A million minutes of injustice

The case of Jeanine Áñez is the model of injustice in Bolivia. Yesterday marked two years of imprisonment. More than a million minutes of manipulation of justice in favor of a political party. For the experts who see us from outside the borders, this is the model of judicial distortion that prevails in the country, with a system of judges and prosecutors who have put their functions at the service of the political power of the day; in this case, at the service of the Movimiento Al Socialismo.

Like it or not, Jeanine Áñez was president of Bolivia and should have the considerations granted by that investiture. The MAS insists on installing the story of the coup d’état, denying real events such as the successive resignation of authorities that left a power vacuum for which the country was on the verge of reaching civil war. She assumed the Presidency at a critical moment and was sworn in when Evo Morales and Álvaro García Linera had already left the country.

However, the former president has been denied the trial of responsibilities in a vile political calculation. The reason is because the MAS does not have two thirds in the Legislative Power and that is the number of votes that are needed to approve a process under the court case. And since they could not prosecute her through the proper path, they just abusively put her through the ordinary path.

In these two years, Jeanine Áñez had serious health complications, which were evident in the hearings. Depression, high blood pressure and other problems she had to go through alone and in isolation, because they denied her going to a medical center and, worse still, they prohibited her from even being visited by her children, violating her human rights . It was logical that, under these conditions, the former president would have even thought of taking her own life.

There was no Ombudsman’s Office capable of preventing that kind of torture. The president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights visited her, was moved and transmitted to the world the serious state of Jeanine Áñez. As a consequence, the activist has also been persecuted and harassed in many ways.

Jeanine Áñez’s lawyers presented dozens of legal remedies to stop the violation of her client’s rights, but they were all systematically denied, one by one. The day came when she appeared at a hearing alone, saying that she was no longer going to defend herself because her processes are political and there is no hope that justice will be done.

Meanwhile, the government, which is so demanding justice for the victims of the 2019 clashes, has not yet provided compensation to the affected families and has used the “coup” theme as an instrument to punish those who took office after Evo Morales’ exemplary punishment. fled the country.

After serving two years in detention, Jeanine Áñez says that, if there was a search for real justice, Evo Morales would be in the dock.

The curious thing in this process is that those who are imprisoned or investigated for the alleged coup are from the political opposition. The supporters of the MAS who participated in violence, attacking or burning houses in the days of a power vacuum, enjoy freedom and power at this time.

In 2019 there was a government and a president who committed electoral fraud, who fled the country, leaving a power vacuum, which generated confrontations and death. Of course, all this must be investigated, but not with the political and hate charge that prevails at the moment.

A fair process would allow the painful chapter of that moment to be closed, with punishment for those guilty, regardless of their side. For this reason, these two years in prison for the former president are a symbol of the injustice that prevails in Bolivia.