Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé: Linked to Goni?

Born in 1956, Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé has a long résumé in the field of public administration. Having studied law in Bolivia’s San Símon University, as well as public administration at Harvard, he has worked as sub-comptroller of Public Services, regional coordinator of the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD in its Spanish initials), advisor for the Bolivian state department, among other posts. According to some sources, Rodríguez Veltzé has connections with the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada clan, who he served for many yeas as undersecretary to the country’s financial oversight administration. A Member of the Supreme Court since 1999, Rodríguez Veltzé was designated president of the Supreme Court on March 17 2004, in the midst of an institutional crisis. In his acceptance speech, Rodríguez Veltzé declared he was “convinced… that my mandate has to do with a renovation of the system… [and that] expressions of discontent come not just from the last week, but from October, from April, from long before.” Later, in his first press conference as president, he insisted on using constitutional principles to deal with the country’s hydrocarbons, and on the necessity of writing a second law to administrate them. With all of this, Rodríguez Veltzé’s election does not seem to have much changed the situation that was coming with Vaca Diez: a false call for nationalization to disorient the people…

Nevertheless, as our comrade Luis Gómez announced, the social movements, such as those in the city of El Alto, are not demobilizing so easily. In eastern Bolivia, the blockades have begun to come apart, but not the demands. The peasant farmers that have blockaded San Julián road since Tuesday have been lifting the blockades little by little since the naming of the new president. The same in Yapacani, where there have been three blockade points for the last week. The Camiri road, cut off by the Assembly of Guaraní Peoples, could be cleared in the next few hours. But all the social movements that support the Constituent Assembly and the recovery of our hydrocarbons insist that although they are lifting a few blockades, the demands remain the same, and they will remain alert. The struggle continues...