TNAG-0652-FCO40-801-Planning-Staff-papers-on-human-rights-and-foreign-policy-cou-1977 — Page 31

CONFIDENTIAL

BOLIVIA

Report by HM Embassy, La Paz

Right No.

(i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

The official number of political detainees, which we see no reason to doubt, is 87 (ie 1 in 54,000 of population). Some of these will eventually be released, some will be sent into exile, and the rest will be tried. Owing to a shortage of judges, persons charged have to wait an inordinate time before being tried, or released for lack of evidence. But the main blot on the Bolivian record is the very free use of exile as a punishment without trial.

The Bolivian Government were severely shaken by the death under inter- rogation of an ex-Minister of the Interior in May 1973, and since then their record on torture has been good. We know of several political detainees who, after release, said they had nothing to complain of. If torture does take place, it is certainly unauthorised, and in general the

security police seem to be well under control.

There is no slavery, or even disguised slavery in Bolivia.

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There is no formal censorship of the press,

and we can recall no occasion when issues of newspapers have been confiscated. Protests are published, as was the text of a telegram from the British NUM to the President, asking for information about political detainees and protesting against the Government's treatment of the trade unions. But editors certainly exercise a prudent degree of self-censorship. On several occasions radio stations have been closed down for "spreading subversive propaganda", national security being pleaded in justi- fication.

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