Juan Pérez Munguía / La Paz
Six opposition leaders will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas in jail. Most are ex-authorities of the transitory government of Jeanine Añez. They were prosecuted after the Movement Toward Socialism returned to power.
Añez is being held in the Miraflores prison, she was apprehended on March 13 in the context of the coup case. She is also investigated in two processes for alleged breach of duties, resolutions contrary to the laws and illegal appointment.
“I would not want anyone to go through what my mother is going through because of inhuman and indolent people. Last year we spent Christmas as a family. This Christmas my 93-year-old grandmother will not be able to see her daughter, ”said Carolina Ribera, daughter of the ex-president.
On March 12, former ministers Álvaro Coimbra and Rodrigo Guzmán, who are imprisoned in the San Pedro prison, were arrested. They are accused of the alleged commission of the crimes of sedition and conspiracy, among others.
Former Migration Director Marcel Rivas has been detained in San Pedro since November 2020, on trial for the crimes of misuse of influence and breach of duties.
The former vice minister and former manager of Entel Eddy Luis Franco was arrested on May 5. He is accused of the alleged commission of the crimes of illicit enrichment and wasteful conduct.
Marco Pumari, former president of the Potosí Civic Committee, was apprehended on December 10 for the burning of the Departmental Electoral Tribunal (TED) of Potosí. He was recently transferred from the Uncía prison to the Catumarca prison.
María Isabel Cusi, Pumari’s wife, said that her eldest daughter has already found out that her father is in custody. “This situation is very difficult and painful, especially for my children. (…) We don’t know if we will be able to see it at Christmas ”.
The president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia, Amparo Carvajal, said that she asked the government to let political prisoners out of prison so that they can spend these dates with their family. “I am on hiatus, I will not attend any invitation, I will be in isolation until after Christmas. Even in dictatorships they gave prisoners a recess ”.
Eduardo Ascarrunz
Among my unpublished files I have found the literal transcription of a moving letter written from the San Pedro Prison on December 24, 1958 by Police Captain Vitaliano Crespo Soliz to his son. This officer was confined six years in the Coro Coro concentration camp, for political reasons, at the beginning of the MNR government. He was transferred to the San Pedro prison in December 1958.
Years later, he was appointed General Commander of the National Police in the government of Gral. Juan José Torres (1970).
The letter is transcribed below.
My beloved son, I have long had the desire to address this letter to you from my prison. Today, I do it convinced that reading it will invite you to discern something about its content, and I understand that you will do so with the help of your mother. Your tender age exempts you from giving me an immediate answer, but when the years go by and you read it again, surely you will know how to answer me with all the impulses of your heart.
Tonight, consecrated to the peace of home, night of forgiveness, forgetfulness and truce for the most bitter passions, in homage to the advent of Jesus, the Divine Redeemer of Humanity, I will also be absent from family warmth, as they do with today, precisely , six long years. This means, my dear little son, that, as in so many other occasions, there will be no toys for you, apart from that used trumpet that I had saved and that your mother is in charge of giving you back tomorrow, which is Christmas.
At this precise moment it is twelve at night. The church bells have begun to launch their joyous tolling announcing the birth of Jesus our Lord. I hear from the dark and cold cell of this immense prison, voices of happiness and happiness, both in the square and in the adjacent streets.
Powerless in the face of the executioners that surround me, I do nothing but roll in my bed, stunned by a thousand ideas and memories that bubble in my mind, irretrievably overcome by this tremendous illness of absence. Tonight I can only imagine that I am next to your bed, of fences to humbly ask you to forgive me for the times that I should have been unfair to you.
Now that the light of understanding illuminates my reflections, I recognize that I was clumsy bordering on tyranny, demanding that you copy the drawings for your notebook without missing any detail. And when he forced you to write your tasks in good handwriting and impeccably, I would watch you threateningly take the handle between your little fingers, trembling, full of dread at my presence. Other times I warned you, finding you playing with the neighborhood children, not to take off knee pads on your pants or dirty your shoes, clumsily curling up that you didn’t give me the money to buy your clothes, and finally the punishment of a refined cruelty that you Say, it was the one you sat motionless next to me, watching me read the newspapers. How intolerant and foolish I was with you, allowing myself to be dominated by my impulses. Why was I torturing you, my little boy, demanding that you, at your age, write with good handwriting, when I myself do not have it at my years? Isn’t it the obligation of a father to dress and feed the beings he brings to this world? Why didn’t I understand that childhood is action and all muscle and I wouldn’t let you play with your little friends? I do not understand, my son, how I could have been so cruel and sinister to you.
Now I hear from this same cell the first trills of a friend bird; It is a sign that it is dawn, and when I stand up suddenly I come to realize that the tears were wetting my face and my pillow; I had given free rein to the anguish of my bitter heart. Then, I promptly begin to cross myself to raise this prayer that I repeat daily when I get up: “I leave my loved ones in your charge, Lord, in the conviction that your love for them is infinitely more intense than mine, make my son the same. that every good father wants him to be respectful, obedient and kind.
Well, my son, I think that the best Christmas gift I can offer you is this letter where I acknowledge my mistakes and implore your forgiveness for them.
He hugs you and kisses you lovingly. Your dad.
