Opinion: Cuba’s Penal Code inspires the Bolivian government to try to exterminate the opposition

By Fábio Galão*

(Opinion) Last year, Cuba implemented a new Penal Code, which was seen as a response to July 11, 2021, democracy protests by expanding the mechanisms for the Castro dictatorship to silence demonstrations and independent journalism on the island.

Bolivian President Luis Arce recently submitted two bills to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (ALP, the country’s national Congress) to reform the Penal Code.

They are being considered an attempt to copy the new Cuban legislation (the president, from Evo Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, has Cuban advisors) since they would serve as a basis for political persecution and to silence the opposition, the press, and movements critical of the government.

PL 280 would modify at least six articles of the Penal Code, while PL 305 would incorporate seven new crimes into the legislation, such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, and acts of racial hatred.

The main point of discussion on the first bill is the modification of the Penal Code article dealing with terrorism, which would extend the punishment for such crimes to 20 to 25 years in prison (today, the penalty is 15 to 20 years) and confiscation of property.

“The way the crime of terrorism is described, [the new law] criminalizes social protest.”

“Any group of people making a social protest, like what the teachers are doing now, can be charged by prosecutors and judges who answer to the MAS and by government denunciations,” opposition lawmaker Carlos Alarcón told Página Siete newspaper.

He cited the project’s similarities with the so-called “cursed law 218,” proposed in 2021, which was withdrawn after protests by productive sectors and social organizations.

“The problem is that with four criminal types, they want to establish a dictatorship in the country,” Alarcón said.

The Argentine website Infobae reported that the bill’s main objective would be to retroactively define as terrorism the allegations of fraud against Evo Morales in the 2019 presidential elections, which eventually resulted in his resignation.

This would increase the persecution already underway against opposition politicians due to the episode:

For coup charges, former President Jeanine Áñez, who replaced Morales, was sentenced to ten years in prison last year.

Luis Fernando Camacho, governor of Santa Cruz province and former presidential candidate, was arrested in late 2022.

Last Thursday (6), the suspension of the processing of PL 280 was announced, but not its withdrawal.

The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, said that the government intends to “better publicize” the project before it is voted in the ALP.

“The dissemination will be carried out throughout the country, and for all the people interested in improving the project, at all levels, unions, drivers, we’ve already had meetings with businessmen,” Lima told the television network RTP.

The director of the Confederation of Bolivian Trade Unions, Rodolfo Mancilla, said that the entity sees “no problem” in publicizing the project.

“But the response will be the same, [the proposal] will be rejected until it is clear that the trade union family or retail merchants are not included in this law and also that they will not be persecuted or their goods confiscated,” he said in an interview with El Deber.

Bill 305

PL 305 has also caused a reaction: according to Centa Rek, a senator from the opposition Creemos party, the proposal would conflict with the Bolivian Press Law by stipulating that “when the act [of racial hatred] is committed by a media worker or owner of a media outlet, immunity cannot be invoked nor can any forum.

Rek told El Deber that this passage, instead of helping in the fight against racism, could serve as a pretext for the persecution of journalists in Bolivia.

“It would constitute a gag law against the press in the country because [the proposal] aims to set aside the press courts, to be replaced by common courts of a criminal nature, in alleged cases of dissemination and incitement to racism or discrimination,” the senator claimed.

The Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, which brings together business and civil society entities from this province, released a note that also criticized PL 305.

“This government initiative aims to implement criminal offenses to harass, control, and persecute to eliminate the civil opposition we have in the country, using discrimination and hate with confusing and ambiguous wording to leave open absurd interpretations,” the committee argued.

*Journalist graduated from the State University of Londrina (UEL). He worked at Folha de Londrina and the technology portal Futurista. At Gazeta do Povo, he contributed to the newspaper’s weekly magazine, UmDois Esportes, and the editorship Paraná. He is currently the editor of Mundo.

With information from Gazeta do Povo