June 6, 2023, 4:00 AM
June 6, 2023, 4:00 AM
Since 2016, the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) had several attempts to take over the departmental offices of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights (APDH) with the intention of displacing the directives that showed a rebellious position to the government of the day. After the recent takeover of the national facilities in La Paz, activists from El Alto and Cochabamba see an institutionality corroded by politics and discredit the groups of Amparo Carvajal and Édgar Salazar, who are fighting for the presidency.
“Urgent. We denounce that this morning, a group of masistas linked to Sonia Brito and Teresa Subieta tried to take over the offices of the APDH. The group was led by Mario Muñoz, and made up of people who took over our offices in January 2014, along with police officers. This morning they burst in with shouts and threats, saying that the APDH facilities are not owned by Amparo Carvajal”indicates a statement dated May 11, 2016 on the page of the La Paz entity.
In that year there were at least three attacks on the facilities registered in March, May and June. another take attempt was reported on February 6, 2017 when a group of miners from Colquiri they entered the Julio Tumiri auditorium of the national offices and then left.
El Alto activist David Inca, who was a member of the APDH of El Alto in 2016, assured that when Carvajal took office the Assembly began to lose strength due to its position on the Chaparina massacre and from that moment he saw that the MAS made an effort to co-opt the departmental assemblies, until achieving it on June 2.
“Since then, the MAS-IPS has made an effort to co-opt the assemblies. It is unfortunate that an institution is divided in two and that they only defend their peers and not the victims. Social organizations have co-opted assemblies and they have appropriated when essentially no activist should be affiliated with these organizations or with religious groups or political parties,” he said.
Inca clarified that he does not agree with Carvajal or Salazar since “the political calculation of the left and right managed to gnaw away the unity of the APDH in Bolivia.” He is not the only activist who questions both positions, from the APDH of Cochabamba pointed out that “both sides”referring to the directories of Carvajal and Salazar, “are not the result of a true congress.”
“Both are the result of ‘armed congresses’ and circumstantial where subjective behaviors converged above all serious and institutional reflections, an aspect that has been dragging on for more than seven years, ”says the statement issued on Saturday.
Even the national assistant of the Apdhb, Armando Camacho, said that the statute only allows one re-election and In the case of Carvajal, it is his second re-election, although he clarified that it was a magna decision of the congress.
Regarding the seizure of the national offices of the Apdhb, videos are circulating of alleged YPFB and other state officials leaving the building through the back door. Lawyer Carmen Arista questioned the “protection” of the Ministry of Government to the raiders and Senator Cecilia Requena pointed to masistas.
For his part, Salazar admitted that there was a takeover of the Apdhb without a court order and with the help of social sectors. He announced an audit against Carvajal and a criminal complaint for racism.
