Concerning Mr. Israel Morales Hernández.

Evo Morales and the Populist Paradox

(c) Mr. José Carlos Morales Morales, member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations

Once situated at the center of the political scene, Congressman Morales took advantage of his constitutional immunity to intensify his union activities and his fight against anti drug policies. In the 2002 elections, Morales received an unexpected boost from the US ambassador, who, by declaring himself against Morales, stirred up nationalist sentiment.

Thirteen months later, in July 2002, Mr. Morales Hernández filed a writ of habeas corpus.

Elimination of the worst forms of child labour through education in Villeda Morales (La Mosquitia, Honduras)

Mr. Israel Morales Hernández, a Colombian citizen, is currently detained in the Pereira judicial district prison in the department of Risaralda.

Calzadilla also denied that Morales still one of Latin America's most popular presidents was using the maritime issue as a political crutch.

Evo Morales, Bolivia's charismatic indigenous president who faces a controversial battle for re election next year also has plenty riding on Monday's ruling.

Thousands of people saw it, and one of them was the urbanist Manual Sola Morales who was redesigning the waterfront in Porto, Portugal.

On 14 March 2003, Mr. Morales Hernández exercised his right of petition to appeal to the Ombudsman's Office this appeal was also rejected.

The source concludes that the detention of Mr. Morales Hernández is arbitrary and calls upon the Working Group to declare it as such.

Mr. Israel Morales Hernández was arrested on 10 October 1999, but the court dealing with his case has yet to deliver a judgement.

And as the story of Mr. Morales, just down the road, excuse me, Mr. Gabriel, would you mind if we delayed your execution a little bit?

According to the source, Mr. Morales Hernández has been deprived of his liberty for four years and eight months, without any decision having been taken on his legal status.

In its reply, the Government confines itself to saying that, according to the National Institute of Prisons and Penitentiaries (INPEC), the legal situation with regard to Mr. Morales Hernández was as follows.

According to the source, that does not excuse the excessive delay in delivering a judgement, because through such delay, Mr. Morales Hernández has de facto been sentenced to a penalty of deprivation of liberty.

On 19 November 2002, Mr. Morales Hernández applied for an injunction (acción de tutela), or amparo, as provided for by article 86 of Colombia's Constitution, to obtain protection of his fundamental right to due process.

The source believes that the failure to comply with the procedural time limits has resulted in an illegal prolongation of the deprivation of liberty of Mr. Morales Hernández for more than four years, thus making his detention arbitrary.

LA PAZ Evo Morales succeeded in amending the Bolivia s constitution and being re elected President. And, backed by his parliamentary majority, he was recently able to fill vacant judicial posts, making him the most powerful president in Bolivia s contemporary history.

Does the rise of left leaning governments in Latin America, particularly the election of Evo Morales as President of Bolivia, presage a shift to the hard left across the continent? Does it mark a repudiation of United States foreign policy in the region?

Thus, when Morales came to power, Bolivia s economy was in a position to take advantage of the global price boom for raw materials. As a result, revenues increased, despite his government s nationalist and statist policies, which drove away investment and hindered access to new markets.

Rousseff and Bachelet were natural candidates to lead the development of a moderate counterweight to the populism of Maduro, Fernández, Morales, and Correa. But Rousseff, like her predecessor, the popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has chosen not to fill that role, instead cozying up to Venezuela.

Across the región, Chávez s influence was strong. His backing was a decisive influence in the election of Bolivia s President Evo Morales in 2006, and the following year he supported Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, though his impact on their victories is hotly debated.

More strikingly, both Bolivia and Ecuador are governed by presidents who suffered directly from the collateral insensitivities of the war on drugs. Bolivia s Evo Morales rose to prominence as leader of the country s coca growers during a brutal campaign to wipe out their crops, the so called Dignity Plan.

According to his opponents, Morales is reproducing the tradition of caudillismo, concentrating power in his hands and turning government institutions into mere formalities. But his immense popularity over the past five years suggests that most Bolivians do not seem very worried in putting their country s democracy at risk.

These are vital questions, but they miss the larger significance of the rise of someone like Morales, for he is Bolivia s first indigenous elected head of state. His victory marks a step forward in Latin America s overall democratization, with positive long term significance for economic and social development in the region.

Indeed, because Bolivia s Constitution requires the approval of Congress for such sales, it isn t clear that Morales is nationalizing anything the assets were never properly sold. When a country is robbed of a national art treasure, we don t call its return re nationalization, because it belonged to the country all along.

Contracts are being respected only in the breach, and technicians and lawyers from PDVESA, the Venezuelan oil giant, are auditing Petrobras installations in Bolivia. Lula wants to be nice to Morales, but he can t be nice to his expropriating neighbor and at the same time keep the industrialists and consumers of Saõ Paulo happy.

The deprivation of liberty of Mr. Israel Morales Hernández is arbitrary, being in contravention of article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and falls within category III of the categories applicable to the consideration of the cases submitted to the Working Group.

Morales was born into a peasant household on the Andean altiplano and later established himself in Chapare at the beginning of the coca boom. His career as a union leader took him away from agriculture and into politics, where he stood out for his criticism of the United States, whose anti drug crusade meant the eradication of a cash crop for poor peasants.

Will the new government follow responsible economic policies, or will Bolivia flirt yet again with destabilizing populist measures, as it has done so often in the past? Will Morales renegotiate the laws and contracts governing Bolivia s vast natural gas reserves, as his government is rightly committed to do, in a way that does not scare away urgently needed foreign investment?

The Mockus phenomenon is in many ways the Colombian analog of the rise of alternative presidents across Latin America in recent years Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Mauricio Funes in El Salvador, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, José Mujica in Uruguay, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

In first place is Evo Morales, an Amayra Indian running under the Movement Toward Socialism banner who is sometimes seen as Che Guevara s second coming. Running behind Evo is Jorge Tuto Quiroga, a millionaire former IBM executive from the European descended Bolivian elite he is closely aligned with America s Republican Party and is married to a Texas blonde named Ginger.

By defending the coca leaf, consumed for centuries in the Andean world and the raw material for cocaine, Morales was able to link his opposition to America s anti drug policy with the defense of native cultural tradition and the economic rights of the poor. Thus, Morales s leadership brought together three strongly symbolic dimensions nationalist sentiment, concern for the poor, and emerging ethnic pride among Bolivia s native peoples.

On December 6 last year, Evo Morales was re elected President of Bolivia with more than 60 of the popular vote. In her preliminary statement, the EU Head of Mission, MEP Renate Weber, stated that the electoral process had, in general terms, adhered to international standards with respect to democratic elections, and that the Bolivian Electoral Commission had acted in a transparent, neutral, and efficient way.

He would not be able to lean on Brazil, the moderating regional power, but would inevitably fall under the sway of Chávez and Morales, deterring foreign investors and harming the country s foreign relations. Cuba is out of the question as a patron, due to its preoccupation with Raúl Castro s efforts to reshape its depleted economy in an improbable bid for Chinese style capitalism in a one party state.

Chávez is giving away oil to Caribbean island nations and Cuba, and buying off Argentine debt to help President Nestor Kirchner s political fortunes. In Mar del Plata, Argentina, last month, he openly participated in a rally against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), in the company of, among others, Evo Morales, the coca leaf growers leader from Bolivia who might well become that country s next president.