José Luis Méndez Méndez
More than two months after the military coup, which installed the Bolivian usurpers in power by force, Bolivia is still shaken and the de facto regime has shown its real servile nature to the United States.
The protests continue in the convulsed country, immersed in a brutal militarization to try in the main cities, by means of terror, to silence those who claim justice for the crimes committed since last November. This is a repressive policy that ignores the most basic civil and human rights provided for by international bodies in conventions and agreements, to which they are signatories.
Not satisfied with the excesses committed in the days before, during and after the anti-democratic coup, the prolonged unconstitutional “mandate” of the self-proclaimed dictatorship has entrenched the dictatorship, which authorized the use of lethal and non-lethal weapons against all attempts of protest, not to mention the excesses of paramilitary hordes in charge of extrajudicial actions against opponents, which began in the days before the coup.
Once again, bullets, tear gas or pepper grenades, water jets and gunshots will have the last word against those who rebel. This dictatorship will pass and the legacy will remain in the historical memory to remind us that the cruelty of power and its crimes will not be repeated, and that if it is repeated, there will be no impunity, as there will not be for the present one.
The coup government is also isolating itself in the region, feeding an unnecessary conflict with Mexico by holding hostage a group of officials from the legitimate government overthrown by the military, which are denied safe conduct to leave the country as asylum seekers. It also besieges, intimidates and threatens the Mexican diplomatic headquarters, after having expelled its ambassador. The communiqué which the deceivers announced the rustic measure is laughable in its wording: “The constitutional government that I preside over has decided to declare persona non grata the Mexican ambassador in Bolivia, María Teresa Mercado”. Which government does she preside over, who does she represent, the one installed at the cost of her fellow citizens’ blood, the one repressed through militarization? It is undoubtedly a legal fiction, lacking any legal legitimacy without the use of arms.
The same type of message was delivered to the Spain’s chargé d’affaires in Bolivia, Cristina Borreguero, and the Spanish consul in Bolivia, Alvaro Fernandez. The pretext could not have been cruder; according to the expulsion order these diplomats where hooded and armed as they tried to enter the Mexican embassy in La Paz surreptitiously.
International Law is a subject sorely needed to study for those who hold brutal power in Bolivia. These diplomats had the legitimate right to access Mexican headquarters, without the need to appeal to any type of subterfuge, clearly covered in provisions of the 1963 Vienna Convention, which governs diplomatic relations between States. Free movement is one of their legitimate rights. The press conference used to declare these diplomatic representatives persona non grata, with the self-proclaimed spokesperson, could not have been more ridiculous. There was talk of “serious damage to the sovereignty and dignity of the people and the constitutional government of Bolivia, this country is no longer anyone’s colony. The democracy recovered by the Bolivians after 14 years of dictatorship should be respected.”
In addition, the coup characters suspended relations with Cuba, after complaining about the altruistic work of thousands of Cuban doctors, who assisted millions of Bolivians in the most remote places, where no health professional had ever set foot or restored sight to thousands of patients. They appealed to the filthiest lies, lacking any basis to erode bilateral relations in a premeditated way and instead they welcomed the newly appointed US ambassador, after a decade of absence in the country, as unequivocal statement of the political orientation of the conspirators.
They did not wait for the predicted and coveted results of the upcoming rigged elections, which will undoubtedly be imposed by a right-wing regime that is also racist, xenophobic and infamous against the will of the long-suffering Bolivian people, to receive the envoy of the unpresentable, braggart, Donald J. Trump.
The coup government have also failed to respect freedom of expression and the free exercise of the press. The unresolved and suspicious death of Sebastián Moro, an Argentine journalist, hours before the riots, has been followed by the case of Facundo Molares Schoenfeld, a photojournalist, held hostage by the authorities after kidnapping him from the Japanese Municipal University Hospital in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in a delicate state of health, and confining him to one of its prisons in total isolation, shackled to a stretcher by his hands and ankle and deprived of his most basic human rights. They are 2 victims of the coup d’état for doing their job.
Dr. Victor Hugo Zambrana, from the aforementioned hospital, objected to the kidnapping and stated this in his written and verbal medical opinion, when he declared: “he has acute renal failure, he has septic shock, he has acute pulmonary edema, and the possibility of lead poisoning is being considered, all these diagnoses shows how serious the patient’s condition is.
Keeping it that way has a political purpose; it is necessary to dismantle all the fallacies spread, the false news, and the media manipulations of their captors to install a false image of their situation. They have ignored the demands of Facundo’s father, who is only asking to see him and protect him in his captivity, and have not reacted to the international solidarity that demands the appearance of this professional journalist alive, whose survival hangs on the will of a bunch of unstable people.
The assailants of power in Bolivia have not been able to consolidate their position, their nature is more evident every day, and they have been left naked for all to see.
Translation by Resumen Latinoamericano, North America Bureau
