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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

Date:	20 March 2006
Case Number:	bo0603_ari
Victim:	Waskar Ari
Country:	United States
Subject:	Aymara historian denied visa
Issues:	Academic and scientific freedom; Right to travel
Type of alert:	New

FACTS OF THE CASE:

An indigenous Bolivian scholar hired by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has been unable to take up his post because the US federal government has withheld his visa. The State Department has given no reasoning behind the delay.

Last year, the University of Nebraska Department of History and Institute for Ethnic Studies hired Dr. Waskar Ari, a promising indigenous scholar from Bolivia, to teach Latin American History/Studies. Dr. Ari is the first Aymara person to receive a PhD from a US University (Georgetown) and get a job at a major US research institution. Unfortunately, the US government has refused to grant Dr. Ari a visa to go to Nebraska and teach. His job was to have begun last August.

Although Dr. Ari submitted an expedited visa application in June, over nine months later his visa is still listed as "pending." The university says it has not received any explanation from either the Department of Homeland Security or the Bureau of Consular Affairs. In the mean time, his existing student visa has been cancelled. Asked about the situation, a spokeswoman at the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs checked Mr. Ari's file and said the cancellation of his old visa was done under a terrorism-related section of US legislation on the granting of visas. "We have derogatory information that renders him ineligible," she said, but declined to add any further information.

Dr. Ari, a member of the Aymara people of Bolivia, is a scholar of the religious beliefs and political activism among indigenous Bolivians. He has served as a consultant on social and economic issues facing the Aymara with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and other organizations. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the American Historical Association wrote, "We recognize that there may be individuals who pose a genuine security risk ... However, in Dr. Ari's case, we feel there are no perceptible grounds for such treatment. Within the Aymara community of Bolivia, he is widely recognized as a voice of moderation" (the full letter and press release can be read at http://www.historians.org/press/2006_02_13_VisaDenial.cfm)

Last December, Bolivia elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, a leftist who has opposed US-backed efforts to eradicate the cultivation of the coca plant. Coca is the main ingredient in cocaine. Mr. Morales is also an Aymara.

In a similar case, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last month challenging a provision of the USA Patriot Act that was used to deny a visa to Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Swiss Muslim scholar, despite his being appointed to a tenured professorship at the University of Notre Dame in 2004. In the lawsuit, the ACLU said the government was using the provision broadly to exclude from the United States people whose views it disfavors.

(Sources of information for this case include: Personal Correspondence from Dr. Patrick Jones, Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Journal Star.)

RELEVANT HUMAN RIGHTS STANDARDS

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 12(2): Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Article 15 (3): The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity.
Article 15 (4): The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the benefits to be derived from the encouragement and development of international contacts and co-operation in the scientific and cultural fields.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send faxes, letters, or emails:

Requesting that Dr. Waskar Ari's visa be granted so that he can begin at his post at the University of Nebraska; and
Expressing your concern that the seeming arbitrary denials of visas for scholars appears to support arguments that the United States government is using visa denials or delaying the visa process to exclude people whose views it disfavors.