Bolivia’s largest region goes on strike for changes in the justice system

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivia’s largest region, considered the country’s economic engine, Santa Cruz, confirmed the realization of a civic strike on Friday, March 4, to demand changes in the judicial system, to demonstrate against “political persecution,” and to defend “political prisoners”.

In a press conference on Thursday, March 3, the president of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, Rómulo Calvo, stated that “the renovation of the justice system has to happen now” and accused the government of President Luis Arce of dedicating itself to “persecuting” opposition leaders.

Calvo assured that the government under accusations of a “false coup d’état”, for the facts related to the 2019 crisis, “has several leaders detained” and that the protest of the next day “is a strike of claim” and of “conscience”.

In 2019, Bolivia went through one of the most severe crises in its recent history that resulted in the resignation of then-President Evo Morales, who spoke of a “coup d’état” against him amid allegations of fraud in the general elections of that year.

After Luis Arce’s arrival to the government, the Prosecutor’s Office activated judicial proceedings considering irregularities when the then-senator Jeanine Áñez assumed the Presidency since she was not in the constitutional line of succession.

As a result, Áñez and two of her former ministers will serve a year in prison. At the same time, former military and police chiefs and civic leaders have also been prosecuted for encouraging the protests and causing damages during those days.

Calvo assured that this Friday’s strike “is a citizens’ strike” and that it is a response to the instrumentalization of justice that needs “changes”, in addition to the demand for the population census to be carried out.

At the end of last year, Santa Cruz civic leaders, together with merchants and transporters, staged a nine-day national strike against a controversial law that they believed violated citizens’ freedoms, which was finally annulled.

At that time, the government assured that the protest was seeking “impunity” for those responsible for the 2019 crisis and that it was an attempt at a “second coup d’état”.

Although Calvo assured that the measure called for this Friday has the support of sectors of transporters and merchants, some groups of social sectors related to the government have confirmed that they will not abide by the strike.

The protest planned in Santa Cruz takes place more than a week after the special rapporteur’s visit on the independence of judges and lawyers of the United Nations (UN), Diego García-Sayán, who assured that judicial independence “is a pending task” in Bolivia.

The government is working on a judicial reform proposal that last year has had at least two attempts to achieve transformations without result and has announced for this month has set a “judicial summit” to receive proposals for change.

With information from EFE