By DEVIN BEAULIEU
It is a strange and unexpected sound in the middle of Bolivia, but everyday from the curved towers of a mosque in the city of Santa Cruz goes out the call for Muslim prayer. One would not be embarrassed to have never imagined that the Bolivian Islamic Center ever existed in this country heavily dominated by Roman Catholicism and with a majority indigenous population. It is one of a handful of Islamic centers serving a tiny population of Bolivian Muslims estimated to be comprised of 1,000 people. But despite its size the population has become the new subject of security interest of the United States.
The head of the Islamic Center, Mahmud Amer Abusharar, an elderly grey haired Palestinian refugee sitting in his front office appeared humorously bewildered when presented with recent US intelligence and media reports detailing him among others in a study of “extremist threats” in Bolivia.
“The Islamic center is a Bolivian institution, which has no discrimination, whatsoever, against anyone… white like the Europeans, or brown like the Bolivians… Thank God we call on the people to be good to be universal and honest, not to be aggressive,” Abusharar told me.
“I never thought that the Islamic Center forms danger to the United States, but who is introducing this idea to the United States public; he must be the one looking to harm the North American people.”
In a June 6th piece, Fox News published “Bolivia becoming Hot Bed of Islamic Extremism, Report Concludes” based on a May 2009 US intelligence report on Bolivian Muslims. The reporter, Nora Zimmett, cites the report to paint the potential threat of advancing terrorism in the Western Hemisphere from “Anti-American” attitudes of Bolivian Muslims, the leftist Bolivian government’s increasingly strained relations with Washington, and budding relations with Iran. She quoted an unnamed US intelligence official, “There’s a theory that they may believe — Latin America, particularly with its Leftist leanings in recent years, may be more receptive to the anti-American-type rhetoric that we’ve been accustomed to hearing from Iran…The goal of the [Islamic] revolution is not just for Iran, but they feel an obligation to spread it. So we see their outreach as not just an economic one, but also a cultural one. Now, is there potential that could be capitalized by some other for some more nefarious purposes? There’s a lot of possibilities out there.”
While Fox News and their anonymous source push the potential likelihood of such a threat the actual report prepared by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Director of National Intelligence is void of specific or possible security threats and concludes that Bolivian foreign relations are “not a result of Bolivian Muslim influence.”
Instead the report’s dissection of eight Bolivian Muslim organizations directs attention to critical attitudes of United States and Israeli policies held by local religious leaders. The Islamic Center is described having the supposed contradictory view of both voicing support for “open-mindedness and peace” while “numerous on-line statements reveal a strong anti-US position”, citing statements in opposition to the US invasion of Afghanistan: “Today we see the US declaring armed Jihad against terrorism. They aim their bombs at UBL and Afghanistan, whom they financed and trained.”
“The fox is known to be a most sneaky animal,” Abusharar said referring to the reports. “Criticism is normal. In a democratic country, if we want to keep democracy we cannot behave like this.”
“These people, they want something. To convince the US government they have to write something.”
“I don’t think the CIA needs to write a report like this. They know me personally,” describing previous visitors whom he believes work for US intelligence services. “I opened all the doors and you know what I told them, ‘Take all the photographs you want’.”
He emphasized, “It is not the Muslims who are the problem of the United States in Bolivia. It seems that our government is the problem and they are looking for motives to threaten our government or looking for reasons why they have bad relations with Bolivia.”
The government of Evo Morales which has initiated pro-indigenous and socialist reforms has butted heads with the United States in recent years. Contentious issues include expelled US diplomat Philip Goldberg and other US agencies links to violent rightwing opposition, the nationalization of natural gas exploitation, and supposed setbacks in Bolivian anti-narcotics measures following the expulsion of the DEA for alleged political activity. Evo Morales described the recent suspension of Bolivia from the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act as based on “false accusations of the Obama administration against the Bolivian government to suspend the tariff preferences and in a political program of open interference by the United States government against the Bolivian people.”
The OSC report naming the Bolivian Islamic Center additionally details local Muslim protests against the Israeli offensive in Gaza which sparked friction between the two countries. Morales expelled the Israeli consulate in response and called for the Israeli leadership to be tried for war crimes.
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