Bolivia: Governor Camacho is locked up for four months in a maximum security prison and Santa Cruz goes on strike

Governor of Santa Cruz for four months and enemy number one of Evo Morales, Luis Fernando Camachohe will be behind bars in Chonchocoro Jail, a maximum security prison in La Paz notorious for regulatory issues and precarious conditions.

The “Assembly of the Cruceñidad”, which brings together the main civic entities of that province, is held this Friday a 24-hour strike demand the release of the governor who was suddenly and violently arrested on Wednesday when he arrived at his home, which he unleashed serious accidentswith vehicles and offices on fire.

The President of the Santa Cruz Departmental Legislature, Zvonko Matkovic Riberahe assured that the administration of Luis Arce follows in the footsteps of governments such as those of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua by establishing a “reign of terror” to persecute his detractors.

In an interview with EFE, Matkovic expressed his dismay at Camacho’s arrest and noted that it is “worrying to have a government” which has not learned “from the mistakes of others” and which appears to be taking “a step more towards what ” According to him, “his friends in the neighborhood suggest or teach him”.

Camacho is accused of “terrorism”, in a case linked to the exit of Evo Morales from the presidency in 2019 after the fraudulent elections of that year.

Criminal judge Sergio Pacheco ordered “the application of preventive detention for the defendant, who must serve a four-month period in Chonchocoro prison”.

Prosecutor Omar Mejillones on Wednesday called for his six-month detention, arguing there was a risk of absconding. The hearing began on Thursday and it lasted until early Friday morning.

During the hearing, which took place via an Internet platform, Camacho, a 43-year-old lawyer and businessman, said: “I will never give up.”

He called on Bolivians to prevent “masismo (the ruling party, Movement Toward Socialism, MAS) from imposing a dictatorship like in Venezuela and Cuba.” La Paz, Caracas and Havana are political allies.

Camacho was instrumental in pushing Morales’ resignation from the presidency in late 2019, as the ruling party and the prosecution say he and other opponents have staged a “coup”.

Opponents accused Morales, in power since 2006, of alleged fraud in the 2019 presidential election.

What happened in 2019?

As of November 2019, there was no military uprising, nor proclamations or announcements of closure of powers.

Not even generals in woven uniforms arrested civilian commanders. what was there was a social upheaval originated from an abuse of legality committed by the fallen president himself.

Morales ran for election on October 20, 2019 to seek a fourth consecutive term.

Done violating the ruling of a plebiscite in which their bases voted against this possibility. But the leader argued that this ban meant a political ban.

The elections were held, and as the counting began, it became clear that Morales won, but couldn’t avoid the second round in which the opposition would surely unite and defeat him.

But suddenly systems inexplicably shut down. When the count was resumed the next day, the president had the ten points needed to win in the first round. The re-election was saved.

Unemployment Holy Cross

The Santa Cruz Civic Committee, a powerful civil-business conglomerate, also asked this Friday to comply a 24-hour “strike”. in protest against the seizure of political authority in the region.

The city started early to gradually comply the announcement, with the cutting of roads and few public transport.

“The international community needs to become aware of what is happening in Bolivia and the Bolivian president, Luis Arce, is taking a page out of that Castro-Chavista handbook to use whatever he has at hand to stay in power,” he said the president of the departmental legislature, Zvonko Matkovic Ribera.

The detention of opponents was a common practice during the Evo Morales administration.

Matkovic remembered this he himself was imprisoned in three different prisons Eight-year Bolivians accused in a controversial case of alleged terrorism dating back to 2009, when Morales was president, and closed in 2020 during the interim administration of Jeanine Áñez.

The “terrorism case”

The “terrorism case” broke out on April 16, 2009, when a police commando carried out an operation in a hotel in Santa Cruz which resulted in with three foreigners dead and two other detainees, accused of being part of a terrorist cell that allegedly he wanted the secession of Santa Cruz and attack Morales.

The defendants have always denounced that the case responded to political reasons to silence the leaders of the opposition of Santa Cruz and also various versions during the investigation. they questioned that the shooting at the hotel was a counter-terrorism action.

“They took us all over the country, they violated all our judicial, fundamental, constitutional and human rights, they murdered people”, he recalled, adding that for this reason the aforementioned case is being examined by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH).

In his opinion, with the “terrorism case” an attempt was made to “break through a department” and Arce’s intention “is exactly the same”.

“My appreciation is that they entered a competition with Evo Morales, a competition for powerbecause of his party’s representativeness, his internal struggles, where one wants to be more violent than the other,” he said.

Report of “kidnapping”

In Camacho’s case, Matkovic said there was no arrest, but a “kidnapping.”

“They intercepted the governor with large caliber weapons, shot him, smashed the windows of his vehicle, physically attacked him, threw him to the ground, handcuffed him,” he denounced.

According to the politician, the operation to subsequently transfer him to La Paz has been carried out by the Police “in conjunction with the Army” because a military helicopter was used for this.

“Here none of this can happen without the president giving his permission and obviously this makes him complicit in this political persecution against his opponents.”

EFE AND AFP

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