Morales adviser faces right-wing attacks

Federico Fuentes, Green Left Weekly

Walter Chavez, an adviser to Bolivian president Evo Morales, has found himself in the centre of a well-orchestrated corporate media campaign aimed at delegitimising the Morales government internationally by linking it to "terrorist" groups. This accusation comes only a week after attempts by the Spanish media to link Morales's party – the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) - with the Basque separatist group ETA.

The campaign was initiated by the right-wing parties in Bolivia, which first raised concerns of Chavez's supposed links to a guerrilla group in Peru. This attack was echoed across the globe as Bolivian and international media outlets spread the false allegation. Within a day, the Peruvian government came out publicly to demand Chavez's extradition on charges of terrorism, and issued an international arrest warrant.

The timing of the charges has exposed the real intent of this campaign. None of the corporate press has asked why the Peruvian government took 15 years to act. Chavez himself has lived in Bolivia since 1992. In 1990 Chavez was arrested on suspicion of being involved with the Revolutionary Movement Tupac Amaru (MRTA). He was detained for 30 days where he was tortured, then released without charge, because there was no evidence against him.

He fled Peru following the 1992 coup carried out by Alberto Fujimori. In Bolivia, Chavez sought and gained refugee status after presenting his case to the Bolivian government and the United Nations. For 15 years, Chavez made a name for himself in public life as a journalist for numerous newspapers, including La Razon – perhaps Bolivia's most important daily newspaper.

Chavez was also the editor of the Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, and founded El Juguete Rabioso, an important fortnightly leftist newspaper with wide circulation among the progressive middle classes.

In 2002, Morales asked Chavez to help with his election campaign, a role Chavez played again in the successful 2005 elections in the face of a dirty war waged by all the corporate media against Morales's candidature.

Last March, Chavez was hired under contract by the government as a communications adviser.

During all this time in public life, not once has any of the seven consecutive neoliberal Bolivian governments, nor Peruvian governments, questioned Chavez's status in Bolivia. On January 31, Chavez requested that Morales grant him "indefinite leave" so he could return to Peru to fight the charges, and "clarify and guide through proper legal channels the unjust and slanderous process against me".

A letter of solidarity with Chavez has been launched to defend him and the Morales government against this right-wing campaign.

Letter of Solidarity with Walter Chavez

In the last few days, some media outlets in this country and abroad have lent themselves in order to launch an unusual and virulent campaign to discredit the Peruvian journalist and intellectual Walter Chavez, where adjectives have taken primacy over argument.

We the undersigned want to:

1) Demonstrate our total and open support for the journalist Walter Chavez, victim of a shameful media lynching carried out by right wing sectors.

2) Denounce the fact that this campaign, as well as attempting to damage the stature of Chavez, is part of a bigger action aimed at delegitimising the current government, questioning the people who are in solidarity with it and working in favor of the social transformations.

3) Record that Walter entered the country legally in 1992 and was received as a political refugee in line with international conventions signed by Bolivia in front of the United Nations. The United Nations Agency for Refugees evaluated that Chavez was being politically persecuted in his country (they jailed him and had to free him a month later due to the lack of evidence against him), and gave him asylum, just like 100s of citizens from other countries.

Those who accuse Chavez of being responsible for the acts of violence that shook the country in the last few weeks as throwing smoke over those who are truly responsible for the violence and social destabilization.

Walter Chavez, founder of El Juguete Rabioso and director of the Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, is a valuable figure amongst intellectuals and has proved through his actions his total devotion in favor of the construction of a better future for Bolivia. For all this he counts with our absolute solidarity.

Translated from Bolpress.

Those who would like to sign onto this letter can write to admin@bolpress.com or miguel@bolpress.com, mentioning your full name and current occupation