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Snapshots: Bolivia on the eve of a big parade

• Paul Mason
• 23 Mar 06, 03:05 AM

1600: Police Central Command, La Paz
There was a ripple of shock through the press pack when the accused were ushered in: he is an overweight American with a pony tail; she is the dark Uruguayan beauty whose snapshots, posed naked on top of two boxes of dynamite, will probably be Item One for the prosecution. All the evidence is displayed within touching distance on a small table: their passports; the box of dynamite; the naked photos, a length of fuse. Behind them are gruesome pictures of the victims: a Bolivian man and woman who had the misfortune to be living below the downtown cut-price hotel when someone set off 120 sticks of commercial dynamite in it...

The foreign minister has already been on TV to accuse “neoliberals” of attacking Bolivia. President Morales was more measured, saying – if I read the report correctly – that since the Americans are so keen on the war on terror, they cannot let their own citizens come to Bolivia to wage terror on its people. Claudio Lestad, standing a bit dazed but with no signs of ill treatment, about three yards in front of me, has an American passport. He’s been using three names while in Bolivia and signed himself into the hostel as a Saudi national. Alda Ribiero, whose raunchy pose will fill the front pages of Latin America tomorrow, is Uruguayan. The police tracked them down to a hotel in El Alto within hours of last night’s blast. Ms Ribiero had, it is reported, been distributing the naked pictures of herself as a commercial calendar for the business they were in, which was selling dynamite and fireworks.
The police, unlike the politicians, make no assertions as to motive. They simply note that the two brought the dynamite over the Peruvian border earlier this month, and had travelled extensively between here and Argentina. They do not rule out, says the police commander, a religious motive. He prods the word religious on the overhead projector with his red laser pen repeatedly. Since we know nothing about the religious proclivities of the two accused, this prompts more questions. He cannot rule out a political motive. He is repeatedly pressed on this. He cannot rule anything out. Having read the diaries of the accused, the police believe they were planning to attack the Chilean embassy on Saturday.
That would be political – since Bolivia is engaged in a rapprochement with the new centre-left Chilean government and tomorrow is the Day of the Sea, when Bolivia mourns the loss of its littoral to Chile in a long forgotten war. There’s a parade planned, and security has been stepped up after the bombings.
As the accused are led away the press crowd around a uniformed officer who holds up the evidence piece by piece, girly snapshot by girly snapshot. They are so close they are touching the huge box of dynamite that will be Item Two if it comes to trial. If Claudio has an America lawyer, I think the footage of journalists falling over themselves to paw this box of dynamite might be Item One for the defence.

1800: El Alto, Central Square
At nightfall, El Alto gets political. There’s a square right next to the motorway where people go to buy and sell – and to argue. There’s a group of thirty altenos clustered round a man with a rasta hat and Bin Laden beard: he is preaching against Christianity. Another man has a cart full of plant extracts and a diagram of the digestive tract: he is preaching against Coca-Cola….
The women street sellers get pretty annoyed with the arguers – they are all men and they stand round intently, blocking traffic and holding up trade. As my producer Joe starts filming it all, and I stand minding the bags, another meeting breaks out – only it suddenly becomes clear I am the one who is holding it.
It starts with Ernesto Quiroga coming up to me and asking the usual questions: what channel do you work for, what country are you from? Ordinary Bolivians have very little respect for the ±«Óătv for the simple reason that they have never heard of it: they have heard of Britain though, and Tony Blair. Tony Blair comes up in the first halting exchange between myself and Ernesto – a reflective, middle aged man in a scruffy purple jacket.
“Why did you invade Iraq?” he asks.
I explain that not all British people supported the invasion of Iraq.
“Why don’t they vote out Tony Blair?” he asks.
I explain the dynamic of Blair being Labour leader and that Labour’s mass support held up despite opposition, and uneasiness over the war.
“Why did you invade the Malvinas?” he asks.
By now the Coca-Cola man and the Christianity man are looking a bit forlorn because their crowds have thinned and mine has grown considerably. I try to change the subject.
“What do you think of Evo Morales?” I ask.
Ernesto, by now relishing his audience, spells it out:
“If he nationalises the hydrocarbon industry, the people of El Alto will support him. We are capable of political analysis here, you know, not stupid. There are thousands of ex-miners scattered throughout this city and when we overthrew Carlos Mesa it was whole streets full of ex-miners. If he does not nationalise the hydrocarbons they will denounce him as a traitor…” As I begin to write this down he adds: “…like Tony Blair.”

2000: La Paz, Isabella Catolica
A rehearsal for tomorrow’s parade is taking place right below my hotel window. Since Simon Bolivar founded this country, it has managed to accumulate enough different military uniforms to fill a whole shelf in an Airfix model shop. Each regiment has a brass or military band. The first down the hill are Evo’s presidential guard: they are slight, young Indian lads dressed in uniforms like the Union Army in the American Civil War, only the coats are scarlet instead of blue. They carry breech loading rifles and long bayonets; they march awkwardly but sing the national anthem with a passion.
Next come the Marines: they look exactly like the Royal Marines, with a lot of white webbing, and they are nearly all Spanish guys. They do the Royal Marines thing of hardly swinging their arms, and the bayonet tips hardly move as they go past.
Next comes what would, in Airfix terms, be called German Army WWI. It is the Colegio Militar: they wear black helmets with silver spikes, and black uniforms. The CO has more medals on his chest than a second hand medal website. First the band, then the colour party, then the detachment of rifle carriers. These guys can actually goose-step like Airfix German Army WWII. And they are big fellows – they look like rugby players and their march is a confident swing and roll. There is not an Indian among them I can see. Bringing up the rear are a bunch of blokes dressed - and sized - like Russian colonels who’ve been too long at their desk jobs. They too have a band.
Each detachment is accompanied by MPs with cocked M16s and tear gas launchers. Behind the last contingent comes the audience who have been watching the parade in the square just up the hill. These are the La Paz elite, in their dark suits and ties, wearing the national colours as badges.
It occurs to me that they have turned out en-masse for the practice as a kind of last hurrah for the world they’ll have to leave behind. Tomorrow the parade will be run for real. But the military presence will be only half the story. Down from El Alto, along the filthy motorway, will come a massive crowd of indigenous people: the very people the army was ordered to fire on in 2003. They will join together: that is the theory. The men I met at El Alto earlier were vigorously pro the recovery of Bolivia’s coastline, even though their more pressing problem is getting water into the taps at home.
What happens when you put the military forces of Bolivia, which was run as a kind of Andean Austro-Hungary for decades, into the same parade as the trade unions, the coca-growers, the shanty dwellers? Tune into this blog late tomorrow and find out.