Bolivia calls for regional effort against corruption.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Bolivia plans to ask the 33 member-countries of the Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribenos (CELAC) to establish common ways of dealing with corruption. President Evo Morales has called for a CELAC meeting in Cochabamba on Nov. 8 with transparency and corruption the only issues on the agenda.
"The idea proposed by Companero Evo [President Morales] is to seek the establishment of joint regional strategies to combat corruption," said Nardi Suxo, head of the Ministerio de Transparencia Institucional y Lucha Contra la Corrupcion.
President Morales' administration has already proposed fellow Andean countries--Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile--adopt anticorruption strategies that reach beyond their national borders. The administration believes that its war on corruption is the most successful such effort in the region and considers itself to be in a unique position to share its experience with neighboring countries.
By focusing the CELAC meeting exclusively on transparency and anti-corruption, Suxo said all 33 members might be able to commit to work together on those issues. But more than just a commitment --which in the end could be nothing more than a simple statement of the goal--the idea is to create tools to measure and prevent corruption as well as to establish a system for consultation between countries.
Suxo explained measurement as being able to know how citizens perceive the problem of corruption. The minister said she is confident that regional agreements will be made in Cochabamba that will measure the public's perception of the problem "in accordance with our standards" and not those used by outsiders who come to gauge suspects in the manner of Transparency International (IT), a Berlin-based organization she is leery of. "That organization has refused to reveal its sources of funding," she said. "Thus we object to it judging countries like ours involved in a revolutionary process."
Establishing a system of consultation is crucial for Bolivia, Suxo said, because ever since the Ministerio de Transparencia Institucional was created key suspects have fled the country to escape facing corruption charges in Bolivian courts. The minister said there are currently exministers of previous administrations, governors and mayors who had been elected by the people, members of the military, magistrates and officials of this government who have fled to the US, Peru, Paraguay, Colombia, and Brazil. Once accused, they claim political...
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