The report of the US Government on the overthrow of Evo Morales in 2019 had a mixed reception in Bolivia.
While the Government of Luis Arce rejects it as an “interference” in internal affairs, the opposition welcomed the State Department document as if it contained the revealed truth.
The text presented by the Government of Joe Biden reaffirms the theory that in October 2019, the then-candidate and President Evo Morales (2006-2019) committed electoral fraud to stay in power.
This version was already sustained in the Organization of American States (OAS) report, whose Secretary-General is Luis Almagro.
The US document also endorses the investigation of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), dependent on the OAS, according to which during the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) massacres were committed, such as the one in Sacaba, in Cochabamba on November 15, 2019, and the one in Senkata, in La Paz, on November 19, 2019.
Former President Morales opened a thread on his Twitter account to formulate his defense. He accused the US government of acting “with double standards” because, in his report, he expresses his “solidarity” with the victims of massacres and human rights violations, “authorized with Decree 4078, better known as the Decree of Death of the de facto government that financed, supported and defended”.
Although President Arce did not comment on this report, he did so through Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta, who at a press conference said that the US has no authority to investigate the internal affairs of other countries.
“We, as a rule, respect that nations resolve their internal issues. Some things hurt our human sensibilities and concern us. However, although we may have criteria, we do not make them public,” Mayta said.
The Chancellor stressed that no country made reports on the violation of human rights in the US: “We do not make criticisms, we do not make analysis or reports on that. We do not try to be judges of them, we respect them”.
A HAND TO THE BOLIVIAN OPPOSITION
Gabriel Villalba, director of the Centro de Estudios Nuestroamericano, told Sputnik that “with reports of this type, the US is trying to raise the spirits of the opposition to the Arce government”.
He recalled that last September 24, Santa Cruz Department Day, 32 opposition legislators asked to take a break to attend the celebrations.
The legislators of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) took advantage of the absence of the opposition to vote for a new Ombudsman.
This election had been blocked in the Legislative Assembly for months precisely because the legislators of the opposition groups Creemos and Comunidad Ciudadana (CC) prevented the two-thirds of votes required by the Constitution for the election of the ombudsman.
Finally, the lawyer Pedro Callisaya was elected to this position.
“In Bolivia, you have a lackey opposition, servile to US interests, which was put off by absenting itself in the election of the ombudsman. CC and Creemos were left in a very bad position, with an abysmal social reproach,” said Villalba, a lawyer specializing in international law.
For the analyst, the Biden Administration analyzed: “We have to support politically, we have to articulate a discourse that is positioned at a regional level to give a backing to these deficient opponents that the MAS has”.
According to Villalba, “that is the reason for this report. From the outside, it seems that the opposition to MAS is being strengthened. But inside the country, the opposition is neither going backward nor forwards”.
THE REACTION OF THE OPPOSITION
From jail, the former de facto president Añez applauded the publication of this document:
“The report of the USA (United States of America) reconfirms the electoral fraud in Bolivia, committed by Evo Morales and the MAS government in 2019, just like what was denounced by the OAS and the European Union”.
Paradoxically, the former president is also being prosecuted for the massacres that cost the lives of 38 people during her first days in office.
Carlos Mesa was president between 2003 and 2005; he was also a candidate in the presidential elections of 2019 -the ones that originated the coup- and in 2020, when he lost to Arce.
As the leader of Comunidad Ciudadana, he relied on the US report to write on his social networks: “There is no doubt left in Bolivia and the world that the MAS did fraud and today seeks impunity and oblivion with persecution and lies”.
Other opposition figures such as Jorge Tuto Quiroga also expressed their support for the Biden Administration’s report. Quiroga was vice-president of Hugo Banzer (1997-2001) and succeeded him in the presidency when the old military man – dictator between 1971 and 1978 – had to resign for health reasons until his term ended in 2002.
THREE YEARS WITHOUT JUSTICE
Part of the US report highlights that so far, there is no justice for the victims of the massacres committed in the context of the coup and the establishment of the de facto government.
Gloria Quispe, president of the Association of Victims of the Senkata Massacre, agreed with this paragraph.
“We regret this situation because it was already three years ago this November. There are comrades who, with that stress and that pain, have become ill and have already left without getting justice for their murdered relatives. It is a danger that all the victims run,” he told Sputnik.
“It hurts this situation, but we don’t have a law firm because we are poor. We had asked the IACHR for help in that aspect; now we are asking again because humble people do not have an economy, and that is why there is no justice,” assured the sister of Antonio, who died at the age of 24 from a gunshot to the head.
“The people who have money have even hired law firms. We are forgotten,” she said.
Quispe asked that the judicial processes be accelerated:
“So far, there is no sentence for all the military or police officers detained for the Senkata case. What we do is not hatred, nor is it evil.
“We do not wish the worst for anyone. The only thing we want is justice because what they did to us cannot be forgiven or forgotten”.
With information from Sputnik