The Week That Was – Bolivian Blogs · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Terrorist bombings just don’t happen in Bolivia.  That is why all sorts of speculation surfaced when two explosions ripped through two budget hotels in the capital city of La Paz.  Two Bolivians died in the tragic crime and two individuals are now in custody.  The Bolivian blogosphere started to perform internet research on the various aliases used by the U.S. citizen arrested in the crime.  Jonathan Olguin of the Journal of Bolivian Business and Politics was one of the first to find about Claudius Lestat de Orleans y Montevideo aka Tristan Jay Amero, in a comment posted on the MABB blog.
The background of the bomber made it fairly obvious that the bomber had no political motives, wrote Javier in his blog Una revisión de todo un poco (ES).   Declarations from President Evo Morales were out of line according to many bloggers, as Morales wondered aloud whether the bombers were sent by the United States.  Sebastian Molina of Plan B (ES) writes about several other premature speculations from government officials that another “state” was behind the attacks and that there were attempts to destabilize the government and even derail the trial of former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.  Off Topic’s Alvaro Ruiz Navajas wrote about the reactions from the United States, who was accused of being behind the crime.  U.S. officials called the Bolivian embassy in Washington expressing their concern over these accusations.
Some wondered whether the Day of the Sea events had something to do with the bombing, in which Bolivia commemorates the loss of territory to its neighbor Chile.  Some Bolivian bloggers wrote about their thoughts around this day, such as Hermany. He writes about the feeling of sadness and feelings of claustrophobia in his blog Carpe Diem (ES).  In addition, Rolando Lopez, author of Rocko Weblog (ES), fondly recalls national hero Eduardo Avaroa, who lost his life in a battle of the War of the Pacific against Chile.  As one of the last standing, his final words have been reported as “Surrender?  Let your grandmother surrender, dammit!”
The relationship between the two countries will forever be linked with the sea issue.  Palabras Libres‘ Mario Ronald Duran Chuquima compares several demographic and economic indicators.  He believes that Bolivia’s natural gas may be the country’s “best ambassador” (ES) in moving closer to a compromise over this issue, as it is a natural resource that Chile needs.
Finally, the Bolivian blog community site, Blogs de Bolivia, discovered an online magazine called “Palabras Mas (ES)” (More Words), which wrote about blogs and the new medium that several Bolivian authors and writers are using to publish their thoughts and words (ES).  However, Miguel Esquirol, who wrote the article on the Blogs de Bolivia site, wonders about those writers who may not have necessarily been published and why weren't they mentioned.