”, and recommended that a non-state organisation be established to offer legal and psychological support to at-risk journalists. Almost five years later, this has not happened. Landlocked and sparsely populated, Bolivia has long been one of the poorest and least-developed countries in South America. However, for the past two decades, it has enjoyed a cycle of economic prosperity, as high prices for its gas exports bolstered state coffers. The left-wing government of Morales and his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party ploughed the proceeds into social programmes that helped cut poverty and tackle inequality. Now, the model is becoming unsustainable. The country’s gas reserves are running out – a large discovery in July notwithstanding – and the government has been unable to coax a profit from the country’s enormous lithium deposits. Now, Bolivia’s international reserves are running on empty, making it increasingly onerous to pay for imports and subsidies on items such as fuel. At the time of writing, the boliviano is trading at more than 10 to the dollar in parallel exchange markets while at home it has been pegged by the government at just seven to the dollar for more than a decade. Miguel Miranda, co-ordinator of the human rights incidence team at the Bolivian NGO CEDIB, which seeks to archive history and build knowledge for the future, told Index that cuts were inevitable. “It will hit the popular classes the hardest,” he said. “So how are they [the government] going to contain that? Because people will hit the streets. [They will respond] with measures that restrict rights.” Miranda also fears the government will try to ward off possible protests by passing decrees that could be used to restrict them. But protests are not the only prospective casualty in such a scenario. Strapped for cash, the government has turned heavily towards harmful extractive industries – and environmentalists sounding the alarm have had a chilly reception. In May 2023, the senate passed a law allowing the government to trade gold bought from local mining cooperatives. Yet, indigenous people and park rangers have accused gold miners of illegally pushing into national parks, polluting rivers and violently crushing resistance. Indigenous communities and environmental groups have also raised concerns over projects such as the Chepete and Bala megadams, which would allow Bolivia to export power, but which would flood large tracts of biodiverse protected areas. Many young, grassroots environmental organisations enjoy such social legitimacy that governments baulk at the political cost of moving against them, Miranda argued. Although some of the region’s most repressive regimes – such as the government in Nicaragua run by Daniel Ortega – have done so anyway, Arce has not displayed this kind of authoritarianism. “They’re a stone in the government’s shoe, because they have a strong moral value,” Miranda said. Arce’s challenges as election season looms are not only economic. Barely had he got his feet under the table as president when cracks started to emerge between him and his erstwhile mentor, Morales. Today, their MAS party is experiencing a full-blown feud so bitter that a party conference decided to expel Arce and his vice-president David Choquehuanca in October 2023. The split is affecting journalists. On 10 July, a reporter from the pro-Morales station Radio Kawsachun Coca was in La Paz to cover a multi-party meeting convened by the electoral authorities. She was attacked by Arce supporters who set off firecrackers, pushed her, threw stones and other objects at her and chanted: “Out! Out! Out!” In a joint statement, Bolivia’s National Association of Journalists and the La Paz Journalists’ Association condemned the attack, noting that it was not the first time the political divide had sparked violence against journalists. “This lamentable incident adds to a series of grave violations of freedom of expression and of the press, which are encouraged by stigmatising discourse that incites violence against journalists,” they warned. “Once again, this leaves → They’re a stone in the government’s shoe, because they have a strong moral value INDEXONCENSORSHIP.ORG 17

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