Assassination plot strikes a raw nerve

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia | Mercenaries accused of plotting to assassinate President Evo Morales were recruited through extreme right-wing groups in Eastern Europe financed by wealthy opponents of Mr. Morales, Bolivian government officials say.

“We are looking for the intellectual authors, the financiers of this,” said Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, after police fatally shot three members of a suspected terrorist team and arrested two others in a night raid on a Santa Cruz hotel Thursday.

Local press reports say two to four more people have been arrested since then.

The groups leader, who was fatally shot while in his room, has been identified as Eduardo Rosza Flores, a Bolivian Hungarian dual national who fought for Croatia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Mr. Flores led an “international brigade” composed of members of several other nationalities, investigators said, and he boasted of his mercenary exploits in the Balkans on a personal Web site.

Mr. Garcia said that Mr. Rosza was photographed at several parties and barbecues with conservative politicians and businessmen in Santa Cruz, where a European-descent elite forms the core of opposition against Mr. Morales efforts to establish a socialist state dominated by Bolivia’s majority Indian population.

“They know who they are,” said Mr. Garcia, who stopped short of mentioning names but said they will be publicly charged in the coming days.

Other government officials and commentators on state-operated television and radio have openly blamed wealthy landowners and former Santa Cruz Civic Committee leader Branco Marincovic for backing the purported plot.

Sen. Ricardo Diaz of Mr. Morales ruling party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), has said that a Croatian neo-Nazi movement called Ustasha, had “gained influence over the Civic Committee and other key Santa Cruz institutions” through Mr. Marincovic.

Ustasha was the name used during the World War II era by pro-Nazi Croats, who ruled parts of Yugoslavia then occupied by Nazi Germany and Italy.

Mr. Marincovic is the son of a Croatian businessman who emigrated to Bolivia to escape from Yugoslavia’s communist regime established after Hitlers 1945 defeat. He went on to establish a lucrative cooking oil business in Santa Cruz.

The Croatian community is highly influential in eastern Bolivia, holding key positions in local business cooperatives and owning one of the largest local TV stations.

A lawyer for Mr. Marincovic, who until last month was president of the politically powerful Santa Cruz Civic Committee, denied that he had any connection with Mr. Rosza or the purported assassination attempt. Mr. Marincovic, who is in Miami, could not be reached for comment.

Local officials also reject the charges against Mr. Marincovic.

“This is all a vulgar show staged by the government” said Santa Cruz Gov. Ruben Costas.

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