By Carlos Aznárez on February 11, 2020
An unknown judge at the service of the Bolivian dictatorship has ordered house arrest, arraignment, and bail of 25,000 Bs (Bolivian currency) for MAS deputy Gustavo Torrico.In this way, a new phase of the implacable persecution that the government of the self-proclaimed Jeanine Añez (now the anointed candidate) has against the left and the popular fighters is consummated.
To point out, as the judge says, that the MAS assemblyman should be charged with the crimes of sedition, terrorism, and public instigation to commit a crime, is a legal aberration in the first place, but above all, it is a demonstration of what the dictatorship is willing to do to remove revolutionary political cadres, who are attacked for expressing their opinions, for defending their ideas, for being coherent, and for taking this to the ultimate consequences. Torrico is one of these militants, and no matter how much he is imprisoned, he will not give up expressing his thoughts.
The arrest, on the other hand, exposes the intentions of the coup plotters in the face of an election that leaves many doubts of normality and augurs future aberrations to achieve its results. A dictatorship reigns in Bolivia and it is important to keep this in mind at all times. Those from Washington who applauded the installation of the dictatorship and those from inside the country who joined in showing their ideas of racism, hatred, and criminality (many of the fighters have been assassinated), at this point will not be willing to back down easily.
What is happening today with Torrico is one more example of the arbitrariness that was set in motion from the very day that Evo Morales was forced to resign. The times ahead, beyond the votes, will be ones of struggle and more struggle, if the Bolivia of recent years is to be recovered.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano, translation, North America bureau