For some time now, Peru’s government has been demanding that Bolivia extradite Walter Chávez, a Peruvian citizen wanted for his alleged connection to MRTA (Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, an urban Maoist terrorist organization). Walter Chávez is a fairly well known journalist w/ leftist sympathies who served as advisor to Evo Morales’s presidential campaigns in 2002 & 2005. The Bolivian government has declined to extradite him to Peru & has offered political asylum. The (relatively minor) issue has been on the back burner for some time now. Walter Chávez, of course, denies the allegations; he stepped down as a presidential advisor in February 2007.
Today, ERBOL reports that Chuquisaca’s former prefect, David Sánchez, has fled to Peru seeking (and receiving) political asylum of his own. The twist, however, is that Sánchez was elected prefect of Chuquisaca in December 2005 as the MAS candidate—and he’s now seeking asylum claiming that Evo’s government & (unnamed) “civic groups” in La Paz are endangering him (his house was recently razed in a fire). In the course of a few weeks, Sánchez seems to have gone from MAS prefect to exile. Sucre, the scene of political violence two weeks ago, is the capital of Chuquisaca department.
