Bolivia’s Political Prisoner to Socialism
THURSDAY marks one year since the wrongful imprisonment of Luis Fernando Camacho, governor of Bolivia’s most important region and the No. 1 enemy of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) regime.
After more than 40 heavily armed state agents — dressed in plain clothes, their faces covered — violently arrested him without a warrant, Camacho was transferred by military helicopter to La Paz and kept captive in the infamous Chonchocoro prison (reserved for Bolivia’s most dangerous criminals). His crime? Having led the nationwide nonviolent demonstrations that ended in the resignation of MAS’ authoritarian leader, Evo Morales, in 2019.
Luis Arce’s successor government dubs Camacho a terrorist for calling for protests of Morales’ electoral fraud after the former president ignored the result of a 2016 referendum in which the Bolivian people rejected his bid for indefinite reelection.
Like Bolivia’s more than 200 other political prisoners, Camacho has yet to face trial. The government seeks to punish his legitimate exercise of the freedoms of expression and assembly. If trying to silence Camacho wasn’t bad enough, the MAS has tried to prevent him serving as Santa Cruz governor.
The day after Camacho’s arrest, a government-subservient judge ordered him detained for four months, despite him posing no flight risk as a public official. Since then, Camacho’s pretrial detention has been extended five times, while MAS has initiated six different criminal actions against him for another 15 bogus crimes, including “breach of duties,” “resolutions contrary to the constitution” and “desecration of national symbols.”
Camacho’s ordeal isn’t anything new for political prisoners under the MAS regime. Santa Cruz Legislative Assembly President Zvonko Matkovic spent 10 years in prison without a conviction between 2010 and 2020; a former opposition public official, José María Bakovic, spent eight years facing up to 76 criminal cases until he died in custody.
The MAS regime also retaliates against critics within its party: Marco Aramayo, former director of the Indigenous Fund, was subjected to more than 250 criminal cases for denouncing his party’s corruption and died in April 2022 after spending seven years in jail without being convicted.
During his year of confinement in Chonchocoro, Camacho and his family have been victims of multiple human-rights violations. Camacho’s life is in imminent danger, not just because Chonchocoro is the Bolivian jail where more Santa Cruz inmates have been murdered than any others. He suffers from an underlying illness that requires special treatment in an appropriate medical center.
Despite this, the Arce government has restricted Camacho’s access to medicine and treatment, putting his life in danger several times. He has lost more than 40 pounds and is showing signs of serious physical deterioration. He’s also not allowed to receive sunlight and hasn’t been permitted physical exercise, as his lawyers have repeatedly requested.
Shock groups of government supporters hold “vigils” and dig ditches on the road to Chonchocoro to harass, threaten, beat and make it difficult for doctors, relatives and lawyers to enter.
Camacho and his wife have been victims of cruel and degrading treatment, through the installation of a spy camera in his cell to exert psychological torture. A government representative justified this by saying: “The camera will show and will be proof of all the privileges that this man enjoys.”
The United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers noted with “concern” in 2022 that the crime of “terrorism” in Bolivian legislation is an “ambiguous criminal type.” The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts for Bolivia, created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in 2021 recommended changing the “vague and abstract” terrorism offense “to the principle of legality and international standards,” saying its “arbitrary” application is part of a “pattern of political use of the criminal legislation.”
Camacho’s wrongful arrest and arbitrary detention is a grave abuse of power and a miscarriage of justice against Bolivia’s main opposition leader. It demonstrates the absence of an authentically democratic system and ratifies the tyrannical nature of the MAS regime.
The Biden administration and democratic heads of state in Latin America, as well as international organizations devoted to the promotion of human rights in the region, should call on the Bolivian government to release all political prisoners immediately.