It was November 2019, a few days after Evo Morales left the Bolivian presidency and fled into exile, and the country’s newly installed interior minister made no effort to hide his joy.
“Any terrorist should spend the rest of his life in prison,” Arturo Murillo believed during an interview in his recently occupied rooms, promising to put the runaway left behind bars for the next 30 years.
“It’s not about whether you’re a former president,” the grieving hotelier politician insisted. ‘In fact, it’s even worse if it’s a former president. A former president should be sentenced twice because people trust their president. “
This week, a former president was imprisoned in Bolivia – but not Morales. Instead, it was Murillo’s former boss Jeanine Áñez who found herself in a La Paz jail cell after she was seized by security forces early Saturday. “We are seeking a thirty-year sentence,” Bolivia’s new justice minister, Iván Lima, announced, accusing Áñez of terrorism and rioting – the same charges Murillo had filed against Morales.
The imprisonment of Áñez, a Bible conservative who became interim leader after Morales fled under military pressure, was applauded by some. Many on the left of Latin America celebrated the downfall of a politician who they said played a central role in the coup that they said forced Bolivia’s first indigenous president to power.
“Coups belong in jail!” tweeted the Brazilian leftist Guilherme Boulos while the news that Áñez was found lying in a storage bed reached the neighbor of Bolivia. She will be detained for the next four months, including 15 days apart from other inmates as a precaution against Covid-19.
Others, however, described the arrest as a disturbing development in an already deeply divided country that the new left-wing president, Luis Arce, had undertaken to unite after Morales’ movement for socialism (Mas) regained power last October. This week, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities, including La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre and Santa Cruz, to protest the treatment of Áñez, suggesting that such a cure would have to wait.
“We are in a cycle of retaliation,” warned Jim Shultz, the founder of the Bolivia-based Democracy Center. ‘If you are in a government and the government is changing at this stage, you can count on them coming after you … [This] feel less like a legal process and more like they are trying to destroy each other in turn. “
There is little doubt that Áñez has serious questions to answer about the persecution of political rivals and human rights violations that took place during her year-long interim presidency, which began after Morales’ escape to Mexico and ended last year after the sensational fightback of the election. party to power and allowed him to return home.
“While he was president, at least 20 Mas supporters were killed in two massacres,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch. “Witnesses told us that state forces opened fire on protesters.”
Shultz recalled how Áñez, after taking power in November 2019, moved to the shield of prosecution members of the military trying to quell the unrest in Bolivia. Days later, on November 19, troops are accused of firing on unarmed Morales supporters in the city of El Alto, killing at least eight.
Shultz said: “If you have a president who says to the army and police before the action, ‘Whatever you do, you will not be prosecuted,’ the message is about as clear as you can get: “Kill who you want to kill.” That is what she should be prosecuted for. ”
It can happen. On Monday, Arce’s justice minister announced that an investigation into the ‘bloody massacres’ would be completed by June and said the mothers of the victims were calling for justice.
For now, however, the charges against Áñez are not related to the shooting, but to allegations that the former senator was involved in the conspiracy of the right-wing coup that brought the current government of Bolivia to power. Vivanco said his group reviewed Áñez’s charge sheet and found no evidence of crimes. On the contrary, what appears to have been ‘the abuse of the legal system against political opponents’.
Shultz said he also claimed that Áñez Morales’ overthrow had mastered ‘a bit’. Several Mas politicians were constitutionally filling the presidency before Áñez after his resignation, but refused to do so, he noted. “She just caught the ball,” Shultz said of Áñez. “She did not throw it.”
Áñez, who claims to be the victim of a campaign of political persecution, is not the only member of her government targeted by the new government of Bolivia. Two former cabinet members – former Justice Minister Álvaro Coímbra and former Energy Minister Álvaro Rodrigo Guzmán – were also detained. Her former communications minister, Roxana Lizárraga, is seeking asylum in Peru. On Monday, former army commander Gen. Jorge Pastor Mendieta Ferrufino surrendered to authorities over the same investigation.
Meanwhile, on the eve of last year’s election, Murillo, 57, slipped out of the country and apparently pulled through São Paulo and Panama City on his way to the United States. A warrant was also issued for his arrest.