Ex-President Evo Morales accuses a “dirty war” to “destabilize” Bolivian government

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The former Bolivian president and president of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales, denounced Thursday a “political campaign of dirty war” to project an “alleged political interference” of the ruling party in the judiciary and thus “destabilize” the government of President Luis Arce.

“We denounce before the Bolivian people and the international community that the coup right-wing, responsible for the coup d’état, massacres, corruption, and human rights violations, has launched a political campaign of dirty war and falsehood to achieve impunity,” Morales said in the first of a series of tweets.

After learning of the sentence of an ordinary court of ten years in prison against the former interim president Jeanine Áñez, tried for the “coup d’état II” case, organizations such as the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (Conade) announced protest mobilizations against this judicial decision.

In addition, some opposition leaders, such as former presidents Carlos Mesa, Jorge Quiroga, and the governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, called for the annulment of the process against Áñez after the observations made a few days ago by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán.

“These politicians who lost the election after plundering the State and murdering our brothers denounce an alleged “political interference” in justice, but they are the ones who pressure, threaten and attack judges to avoid answering for their crimes before justice,” emphasized Morales.

Bolivian opponents described as “forceful” the position of García-Sayán, who advocated for a “trial of responsibilities” in favor of Áñez “regardless of how his mandate came about,” and some asked that the international organizations that recognized the Áñez government also pronounce themselves in the same way.

Morales accused “some senators of the US extreme right”, “racist politicians of the European parliament,” and “fascist ex-presidents” of having joined forces to “spread lying communiqués” that seek to harm those he considered were the “victims of the coup” or the political crisis of 2019.

The former head of state assured that this action “seeks to destabilize” the government presided over by Arce and called on the sectors related to the ruling party “to stop this attack”.

Just the day before, after the reading of the sentence against Áñez, which determined his guilt for the crimes of resolutions against the Constitution and breach of duties, a group of union leaders declared a “state of emergency” given what they considered a new articulation of the “coup right-wing”.

The process and the sentence against Áñez, who has been in preventive detention since March last year, have once again exacerbated the political polarization in the country.

The Government and MAS have accused Áñez, through the “coup II” process, of “self-proclaiming” herself as Bolivia’s president during the 2019 crisis and violating Parliament’s regulations following the resignation of Morales, his vice-president, and other authorities in the succession line.

Áñez’s defense, for its part, argued that, as second vice-president of the Senate at the time, she acted according to the laws in the face of a “power vacuum”.

With information from EFE