Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he will seek to speak to his counterpart in Bolivia today to discuss the death of Irishman Michael Dwyer, who was shot dead by police along with two other men last week.
He said the Government was “simply interested in establishing the facts” of how and Irish citizen came to be killed by the security forces of another state and that Mr Dwyer’s bereaved family and friends deserved to know the truth of what happened.
Mr Martin said he had seen the latest reported remarks of Bolivia’s president Evo Morales in relation to the death and he had no intention of getting involved in the internal political situation in Bolivia
“I want to make it clear that Ireland had no involvement in or has no sympathy for any action designed to destabilise Bolivia or threaten the security of its democratically elected president,” Mr Martin said in a strongly worded statement.
Mr Morales yesterday appeared to rule out an international investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killings and said Ireland and Croatia and Hungary (where the other two dead men were from) had no authority to ask for such an investigation.
“The Irish Government has not the remotest desire of getting involved in the internal political situation in Bolivia,” Mr Martin said in a statement.
“Our interest relates exclusively to the fact that an Irish citizen was killed by the Bolivian state security forces in particularly violent circumstances.”
Mr Martin said 24-year-old Dwyer, from Tipperary, was “identified to the media by name and nationality and gruesome newsreel of his dead body displayed on the international media before any contact was made with the Irish embassy”.
He said the Government had “a legitimate right to seek the facts of how one of its citizens came to be killed by the security forces of another State, particularly where prima facie evidence is sufficient to raise questions in relation to the description of events released by the Bolivian authorities”.
“The Bolvian authorities have made serious allegations against Michael Dwyer. I have no idea of how he came to be in Bolivia, and in the company of the other persons who were either killed or arrested by the Bolivian security forces.
“However, I am clear that he had no criminal record in Ireland and that he was not, as has been suggested in Bolivia, a former member of the Irish Army.”
He added that the Government was “simply interested in establishing the facts”.
“Michael Dwyer’s bereaved family and friends deserve to know the truth. Ireland stands ready to cooperate fully with the Bolivian authorities in the investigation of this matter.”
The Minister said the Irish Embassy official on the ground in Bolivia had received “good assistance from the Bolivian authorities”, particularly with regard to the repatriation of Michael Dwyer’s remains.
“On my instructions, he has made clear both that Ireland has no interest or involvement in efforts to destabilise the political situation in Bolivia and the Government’s interest in establishing the facts in relation to the death of Michael Dwyer.”
Mr Martin said he would seek to speak to his Bolivian counterpart to day to “confirm our interest in seeing that this matter is pursued in the spirit of friendship and cooperation which characterises relations between Ireland and Bolivia”.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday about the request by Ireland, along with Croatia and Hungary for an international inquiry, Mr Morales said: “They have no authority to ask for an investigation.”
He added: “It is very serious, I could think that they [the European countries] are the ones who sent them here to attack democracy.”
But apparently contradicting himself, he also said: “If it is important, the presence of the international community, then, welcome.”
Mr Dwyer’s body still lay in room 457 of the Hotel Las Americas in Santa Cruz when Alvaro Garcia Linera, Bolivia’s vice-president, told a press conference in the capital, La Paz, last Thursday that he, the two other dead men and two others arrested at the scene, were “mercenary terrorists” with plans to kill Mr Morales, himself and other leading public figures.
Two other men died along with Mr Dwyer – Eduardo Rózsa Flores, a Bolivian of Hungarian descent who held a Croatian passport, and Magyarosi Erpád, a Romanian of Hungarian ethnicity.