While Bolivia’s diverse neo-Nazi and right-wing movements have a long and fruitful history in this majority-indigenous nation, the recent assassination attempt of President Evo Morales shows a new level of paranoia and extremism rising.
At dawn on April 16 an elite police unit, flown in from La Paz, stormed rooms at the Hotel Las Americas in the Department of Santa Cruz killing three men – Eduardo Rózsa Flores, Arpád Magyarosi and Michael Dwyer- who were planning several assassination attempts. It appears their targets included President Morales (the countries first indigenous president) and Vice President Alvaro García Linera. Rózsa Flores, the ringleader, was born in Santa Cruz of Hungarian-Bolivian parents. Flores, a supporter of the right-wing Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei, founded the neo-fascist First International Platoon to fight for the far right in Croatia during the Balkan Wars.
Police say that key civic leaders in Santa Cruz were involved in the plot including Branko Marinkovic, the recently retired president of the Comité Pro-Santa Cruz (CPSC).
The CPSC is an organization closely linked to Santa Cruz businesses and government, as well as neo-Nazis. The headquarters are located in one of the wealthiest parts of Santa Cruz, a bustling metropolis of European and Japanese immigrants. The city is also home to the offices for agriculture and petroleum giants like Archer Daniels Midland, British Gas, and Brazil’s Petrobras. Santa Cruz and the surrounding region produce 42% of the nation’s agricultural output and 34% of industrial GNP. Santa Cruz (along with 3 other departments) is also fighting for autonomy from Bolivia so that residents, who see themselves as white, can maintain control of the countries resources and wealth.
Three years ago I was living in Sucre, Bolivia. Walking through the central plaza one day I saw a group of teenage boys with swastikas on their jackets. I felt like I had stepped into an alternate universe and my first thought was that they must not know what a swastika is. After some digging around I learned that, while confusion about the symbol exists, there are multiple Bolivian organizations whose members sport it with pride.
The Santa Cruz Youth Union (Unión Juvenil Cruceñista) (UJC) is a militant neo-fascist group based in Santa Cruz. Claiming a membership of more than two thousand, the UJC has violently enforced general civic strikes called for by the CPSC.
Benjamin Dangl spoke with some UJC members and says “They openly criticized campesinos who “just in order to save money, didn’t bathe or change their clothes regularly.” They said cambas—generally light skinned, wealthy Santa Cruz residents and large land owners—were friendlier and cleaner than kollas (indigenous Bolivians).”
Then we have the neo-Nazi groups UNRSB (the Radical National Socialist Union of Bolivia) and Movement of the Camba Nation. Both say their goal is to protect the desires of “white” Bolivians. And both groups talk of the future and what it holds for their “people,” whether it is supremacy or the complete control of Santa Cruz.
None of this is new. In fact the famous Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was found in Bolivia, where he lived and “worked” for years helping run the state’s secret police. More than just a backlash against the pro-indigenous movement, Bolivia’s coalition of neo-Nazi and right wing movements has carved out enough political space to participate in Bolivian politics with both the ballot and the bullet.