Prelude to a spurious trial

It is possible that today, October 17, 2024, the oral phase of the ordinary trial for the so-called Coup d’état I case will formally begin. That is if the Penitentiary Regime authorities do not rely on alleged intelligence reports to prevent the main processed: Jeanine Áñez, Luis Fernando Camacho and Marco Pumari appear before the judge and can tell their truth.

It is pertinent to affirm, out of respect for the Constitutional Rule of Law, for the history of which we were all witnesses and protagonists, and for the journalistic principle of fidelity to the truth, that Bolivia is in the process of a false trial; regardless of what happens in the numerous hearings to come.

In this case, a trial of responsibilities was required, as established by the Political Constitution of the State and the law for the trial of presidents, high judicial authorities and the Public Ministry, Law 044.

But to act according to the norm, an authorization from two-thirds of the Legislative Assembly was necessary, votes that the MAS, very united at first, was never going to achieve. Then the legal strategy was designed to separate causes and consequences, and invent the Coup I case (all the events prior to the inauguration of Jeanine Áñez) and Coup II (the tragic events of Senkata, Sacaba and El Pedregal, which occurred in the first days management of Áñez and her allies).

The story was fragmented according to the needs of the MAS, the route of ordinary justice was taken, statements, preventive detentions, directed expertise and a sum of irregular events were ordered that violated and violate to this day the principle of due process, enshrined in international human rights covenants and in the State’s own Political Constitution.

At the time, Justice Minister Iván Lima Magne and presidential spokesperson Jorge Richter were fervent defenders of his “theory of the case.” They did so without even knowing that a dictator like Luis García Meza had a privileged trial in which, for example, the murder of the priest Luis Espinal Camps was investigated, which occurred four months before the coup of July 17, 1981.

Now, Lima, formally removed from power, confessed that Evo Morales, Luis Arce, David Choquehuanca and María Nela Prada made the political decision to impose ordinary trials. In other words: exercising power above the law and history itself.

Another relevant fact is that former president Jeanine Áñez will once again face the judges who sentenced her in the Coup II case, which implies, in a few words, an early sentence against the former president and the other defendants.

It is no less important to point out that in this same case, six people (two former ministers and four soldiers) underwent abbreviated trials and pleaded guilty. They did it because it is very difficult for every human being to spend months in jail knowing that there will not be a fair trial. Five other defendants were declared in absentia and according to Constitutional Ruling 01/2024, trials in absentia are prohibited.

In short, the process that is underway lacks the most basic foundations of legality; which does not imply that there are no facts that must be investigated, clarified and sanctioned, if applicable.

Another dark page of justice and law begins to be written, another episode in which it becomes clear that the judges are subservient to the power in power and its dark tentacles. In this spurious trial, revenge reigns and justice dies.