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href="https://orinocotribune.com/members-of-argentine-delegation-in-bolivia-tell-the-horror-they-recorded-coup-repression">https://orinocotribune.com/members-of-argentine-delegation-in-bolivia-tell-the-horror-they-recorded-coup-repression</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Members of Argentine Delegation in
Bolivia Tell the Horror They Recorded (Coup Repression)</h1>
December 2, 2019</div>
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<p><strong>They collected testimonies of disappearances,
murders, rapes. And they were threatened by the de
facto government</strong></p>
<p><strong>“They opened Pandora’s box and hatred came
out,” they write. Government Minister Arturo Murillo
publicly threatened them: “Be careful, we are watching</strong>
you.”</p>
<p>“This government has unleashed a huge racial hatred.
They opened pandora’s box and a thousand demons came out
who are expressing themselves in situations of profound
violence,” says jurist Luis Arias, one of the members of
the Argentine delegation that traveled to Bolivia. On
Thursday, a group of forty social and human rights
leaders arrived in the neighboring country with the aim
of preparing a record of the deaths and abuses suffered
by the population since the coup d’etat against Evo
Morales was consummated.</p>
<p>Disappearances, murders, arbitrary detentions, rapes,
torture and hospitals that refuse to take care of those
wounded by the repression were some of the events
recorded during the first day of work. They were held
and kicked at the airport by a pro-coup mob. Then the
Minister of Government of Añez, Arturo Murillo, came out
to threaten them publicly: “Be careful, we are watching
you.”</p>
<p>From the moment they stepped on Bolivian soil, the
delegation -composed of Juan Grabois (CTEP), the lawyer
Roberto Carlés, Pablo Pimentel and Mauricio Rojas
(APDH), Victoria Freire (Observatory of Gender and
Public Policies of the City), Daniel Catalano (ATE),
Marianela Navarro (FOL), Sergio Smietniansky (CADEP),
among many others – had to face the attacks, threats and
misgivings of the de facto government of Jeanine Añez.</p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/bolivia-31-dead-during-repression"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RELATED
CONTENT: Bolivia: 31 Dead During Repression</a></p>
<p>On Thursday night, the members of the delegation
arrived at the airport of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to
connect with another flight to La Paz. Upon arrival, the
Bolivian police detained them, separated them from the
rest of the travelers and identified, by name and
surname, 12 of the members of the entourage and took
them to another room to interrogate them. “They were
waiting for us,” Carles said and added: “They selected
the people whose names had appeared in the press and
subjected them to an interrogation.” “They started
asking us about our plans in Bolivia, where we were
going to go and who we were going to visit. They treated
us with great hostility and after a few hours they let
us go,” said Arias, who was in this group.</p>
<p>On the way to the boarding area, they were accosted by
a gang of ten people in civilian clothes. “We did not
know if they were shock forces or people linked to Luis
Fernando Camacho. They began to insult us, to threaten
us, to ask us what we were doing in Bolivia. They called
us ‘communist gauchos’ and ‘homosexuals.’ They made
reference to the cartoneros, it was clear they wanted to
let us know that they knew who we were and provoke us to
react. The place was deserted: they had taken over the
area,” said Carlés. At one point, they started pushing
and hitting them, the ATE Secretary General, Daniel
Catalano, was kicked. “From the apparel they wore, we
assume they were civilian police forces. Meanwhile, the
uniformed police were there witnessing all the
harassment and doing nothing,” Catalano said.</p>
<p>After this reception from the de facto government there
was another more worrisome event: “Walk carefully, we
are watching you,” the government minister told them
through statements to the press, calling them “those
foreigners who are coming to try to burn the country.”
“The first false step that they take to try to make
terrorism or sedition is going to be met with the
police,” he threatened. After these statements, some of
the members of the delegation visited the Argentine
embassy in Bolivia to ask for protection; they were
granted some cars to travel in. “We are completely
guarded all the time,” Carlés said.</p>
<p><a
href="https://orinocotribune.com/with-the-right-wing-coup-in-bolivia-nearly-complete-the-junta-is-hunting-down-the-last-remaining-dissidents"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">RELATED
CONTENT: With the Right-Wing Coup in Bolivia Nearly
Complete, the Junta is Hunting Down the Last Remaining
Dissidents</a></p>
<p>Despite these inconveniences, the delegation continued
with the agenda and spent the entire day in El Alto
collecting testimonies from relatives of victims who
suffered in their own flesh the violence exercised by
the security forces. “The stories are frightening,”
Arias told Pagina/12 . There are reports of
disappearances, arbitrary detentions – among which are
the case of three young people with Downs syndrome -,
torture of children, murders as a result of repressive
actions by police forces, injuries by lead bullets,
fires, among other things.</p>
<p>Much of the survey was carried out in the San Francisco
de Asís Church, where vigils for the deaths caused by
the repression in Senkata had been held. “The situation
is very terrible, families report not being treated in
hospitals. Many of the wounded are in homes because when
they go to hospitals they are charged with terrorism and
sedition,” said Marianela Navarro, delegate of the
Organizations in Struggle Front. According to the
commission, it is not only the security forces who are
attacking the population, but there are numerous
institutions that are also reproducing the racist hatred
that goes through the de facto government violence.
“Public hospitals do not want to treat the wounded and
the public defenders do not want to defend the victims.
There is a deep racial hatred that is directed
especially against the most vulnerable sectors and
women, ” said Arias.</p>
<p>The commission also identified that there is a deep
cruelty against “women with polleras” (traditional
indigenous skirt). There have been numerous cases of
rapes and sexual assaults against indigenous women and
girls, attacked while alive and after their death. At
the same time, there have been complaints that claim to
have seen mutilated and dismembered bodies.</p>
<p>“People are very much in need of being heard, that the
world know the truth of what is happening, because here
there is a huge silencing,” said Arias, referring to the
silence of the Bolivian media, which played an important
role in the legitimization of the de facto government.
“They ask us for help, they ask us for justice. What
they have suffered has been virtually ignored by the
international community. And they feel alone,” Carlés
concluded.</p>
<p><strong>Featured image: The commission collected
testimonies from victims and family members. Image:
Pablo Añelli</strong></p>
<p><a
href="https://www.pagina12.com.ar/233914-los-integrantes-de-la-delegacion-argentina-en-bolivia-cuenta"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Source URL:
Pagina/12</a></p>
<p>Translated by JRE/EF</p>
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