President Carlos Mesa has completed his first year in office. Mesa, a professional journalist, took office following a popular uprising that forced his predecessor Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to resign.
Among Mesa's first acts was to shelve an initiative by Sánchez de Lozada which sought to regulate the mass media through a state-controlled superintendent. Under the banner of governmenal decentralization, Mesa considered it urgent and necessary that a Supreme Decree favoring government transparency and freedom of information be implemented. It intended to establish full disclosure of information as a basic principle in a nation marked by years by high incidences of corruption.
Beyond facilitating journalistic activities, the new law also aimed at providing the public unfettered access to information that had habitually been restricted, in order that the right to public information not be considered a luxury.
However, various professional organizations and civil society have expressed their disagreement over certain aspects of the Decree, such as barring prosecutors from providing information on criminal investigations, as well as the decision to classify information on issues involving the military, the economy, and border integrity, as well as international negotiations.
The press has reported on complaints brought before the Bolivian President, presented in an open letter by the Journalists Confederation and the National Association of Journalists of Bolivia, motivated by the attitudes of government authorities at various levels, who have accused the media of an "anti-governmental" tone.
In addition, the daily La Patria, located in the city of Oruro, indicated that the television news reporter, Carmen Torres, was the object of death threats by the Inti Wara Yassi Community (CIWY) in an attempt to silence her stories denouncing the traffic in wild animals.
On a number of occasions, the Journalists Confederation of Bolivia has reported police assaults against reporters, and demanded assurances that they be free to practice their profession. Last July, a confrontationas if between enemiesbroke out between journalists and police. Television news reporter Alex Arias was assaulted by a Police Major and Arias responded in kind.
The statute requiring journalists to be university graduates and listed with a National Registry in order to work remains in effect. While association leaders, the majority of whom are university graduates in other disciplines, maintain that this does not preclude working as a journalist, its very existence hinders access to the media.
