Luis Arce Gómez

Luis Arce Gómez (Born in 1938 in Sucre) was a colonel in the Bolivian Army. In 1980 he backed the bloody coup (sometimes referred to as the "Cocaine Coup") that brought to power the infamous General Luis García Meza. Arce served as García Meza's Minister of the Interior.

Arce's tenure as Minister involved the passing of such measures as the banning of all political parties, the incarceration and/or exile of most political opponents, the repression of trade unions, and the censorship of the mass media. Arce is reported to have said that all Bolivians who may be opposed to the new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms."

The García Meza government was also deeply involved in drug trafficking activities, with Arce as a link. Eventually, Arce was forced to resign, as was García. In the late 1980s, Arce was extradited to the United States, where he was put in jail, serving a lengthy sentence for drug trafficking. On April 21, 1993, while he was still incarcerated, he was condemned by the Bolivian justice system to 30 years in prison for serious human rights violations incurred by the regime he took part in.^[1]

In November 2007 he was released from his US prison sentence, and applied for political asylum in the US. His application was denied, and on July 9, 2009 he was deported back to Bolivia to serve out the sentence for his convictions there. He is held in Chonchocoro Prison in La Paz. As of 2009, he is currently in poor health but has apparently expressed a willingness to speak about his role in the 1980-81 dictatorship.^[2] In September 2010, Arce Gómez offered to share his knowledge about the remains of people disappeared during the dictatorship in "exchange for something": "If they want to know something... I have to gain something as well. It's not free." His sentence is not subject to negotiation. Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti has stated that Arce Gómez could face disciplinary sanctions for refusing to reveal this information, although the legal basis for doing so is disputed by legal experts.^[3]

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