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Case 2721 BOLIVIA
BACKGROUND: 1. December 5,
1977, the Commission received the following denunciation: Nilda
Heredia Miranda, a physician of Bolivian nationality of the city of
Cochabamba, Bolivia, was arrested on April 2, 1976, by a large
contingent of henchmen who tortured her in the Police Station in
Cochabamba (she was kidnapped from her house). As a result of the
horrors of the torture, she tried to take her life by cutting her veins.
Her state of health is very serious because of the lack of medical
attention. She is still a prisoner in the Viacha prison. She is being
held ‘incommunicado'. The
courts and government attorneys refuse to intervene in all political
cases, and the members of her family do not intervene for fear of
reprisals by the Government. 2. In a note dated
April 3, 1978, the Commission transmitted the pertinent parts of the
denunciation to the Government of Bolivia, and asked it to provide the
corresponding information. 3. In a
communication of June 6, 1978, the Government of Bolivia, without
referring to torture, or the failure to provide due process of law,
replied to the Commission’s request in the following terms: Mrs.
Nilda Heredia Miranda, alias ‘Ivana’, and active militant in the
Revolutionary Workers Party of Bolivia (PRT-B) and in the National
Liberation Army (ELN), the wife of the extremist Luis Stamponi, of
Argentine nation0ality, received training in terrorism which she taught
in her organization, giving talks on politics and the use of automatic
weapons, as a member of the Political Military Directorate of the ELN,
in the city of Cochabamba. In Cochabamba, she recruited a number of
individuals for her party, and was one of the General Staff of the Luis
Stamponi Column ‘Miseria’, in the third district. She was arrested
in April, 1976, in the city of Cochabamba, where she was working with
Rubén Sánchez and other members of the Staff of the PRT-B and ELN, for
purposes of conspiracy. She left the country voluntarily. She has now
been granted amnesty under the Political Amnesty Decree by the Supreme
Government in December 1977. 4. The pertinent
parts of the Government’s reply were transmitted in a letter of June
28, 1978, to the complainant, and he was invited to make observations on
the response. WHEREAS: 1. The Government
of Bolivia replied to the Commission’s request for information on the
events denounced without referring to torture or lack of due process. 2. Article 51.1 of
the Regulations of the Commission provides as follows: Article
51: 1.
The occurrence of the events on which information has been
requested will be presumed to be confirmed if the Government referred to
has not supplied such information within 180 days of the request,
provided always that the invalidity of the events denounced is not shown
by other elements of proof. THE
INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, RESOLVES: 1. On the basis of
Article 51.1 of the Regulations, to presume the material events of the
denunciation related to torture and the lack of due process to be
confirmed. 2. To declare that
the Government of Bolivia violated (Article I) right to life, liberty
and personal security and (Article XXVI) right to due process of the
American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. 3. To recommend to
the Government of Bolivia: a) to order a complete, impartial
investigation to determine responsibility for the events denounced, and
to sanction those responsible for those acts in accordance with Bolivian
law, and b) to inform the Commission within a maximum of 60 days as to
the measures taken to put into practice the recommendations listed in
the present Resolution. 4. To communicate
this decision to the Government of Bolivia and to the complainant. 5. To include this
Resolution in the Annual Report of the Commission to the General
Assembly of the Organization of American States, pursuant to Article 9
(bis), paragraph c. iii of the Statute of the Commission, without
prejudice to the fact that the Commission may, at its next session,
reconsider the case in the light of such measures as the Government may
have adopted. (Approved
at the 609th meeting of March 6, 1979 (46th
session) and transmitted to the Government of Bolivia)
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