What happened in Santa Cruz, Bolivia ?

Eduardo Rosza-Flores, a controversial victim / eduflores.fw.hu

It looks like an old story, coming from a Cold War movie and adding some elements of our contemporary world. In last April in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, police declared they killed three people in a hotel, after they were attacked. They said it was an anti-terrorist operation and the three men were part of a plot to assassinate President Evo Morales. Immediately, the identity of the victims arouses curiosity : one of them, Michael Dwyer, is Irish, another one, Arpad Magyarosi, is a Romanian-Hungarian citizen, the third one is a Bolivian with Hungarian and Croatian passports.

This man, Eduardo Rosza-Flores is quite sulfurous.  He was a soldier during the Croatian independence war after he arrived in Croatia… as a journalist. He is also said to have been a member of Opus Dei and the Hungarian neo-fascist and anti-Semitic movement Jabbik whereas he was a leftwing journalist at the beginning of his career.

In an interview released after his death, Rosza-Flores said he had been to Bolivia to create a self-defense militia in Santa Cruz, as a response of government abuses. You have to know that Santa Cruz is the economical center of Bolivia with a powerful white and wealthy upper class. Some of them ask for the independence of the region and since the election of Evo Morales, it has been the heart of opposition. Did Rosza-Flores say everything of his plans? Was the police wrong  with their information? Six months after the events, nothing is clear.

The case bounced this week with the publication of a video that is the proof of a manipulation, the opposition said. We see police officers taking some objects in the hotel room after the operation. But again, images are not clear at all. And why would the police have filmed their own manipulation? The government answered the video just attests that the police was right as we see guns and weapons in the room. Ireland asked for an international inquest. First Evo Morales had rejected it but he said it could change.

See also :
A report of the Irish Times about Michael Dwyer’s family

And the video published this week :