EVO'S DEADLINE FOR DIALOGUE, OPPOSITION ARRESTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L LA PAZ 002151 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/03/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ASEC BL SUBJECT: EVO'S DEADLINE FOR DIALOGUE, OPPOSITION ARRESTS Classified By: EcoPol Chief Mike Hammer for reasons 1.4 b,d ¶1. (SBU) President Evo Morales officially announced that Sunday, October 5 will be the last day of dialogue, while also saying that arrests of opposition leaders will continue. During an event in the opposition department of Tarija (where the arrest of opposition leader Jose Vaca took place days earlier),Evo declared that he would not accept dialogue "with conditions" nor let those who "committed crimes escape with impunity." ¶2. (C) Press reports suggest that the public prosecutor has a list of opposition civic leaders who will soon be arrested. Among these is Tarija civic committee president Reynaldo Bayard, whom the government accuses of having led a group of autonomists who took the hydrocarbon plant in Vuelta Grande. Press reports cite "high level political sources" who say that Santa Cruz civic committee president Branko Marinkovic and twenty other autonomists will be targeted for their alleged participation in the taking of government buildings. Opposition contacts have told us that the arrest of high-level Santa Cruz opposition leaders such as Marinkovic could prompt Crucenos to "take to the streets", and the potential for violence could increase. ¶3. (SBU) The Human Rights Foundation-Bolivia announced that 21 Bolivians have been detained by the government in an "irregular manner" in the past weeks. This number includes opposition Pando Prefect Leopoldo Fernandez and a number of prefecture-aligned participants in the Cobija conflict of September 11. These individuals and a group of Santa Cruz autonomists appear to have been detained without due process and many are reportedly being held without access to lawyers. In the case of Pando police official Mirtha Sosa, medical examinations reportedly show evidence of excessive force (Sosa herself has denounced the government for what she described as torture, death threats, and threats of sexual assault.) ¶4. (C) Comment: President Morales is using strong-arm tactics as he tires of the stalled negotiations and as the procedural deadline for a January constitutional referendum draws near. Both the opposition and the government have always treated the current negotiations as a public relations game, displaying supposed willingness to negotiate in front of international observers while waiting for the other side to be the first to leave the table. With these attacks on opposition leaders and Evo's unilateral statement that negotiations will end on October 5, Evo appears to be pushing the opposition to break off dialogue. Most of the international observers are unwilling to pronounce judgment against the democratically-elected government, and therefore the strategy is likely to be win-win for Evo: his enemies end up in jail, and the opposition is seen to abandon negotiations. Evo is still calling for a siege of the congress on October 15; if successful, that tactic will provide him with a referendum on the constitution on January ¶25. End comment. URS