Bolivian government accused of hounding ex-president Evo Morales

Bolivia’s US-backed interim government has waged what amounts to a campaign of political persecution against former leftwing president Evo Morales and his associates while turning a blind eye to killings since it took power, according to Human Rights Watch.

“Overall the human rights record of the current Bolivian administration is pretty poor,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of the New York-based NGO, told the Financial Times. “They are not really pressing for judicial investigations into the killings and a couple of massacres that happened after they took office.”

Mr Morales’ government was also accused of human rights violations during his 14 years in power, although his efforts to fight poverty and empower Bolivia’s indigenous peoples made him an icon for the Latin American left. But he fled the country in November 2019 after reports of electoral fraud during his effort to secure a fourth term triggered nationwide protests.

An interim government led by conservative senator Jeanine Añez took power and scheduled fresh presidential and congressional elections. The polls have been put back twice because of the coronavirus pandemic and are now set for October 18.

In the chaotic days leading up to and following Mr Morales’ resignation 35 people were killed and more than 800 were injured during demonstrations, according to the independent Bolivian ombudsman’s office. In at least two cases, multiple people died as police and troops opened fire on protesters.

Now in exile in Argentina, Mr Morales has been charged by Bolivian prosecutors with terrorism and terrorist financing, with both offences punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Bolivia’s justice ministry last month also filed a complaint against Mr Morales for rape and human trafficking in connection with a girl who was a minor at the time of the alleged offences. A spokesman for the former president described the charges as part of a “dirty war” and said the former president would not comment further.

HRW said it had not reviewed that complaint, though it believed it should be investigated.

Mr Vivanco said that Bolivian government interference in judicial investigations and inappropriate pressure on judges for political ends was “common to the previous regime of Evo Morales and the current administration”. But he added: “In terms of numbers [of violations] this interim government wins the competition.”

HRW said the interim government had “publicly pressured prosecutors and judges to further its interests”, leading to criminal investigations into more than 100 people linked to the Morales administration and his supporters for alleged sedition or terrorism.

The rights organisation has reviewed the 1,500-page file of the terrorism investigation against Mr Morales for its report, “Justice as a Weapon — Political Persecution in Bolivia”. Mr Vivanco said the evidence, consisting primarily of one phone call said to have been made by Mr Morales calling for his supporters to “fight, fight, fight” and to stop food entering cities “does not rise to the level of any reasonable definition of terrorism”, although conspiring to prevent food reaching cities would be a lesser offence.

Luis Arce, Mr Morales’ former finance minister, is leading opinion polls for October’s presidential poll, with Ms Añez a distant third behind centrist opposition candidate Carlos Mesa. The EU is sending a beefed-up team of observers, hoping to avoid the controversy which beset last year’s election.

A report by the Organisation of American States last December found “intentional manipulation” of electoral data and “serious irregularities” that made it impossible to validate last year’s results. EU observers pointed to “numerous errors and irregularities”.