The son of ex-president Jaime Paz Zamora, Paz scored a decisive victory over Quiroga, prevailing by a nine-point margin with 54% of the vote and winning in six of Bolivia’s nine departments. His victory capped a remarkable campaign in which Paz consistently defied the polls. In August, he stunned observers by finishing first in the first round of voting after months of polling towards the bottom of the eight-candidate field. The second-round result was another upset: despite trailing Quiroga in the days leading up to the vote by a similar margin as his eventual victory, Paz reversed the numbers comfortably.

Tuto’s far-right supporters took to the streets in several cities across the country to contest the results, despite no evidence of irregularities. On Oct. 21, his Libre party sent a letter to the country’s electoral body requesting an audit of 34,000 ballots, alleging a possible “inversion” of votes between Libre and Paz’s Christian Democratic Party. Tuto finally conceded his loss on the next day, as international observers from the European Union and other bodies rejected the allegations of fraud. Bolivia’s Electoral Tribunal called Tuto’s move “anti-democratic.”

Paz’s success is in part due to his more cautious approach to addressing Bolivia’s profound economic crisis. Quiroga had proposed dramatic economic reforms, including a massive IMF bailout and widespread privatization of state industries and natural resources. By contrast, Paz offered a more moderate reform agenda: preserving social programs, cracking down on corruption, and rejecting IMF dependency. His platform drew support from left-leaning voters who were uneasy about a full shift to the right.

Paz’s appeal also had much to do with his charismatic running mate, former police captain Edman Lara. A self-styled anti-corruption crusader and admirer of controversial Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Lara rose to fame on TikTok for exposing alleged police abuses. His outsider persona energized younger voters and loaned credibility to Paz’s campaign. Yet the strength of their alliance is unclear. After Paz’s first-round victory, Lara publicly warned that he would turn against Paz if he failed to deliver on his promises. On the campaign trail, Paz routinely had to walk back Lara’s populist pledges of universal income and higher pensions. Still, Lara’s popularity proved so strong that many Bolivians said they cast their votes as if it were Lara, not Paz, leading the ticket.

The results were celebrated by mainstream media around the world as a resounding defeat for a fractured Bolivian left weakened by years of infighting and economic turmoil. Nevertheless, Paz’s defeat of Tuto attests to Bolivians’ enduring attachment to the social and economic programs born from nearly two decades of leftist rule.

At the same time, Paz moved quickly to distance himself from a key pillar of MAS rule: its hostility toward the United States. Nearly 20 years after Evo Morales expelled the US ambassador, Paz pledged to restore warm relations with Washington. In a striking reversal of recent Bolivian diplomatic orientation, Paz received a congratulatory phone call from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. He seized the opportunity to congratulate her on her recent Nobel Peace Prize and invite her to his inauguration on Nov. 8. Breaking with years of alignment with the Venezuelan governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro, Paz told Machado that Bolivia would “join in the fight” for Venezuelan democracy. In a post-election interview with El País, Paz re-affirmed his slogan “capitalism for all” and expressed his hope that “Bolivia returns to the world and the world returns to Bolivia.”

For Bolivia’s social movements and rural populations, deeply distrustful of the traditional party politics represented by Paz and his Christian Democrats, there is little cause for celebration. But in the words of Bolivian anarcha-feminist María Galindo: “The far right has been defeated.”

From NACLA Update, Oct. 24. Slightly edited. Internal links added.

Photo: Dan Lundberg/Flickr

New fighting in the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo city between government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), armed wing of the Kurdish-led autonomous administration that still controls much of the country’s northeast, points to the continued threat of ethnic war. Results in Syria’s first post-revolution parliamentary elections (carried out in a controlled process by the central government, not popular vote) were tilted to the Sunni Arab majority. Exiled left-dissident Joseph Daher sees a consolidation of power by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the ostensibly disbanded Islamist formation that led the rebel offensive that toppled the old regime last December, and whose leader is the current interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Can the current transition process in Syria return to the secular-democratic values of the 2011 Arab Revolution without a rethinking of nationalist precepts?

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Photo: Aymara march in Oruro, Bolivia. Via Wikipedia

The White House was quick to blame Colombian President Gustavo Petro directly, arguing in its submission to Congress that the “failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Petro “erratic” and “not a very good partner in taking on the drug cartels.” Trump’s determination contrasted Petro with the “skill and courage” of Colombia’s security forces and municipal authorities in confronting criminal groups—although the mayors of five major Colombian cities (Bogotá, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla and Cartagena) visited the United Statesin early September to lobby against decertification.

A longtime critic of the US-led War on Drugs, Petro denounced Trump’s move in a televised cabinet meeting. As he has many times before, Petro blamed US demand for his country’s drug problem. Petro reiterated his opposition to coca eradication efforts, which have largely targeted low-level producers through aerial fumigations of cancer-causing chemicals while arming military (and, by extension, paramilitary) forces to wage war on “narcoguerrillas”—who were too often simply coca-growing peasants. Instead, Petro has sought to target the criminal structures that ship cocaine internationally. Though his government has seized more cocaine than any previous Colombian administration, coca cultivation has tripled in the last decade. Violence as a result of the battle to control the trade has also sharply escalated over the past years.

Petro has also condemned the politicized nature of US drug policy, pointing to the Trump administration’s threats against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers at sea. Washington’s use of the term “narco-terrorists” in the announcement of Colombia’s decertification—a term it has also leveled against Maduro—raises fears of broader intervention, moving from the seas to land. Petro’s left-wing politics and defense of migrants have drawn the ire of the Trump administration, and Rubio himself has called the Colombian president an “agent of chaos.”

Given that the Trump administration waived the sanctions that usually follow decertification—including massive cuts in US assistance and an automatic “no” vote on loans from international financial institutions—analysts argued the move was largely symbolic. Nevertheless, Colombia may now struggle to attract foreign investment, one of the many reasons that Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) warned in the days before the announcement that the US should not decertify. WOLA noted that Colombia’s last decertification in the mid-1990s, which included some sanctions, only spurred a massive boom in drug production, paramilitary and guerrilla territorial expansion, and violence. “The decades-old US practice of judging and punishing other states for allegedly substandard counter-drug performance through decertification is an antiquated, blunt, counterproductive foreign policy tool that should no longer exist,” WOLA wrote ahead of the decision.

Though Washington left the door open to reversing course if the Colombian government takes “more aggressive action,” Petro responded defiantly by freezing arms purchases, rejecting US aid, and accusing the United States of meddling in Colombia’s upcoming 2026 elections. The accusation is not unfounded: the plan by former Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyvato overthrow Petro that was thwarted last June—and detailed in a bombshell report by Spain’s El País—was pitched to US officials and involved decertification as a crucial first step.

From NACLA Update, Sept. 19. Slightly edited. Internal links added.

Note: While Venezuela and Myanmar (Burma) have been frequently decertified over the years, this marks the first time Colombia has been decertified since 1997. Colombia was decertified in 1996 and 1997 with no “national interest waiver” from sanctions.

Map: PCL

The experts, part of the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures, expressed concern that the credibility of the international legal system is at risk due to inaction over ongoing violations in the occupied Palestinian territories. They warned that failure to act could set back the multilateral system by decades and called for decisive, principled and concerted action.

The UN experts also highlighted the disproportionate impact of the ongoing conflict on vulnerable populations, particularly women and children. They stressed that ensuring accountability for violations is essential to safeguarding fundamental human rights and preserving international peace and security. The experts concluded:

We call on all nations to join us in our solemn commitment to an international order based on the rule of law. Only through coordinated, collective action can we hope to end this cycle of impunity and safeguard the rights and lives of those affected.

On Jan. 31, delegates from nine nations (including South Africa, Malaysia, Colombia, Bolivia and Cuba) formed the Hague Group, responding to the failure of the broader international community to halt Israel’s military actions and crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories. Drawing on a series of binding and advisory rulings, the group’s declaration especially cited the Advisory Opinion of July 2024, issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The opinion asserted the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and called for a total and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

International human rights groups have documented numerous violations of international humanitarian law, from indiscriminate air-strikes that hit civilian shelters and hospitals, to targeted demolitions and forced evictions in both Gaza and the West Bank. International legal actions have mounted, including an International Criminal Court investigation and South Africa’s application to the ICJ, accusing under the Genocide Convention. Israeli authorities have refused to cooperate with UN inquiries or investigate alleged war crimes.

From JURIST, April 8. Used with permission.

Notes: Having just visited Hungary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week met with Donald Trump at the White House, where the two discussed their plan to “transfer” the population of the Gaza Strip. (NYT) These meetings took place in defiance of an ICC warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest on war crimes charges. (NYT)

Nicaragua last week withdrew its application to intervene in the proceedings of South Africa v Israel at the ICJ, without citing any reason for its decision. (Jurist) But just days earlier, the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua released a landmark report naming 54 Nicaraguan officials allegedly responsible for grave human rights violations. The violations occurred as part of a systematic campaign of repression orchestrated by President Daniel Ortega’s government. (Jurist)

See our last report on genocide accusations against Israel.

Photo: Hague Group

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Photo: rare earth mine at Mountain Pass, Calif. Credit: Tmy350 via Wikimedia Commons

Supporters of Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales took more than 200 soldiers hostage on Nov. 2. The Bolivian Foreign Ministry reported that the activists occupied three military facilities in the region of Chapare during protests. The statement accused them of possessing weapons and ammunition. At least 30 police officers are reportedly injured, and more than 50 protesters were arrested last week.

The protests have been ongoing for weeks, since Bolivian prosecutors started an investigation into Morales’ alleged statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl in 2016, and his subsequent refusal to testify in court. Since reports of a possible warrant for his arrest, Morales has been hiding in the rural area of Chapare in central Bolivia. His supporters have demanded the closure of the judicial cases against him, and threatened to take over police and military barracks in the event of an attempt to arrest him.

Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry published a statement labeling the protesters as members of “irregular groups.” It said that the government is willing to open dialogue with all social sectors of the country, but cited a difficulty in establishing such process due to the protesters’ ongoing actions.

The incumbent president, Luis Arce, condemned the taking of the soldiers as “an absolutely reprehensible criminal act that is far from any legitimate social claim of the Indigenous peasant movement.”

The minister of government, Eduardo Del Castillo, issued a statement in September accusing Morales of a “destabilization” campaign aimed at advancing his “personal political interest” of becoming a candidate in the next presidential elections in 2025. Morales first took power in 2006, but had to flee the country after protests following his attempt to seek a fourth term in office in 2019. Bolivia’s Constitutional Court in December 2023 disqualified Morales from running for re-election based on an advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that prohibited indefinite presidential re-election. This reversed the Constitutional Court’s ruling of 2017 that allowed him to seek a fourth term.

The 2023 Constitutional Court decision also cited Article 156 of Bolivia’s Constitution, which holds that no president can serve more than two terms.

From Jurist, Nov. 3. Used with permission.

See our last reports on the political crisis in Bolivia, the constitutional question, and the struggle in Chapare.

Photo: Radio Kausachun Coca via Wikimedia Commons

Morales is currently being investigated for statutory rape and human trafficking as a result of an alleged relationships he had with a minor while he was in office. Since mid-October, supporters of the former president have set up blockades in an effort to prevent his potential arrest. At the time of the announcement, the police had cleared at least 12 blockades.

The protests have disrupted fuel and energy supplies. YPFB, the state-owned oil and gas company, stated that due to the highway blockades there could be a natural gas shortage in the Llallagua and Uncía regions of Potosí department starting Oct. 27.

The former president “has racked up at least five accusations of having sexually abused minors” while in office, according to media reports.

Morales criticized the move by President Luis Arce to mobilize police troops, claiming that the government’s clearing of the blockades is an illegal breach of the right to protest, which is protected by the Bolivian Constitution. He went on to accuse the government of causing the violence, alleging police brutality at bridges near Villa Khora, La Paz department.

Morales stepped down from the presidency following a disputed election in 2019, and fled the country. The army allegedly encouraged him to leave office, with his supporters characterizing the incident as a military coup. The interim government that subsequently took over accused Morales of several crimes including sedition and terrorism, in addition to the present charges that are being pursued under the elected government of Arce.

From Jurist, Oct. 27. Used with permission.

See our last report on the political crisis in Bolivia.

Photo: HormigaInsurgente

South Africa continues to pursue proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice, charging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Several countries, including Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, Turkey, Libya and Palestine have also filed declarations of intervention in support of the case. (Jurist)

See our last reports on accusations of genocide against Israel.

Photo: badwanart0/Pixabay via Jurist

Peru is also facing a devastating environmental crisis due to widespread fires that have ravaged various regions of the country. On Sept. 18, President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in the regions of Amazonas, San Martín, and Ucayali. Approximately 3,500 hectares of natural areas and crop or pasture lands have been affected, mainly in those regions and La Libertad, Cuzco and Cajamarca.  According to the National Institute of Civil Defense (INDECI), the fires have claimed 20 lives and left around 150 injured, some from burns and others from inhaling smoke

On Sept. 23, the Executive Branch presented a bill to Peru’s Congress aimed at establishing a legislative framework for the prevention and control of forest fires. The bill imposes criminal penalties for setting fires, and proposes measures to restore affected areas.

Bolivia is also seeing its highest levels of wildfire emissions since record-keeping began 22 years ago. (PRI, BIJ, Jurist)

Deforestation, mainly for mining and agricultural purposes, has led to the loss of 12.5% of the Amazon’s forest cover from 1985 to 2023, according to Brazil’s Amazonian Network for Spcio-Environmental Information (RAISG)—an area the size of Germany and France combined. (RFI)

Photo: Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace via Mongabay

The coup attempt drew harsh criticism from across Bolivian society, from the courts to the ombudsman to the general public—who have continued to show up in Plaza Murillo in huge numbers to support the government. Leaders of neighboring nations, including Brazillian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, also condemned the attempt.

Last week, Zúñiga said that he would arrest former president Evo Morales if he ran for president again. Morales had previously accused Zúñiga of leading a secret group within the army, called the Pachajchos, that monitors peasant leaders and political opponents.

From Jurist, June 27. Used with permission.

Photo via Twitter