An event in Washington DC attracted a lot of attention in the Bolivian blogosphere during the past week. A lecture by former Bolivian President Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada [1] was supposed to be the night’s main attraction. However, a group of U.S. activists presented the former Head of State with papers to appear in a Bolivian court, which apparently was not on the evening’s agenda. The Bolivian government had requested that Sanchez de Lozada testify about his role in the events of October 2003, in which approximately 80 protestors and police were killed.
Christian Gomez, author of the blog Juanson World [2], was the event’s organizer, which was hosted by the organization Princeton in Latin America [3]. He was able to answer directly to some of the comments [4] and criticisms [5] launched at him in the comments section of the Democracy Center’s blog.
Eduardo Avila also blogged about his firsthand account [6] of the event in his blog Barrio Flores. In addition, Paula Pfoeffer, an Australian librarian living in Bolivia, posted a report [7] written by U.S. citizen Douglas Hertzler, who served Sanchez de Lozada the papers to appear in court.
Meanwhile, in the Southern part of the hemisphere, the Summit of the Americas in Argentina also became a topic of discussion, especially because MAS Presidential candidate Evo Morales took a prominent role appearing side by side with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and soccer superstar Diego Armando Maradona. Miguel Buitrago of MABB posted a humorous cartoon [8] depicting the two celebrities exchanging musical and footballing tips. Also, Rocko [9], who maintains a blog containing the columns of Paulovich, posts one column about a fictional meeting [10] between the two, which includes the exchange of the year:
Maradona: For which football team did you play for, when I played for Boca Juniors?
Evo: I played for Coca Juniors in the Chapare.
On a more serious note, Nick Buxton of Open Veins wrote about his experiences [11] in Mar del Plata where he accompanied a delegation from the Movement against the TLC and ALCA. The delegation ran into a string of bad luck incidents including finding cockroaches in the food, lost luggage, a stolen wallet and a scam involving the local police.
With less than six weeks to go before the scheduled December 18 elections, many bloggers are discussing strategies and possible outcomes. Alvaro Ruiz Navajas writes in his blog Off Topic and wonders whether Morales might benefit [12] from the roadblocks constructed in Congress against the elections. Miguel Centellas publishes on his blog Ciao! his predictions [13] on how the election results may shape up. He also recently updated [14] his Bolivian politics wiki [15] to reflect the changes in the candidate lists, which needed to be modified due to the redistribution of Congressional seats.
Finally, a new blog called Journal of Bolivian Business and Politics [16] was recently launched. The site's author is Jonathan Olguin, a Bolivian living and studying in Florida, and he writes that the Brazilian budget airline carrier GOL recently began its service [14] to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.