August 3, 2024, 9:52 PM
August 3, 2024, 9:52 PM
The imprisoned governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camacho, On Saturday, he attributed the new fiscal charge filed against him to the government of Luis Arce and assured that on eight occasions he was offered freedom in exchange for negotiation.
“The government of Luis Arce has forced one more charge against me, in a trial that has no head or tail. And let this opportunity be used to send this statement to the people of Santa Cruz and Bolivia, at a time when our country is facing a serious political and economic crisis,” Camacho responded through his social networks.
Prosecutor Yolanda Aguilera presented the formal charge against the imprisoned governor and the government notary of the departmental administration, Gina María Talavera, for the alleged commission of the crime of ideological falsehood. This case investigates the alleged forgery of Camacho’s signature for a power of attorney granted at the Government Notary Office of the Governorate of Santa Cruz.
In the indictment, signed on August 1, the prosecutor requests the application of the exceptional measure of preventive detention for both for a period of 90 days because he claims that there are procedural risks of obstruction of the investigation and risk of flight. Although, in the case of Camacho, he is already in preventive detention in the Chonchocoro prison (La Paz) accused of a series of crimes.
However, “on previous occasions we said that Dictatorships, as they near their end, become more violent. Luis Arce’s government is heading towards its end, drowned in corruption and misgovernment. Morally, Arce’s government has already lost everything, it is a disgrace for Bolivians and for the world. A president, with fear and without direction, can only ask for more loans to keep going for a few more months,” said Camacho.
He said that from the moment he decided to “face the fraud in 2019,” he knew that there was a high price to pay for defending democracy.
“I was clear that going to prison would be part of my path, not because I had committed a crime, but because prison or death is the destiny of anyone who is willing to fight against a dictatorship to the bitter end,” he said.
He said that he was targeted for representing Santa Cruz, the region that is not only the driving force of the economy, “but also a bastion of democratic resistance.”
He stressed that knowing that he was going to be imprisoned, he did not flee the country and that he will not flee now to his fate, “even if it is the hardest.”
Camacho said that “the Luis Arce regime” continues to look for ways to subdue him, but that it will not succeed by locking him up 24 hours a day in his cell, or by constantly cutting off his access to water, or by denying him visits from representatives of international human rights foundations.
“I have been offered freedom eight times in exchange for negotiating. They even sent a minister to my cell to propose agreements. that they will never achieve because I am clearly aware that I am in prison for defending a cause that is important to all of us,” he added.
“I am very clear that with dictatorships there is no agreement or compromise, the freedom of a political prisoner does not depend on justice sold, but on the energies with which a people resist authoritarian power. Even when they threaten and persecute my family, Even if they keep adding lawsuits, they will never have anything from me“I come from authentic Santa Cruz civility and I do not sell myself or make a pact with my jailers,” he said.
