THE IRISH Government is expected to confirm reports that an Irishman was one of three alleged mercenaries killed in a shoot-out with Bolivian police in the early hours of Thursday morning.
The Bolivian authorities have publicly identified one of the dead men as Michael Martin Dwyer. His nationality was verified by means of a passport, according to a Bolivian police spokesman contacted by The Irish Times.He said no other details were available and that investigations were still at a "preliminary stage".
The Department of Foreign Affairs said an official from the embassy in Buenos Aires is heading to Santa Cruz to try and confirm the reports.
On Thursday Alvaro García Linera, Bolivia’s vice-president, said at a press conference that the group was “a band of terrorist mercenaries, Croatians, Irish and Bolivians” and intended to destabilise the country’s left-wing government. Police say that along with a large cache of weapons they recovered a list of targets that included Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
In a press conference in Venezuela where he is attending a regional summit, Mr Morales said Bolivia’s police had the group under surveillance since April 3rd and he gave the order to arrest them.
Three men were killed and two arrested by police following an intense 30 minute shoot-out in a hotel in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Police identified the other two dead as a Hungarian citizen and a Bolivian who held Croatian citizenship and was a veteran of a Croat militia which fought in the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
The two men arrested have been identified as a Hungarian and a Bolivian holding Croat citizenship, also said to be a veteran of the Balkans conflict. They have been transferred to the capital La Paz for interrogation. Police say they have admitted their involvement in recent bomb attacks against a government minister and the home of Santa Cruz’s cardinal, who is a prominent critic of Mr Morales’ government.
Police said they are still searching for the leader of the group, known only as el Viejoor "the Old One".
Political tensions have been high in Bolivia in recent weeks amid wrangling over a new electoral law that would boost indigenous rights and allow Mr Morales to run for a second term as president. On Tuesday he ended a six-day hunger strike staged to pressurise congress into passing the new law.
Since assuming office in January 2006 Mr Morales has accused the local right-wing opposition and the US of various plots to overthrow him. Last year he expelled the US ambassador, charging him with stirring up divisions in order to foster the break-up the country.
Located in the tropical lowlands of eastern Bolivia, Santa Cruz is the main bastion of the fierce opposition to Mr Morales’ indigenous dominated left-wing government, which draws most of its support from the highlands in the west.
Long the most economically dynamic region in desperately poor Bolivia, Santa Cruz’s local political and business leaderships lead a popular movement for more regional autonomy with many quietly advocating an eventual split and independence.
The political tensions generated by the autonomy push have frequently threatened to break out into wider violence with both sides accusing the other of preparing to use force.
Underpinning the political tensions is racial animosity between the majority mestizo population in the east and the overwhelming indigenous west.
Mr Morales linked Thursday’s events to the opposition against him in the east.
“In Bolivia the right tried to remove me at the ballot box, and failed. Then they tried to organise a civil coup against me, and failed. And now they planned with mercenaries, and failed. Hopefully they will always fail,” he said, referring to a plebiscite last year on a new constitution and the civil unrest its ratification sparked in the east.
But the opposition dismissed Thursday's events as staged by the government to discredit them. Governor of Santa Cruz Rubén Costas described it as a "show" and a "crude put-up job" while Mario Cossío, opposition leader in the neighbouring region of Tarija, told El Debernewspaper that "it is curious that the opposition regions are linked with conspiracies, which in the end are never proven".