Arce says protests in Bolivia seek to cover up “coup d’état” lawsuits

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In a meeting with farmers in La Paz, Arce said that the right-wing “deceives” and “lies” because “it has no arguments” and that it seeks “impunity for what happened in 2019 with the coup d’état.”

The president warned that in the event of repealing the law on the National Strategy to Fight against the Legitimization of Illegal Profits and the Financing of Terrorism, as demanded by demonstrators who have been on an indefinite strike for 3 days, the opponents “will look for” another law to target and “everything will be challenged.”

Arce insisted that “what is worrying the opposition is that their trials are advancing” despite the slowness of the country’s justice system.

The “coup d’état” case, initiated by a denunciation filed by government deputy Lidia Patty on charges of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy for the events of 2019, has not advanced regarding the main defendants.

Santa Cruz governor Luis Fernando Camacho and his father José Luis Camacho Parada are the main accused against whom the Prosecutor’s Office has taken no action, unlike ex-interim president Janine Áñez, two of her former Ministers and former Military and Police chiefs who are detained and being prosecuted.

The Bolivian head of state warned of the need for the people, farmers and indigenous sectors organizations to support the government, as the events of 2 years ago cannot be “allowed” to happen again.

He further cautioned that the opposition seeks to “extort” with its mobilizations “what it failed to win at the polls” and that the “process of change” of the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) must be defended in the 9 departments of the country.

Since last Monday, opposition and civic sectors have been holding protests, blockades and demonstrations against the government, also demanding to dialogue with the sectors affected by other observed laws and the reinstatement of the 2/3 approval in parliamentary debates.

These days have been been marked by police excesses, the intervention of pro-government sectors to counter the blockades, as well as attacks on journalists by the security forces and demonstrators.

Arce on Wednesday was forced to cancel his visit to Potosí for its anniversary due to the protests the day before and the death of a pro-government farmer under investigation at the request of the national authorities, despite the fact that an autopsy established that he died from “bronchial aspiration” and with no injuries, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.

Since 2019, Bolivia has been experiencing a persistent political polarization between the ruling party, which maintains that the events in question were a “coup d’état,” and the opposition, which considers that the root cause was that year’s failed elections, which it describes as fraudulent.