Bolivia says workshop front for U.S. spies

LA PAZ, Bolivia --Students attending a conflict resolution course in this politically tumultuous Andean nation got some unexpected extracurricular experience when Bolivia's leftist government accused the program's sponsor of being a front for U.S. spies.

The accusations came in a six-page Bolivian intelligence report riddled with grammatical errors. It claimed one of the course's local coordinators is a CIA agent.

The report was sent to reporters by e-mail on Thursday, two days after President Evo Morales claimed U.S. troops were sneaking into Bolivia disguised as students and tourists.

Morales' charges come amid increasingly strained U.S.-Bolivian relations. Morales is getting cozier with Venezuela and Cuba and shunning U.S. diplomats ahead of a July 2 vote to elect an assembly that will rewrite the constitution.

The U.S. Embassy called the government's accusations "unfounded" and the course's sponsor, the Alexandria, Virginia-based Alliance for Conflict Transformation, denied claims that it was an office of the State Department with links to the Pentagon.

Alliance co-founder Nike Carstarphen told The Associated Press that all 26 students in the course, which began June 10 and was continuing in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, were civilians. Half of them are Americans and the rest are from Sweden, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico and Bolivia, she said.

"It's sad. It's actually quite ironic," Carstarphen said in a phone interview. "They say we're playing war games when we're actually doing negotiations simulations."

The report named one of the students in the course, 26-year-old former Marine Joseph Humire. The ex-sergeant was born to Bolivian parents and said his seven years in the U.S. military included a combat tour in Iraq and training of Latin America troops including Peruvians, Colombians and Bolivians.

Humire said he had been hounded by a man who had identified himself as an immigration agent when he arrived at the Santa Cruz airport from La Paz, where he said he was visiting his grandmother. He also said his hotel room in Santa Cruz had been searched by people who did not work at the hotel.

Humire, of Vienna, Va., said he believed the agent who first questioned him at the airport suspected he was a spy. Later the inquisitive man invited him to dinner and grilled him about his military experiences, he said.

Humire said he does fit the mold of an aspiring CIA agent, but he denied being one.

"I have aspirations of law school," he said. "I have aspirations of doing some kind of intelligence work, anything that involves international relations. I'm keeping my doors open."

The report named another American, Mark Patrick Palaez, who was not among the course's participants.

It said Palaez identified himself as a sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina who is currently visiting his family in Bolivia.

Carstarphen said the course in Bolivia teaches conflict resolution methods and peace negotiating to students who may pursue careers in the field.

"Given U.S. involvement in Latin America, which has toppled a couple of governments ... one can certainly understand concern about any U.S. citizens being in Bolivia at this time," she said.

The Alliance, formed in 1999 by George Mason University graduate students, gets money from organizations including Catholic Relief Services, the International Rescue Committee and The Carter Center, Carstarphen said.

She said the only direct aid the group received from the U.S. government was a few years ago from the U.S. Agency for International Development -- for a project in Bulgaria.

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Associated Press Writer Fiona Smith contributed to this report.