[News] Bolivia Coup Responsible for Massacres, Torture, Racism

[Anti-Imperialist News]

kawsachunnews.com
<https://kawsachunnews.com/giei-bolivia-coup-responsible-for-massacres-torture-racism>
GIEI:
Bolivia Coup Responsible for Massacres, Torture, RacismAugust 18, 2021
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The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI-Bolivia) has
released its report on the human rights violations of 2019. The report
found that the Bolivian coup regime was responsible for massacres, torture,
summary executions, and that right-wing violence had a particularly racial
and religious character.

The GIEI was formed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the
full report can be read here <https://gieibolivia.org/informes/>.

“The Police and the Armed Forces, separately or in joint operations, used
excessive and disproportionate force and did not adequately prevent acts of
violence, leaving citizens unprotected (…). The GIEI does not hesitate to
classify the events of Sacaba and Senkata as massacres ”, said Patricia
Tapatá, member of the GIEI, at the official presentation of the report with
the Bolivian government.

The report investigated the period from September 1st to December 31st,
2019. It found that, during that time, at least 38 people lost their lives
due to massacres and acts of violence around the country, with hundreds
seriously injured. That includes summary executions by Añez regime security
forces in Senkata, Sacaba, and Pedregal in the south side of La Paz.

In addition to the killings, the report found evidence of systematic
torture, as well as racial and sexual abuse perpetrated primarily against
young indigenous detainees, particularly women. Religion was also used as a
tool of exclusion against indigenous communities, by supporters of the
coup. Pro-coup paramilitary groups also perpetrated many of these abuses.

The Añez regime invented a legal cover for these abuses through Decree
number 4078 which stated that security forces can be exempt from all
criminal responsibility.

The GIEI stated that they do not weigh in on debates about whether there
was a coup or not. However, they do state that the security forces of a
state cannot call for the resignation of a public official, which is what
the Bolivian military did to Evo Morales. The expert group also found that
there was no quorum in the Senate when Añez was proclaimed President of the
Senate, nor was there the required quorum in the Legislative Assembly when
she declared herself President.

President Luis Arce welcomed the report, and in his speech at the
presentation, said “Following the suggestion of the Interdisciplinary Group
of Independent Experts, we are going to deconstruct all para-police
organizations and irregular groups created as forces of repression parallel
to the State,” citing the Resistencia Juvenil Cochala and the Union Juvenil
Cruceñista.

Adding, “In its more than 750 pages of testimonies and narration of
torture, harassment and crimes against humanity, the report tells, in a
heartbreaking way, the experiences and moments of the suffering of so many
Bolivian women and men, and on the basis of factual and scientific
evidence, we can clearly identify the serious human rights violations,
massacres and extrajudicial executions that unfortunately occurred in our
country in the coup d’état, coordinated and carried out several months
before November 2019 with express calls for civil disobedience and
rejection of the 2019 general election results.”

Highly symbolic moment as the GIEI-Bolivia presents its human rights report
to President Luis Arce before an audience of victims and families.
pic.twitter.com/WnvuKZyKLv <https://t.co/WnvuKZyKLv>
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) August 17, 2021
<https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1427662472241197061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
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