It was November 2019, just days after Evo Morales left Bolivia’s 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,” said Arturo Murillo during an interview in his newly occupied rooms, promising to put the fugitive lefty behind bars for the next 30 years.
“It’s not about you being a former president,” insisted the combative hotelier who became a politician. “In fact, it is even worse when you are a former president. A former president must be sentenced twice because people trust his president ”.
This week, a former president was in fact arrested in Bolivia – but not Morales. Instead, it was Murillo’s former chief, Jeanine Áñez, who found himself languishing in a La Paz prison cell after being apprehended by security forces on Saturday morning. “We want a 30-year sentence,” announced Bolivia’s new Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, while Áñez was accused of terrorism and sedition – the same charges Murillo had raised against Morales.
The arrest of Áñez, a conservative who criticized the Bible and became an interim leader after Morales fled under pressure from the military, was welcomed by some. Many on the left in Latin America celebrated the fall of a politician who claimed to have played a central role in the coup that they said lifted Bolivia’s first indigenous president from power.
“Scammers must be in prison!” tweeted the Brazilian leftist Guilherme Boulos, saying that the news that Áñez had been found huddled in a warehouse reached Bolivia’s neighbor. She will spend the next four months in pre-trial detention, including 15 days isolated from other prisoners as a precaution against Covid-19.
Others, however, described the arrest as an alarming event in an already deeply divided country that the new left-wing president, Luis Arce, had promised to unify after Morales’s Movement for Socialism (Mas) party regained power last October. This week, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities like La Paz, Cochabamba, Sucre and Santa Cruz to protest against Áñez’s treatment, suggesting that such a cure would have to wait.
“We are in a cycle of retribution,” warned Jim Shultz, founder of the Democracy Center with a focus on Bolivia. “If you are in a government and the government changes at this point, you can practically count on them to come after you … [This] it seems less like a legal process and more like they are taking turns trying to destroy each other ”.
Few doubt that Áñez has serious questions to answer about the persecution of political rivals and human rights abuses that occurred during his one-year term as interim president, which started after Morales’ flight to Mexico and ended last November after the reaction sensational electoral system that restored him to power and allowed him to return home.
“While she was president, at least 20 Mas supporters were killed in two massacres,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas. “Witnesses told us that state forces opened fire on the protesters.”
Shultz recalled how, after taking power in November 2019, Áñez acted to protect himself from members of the Armed Forces prosecutor’s office who were trying to contain the unrest that plagued Bolivia. Days later, on November 19, troops were accused of opening fire on Morales’ unarmed supporters in the city of El Alto, killing at least eight.
Shultz said: “When you have a president who says to the army and the police before an action: ‘Whatever you do, you will not be prosecuted’, this message is as clear as possible: ‘Kill who you want to kill’. What that’s why it should be processed. “
This may well be the case. On Monday, Arce’s Minister of Justice announced that an investigation into these “bloody massacres” would be completed in June and said the victims’ mothers were calling for justice.
For now, however, the accusations made against Áñez do not refer to these shootings, but allegations that the former senator was involved in the plot of the right-wing coup that the current Bolivian government claims has brought her to power. Vivanco said his group had reviewed Áñez’s charges sheet and found no evidence of crimes. Instead, what appeared to be happening was “the abuse of the justice system against political opponents”.
Shultz said he also found allegations that Áñez planned to overthrow Morales “a little”. Several Mas politicians were constitutionally in line to occupy the presidency before Áñez after his resignation, but they refused to do so, he noted. “She just got the ball,” said Shultz of Áñez. “She didn’t play.”
Áñez, who claims to be the victim of a political persecution campaign, is not the only member of his government to be targeted by the new government in Bolivia. Two former cabinet members – former Minister of Justice Álvaro Coímbra and ex-Minister of Energy Álvaro Rodrigo Guzmán – were also arrested. His former communications minister, Roxana Lizárraga, is seeking asylum in Peru. On Monday, former Army commander, General Jorge Pastor Mendieta Ferrufino, surrendered himself to the authorities for the same investigation.
Meanwhile, Murillo, 57, escaped the country on the eve of last year’s election, reportedly passing through São Paulo and Panama City en route to the United States. An arrest warrant was also issued against him.