Former Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez marked three years in prison as a political prisoner of the current socialist government.
She assumed the presidency constitutionally in 2019 after Evo Morales resigned amid protests over fraudulent elections.
However, Morales’ MAS party returned to power in 2020 and had Áñez arrested on coup charges.
Carta abierta manuscrita y transcrita de #JeanineAñez ex Presidente Constitucional de Bolivia y presa política del MAS, a 3 años de su cruel secuestro e ilegal detención (hilo)#LiberenAJeanine #FreeJeanine #LiberenALosPresosPolíticos #JusticiaYLibertad pic.twitter.com/hxCZ7tL81k
— Jeanine Añez Chávez (@JeanineAnez) March 13, 2024
She has been sentenced to over 10 years in prison.
In a letter from prison on the anniversary, Áñez maintained her innocence and accused Morales and MAS of intellectual and material authorship of the 2019 events.
She criticized Bolivia’s legislature and judiciary for succumbing to government pressure.
“Three years ago, 1095 days ago, I was kidnapped, torn from my family and my place in the city of Trinidad, Beni, to the city of La Paz, in an illegal detention center [as ordered] by Evo Morales,” she wrote, “to imprison his political adversaries through judicial records fabricated on the basis of his story as a fugitive from justice and from the country.”
“Evo Morales is guilty of abandoning his functions and fleeing the country when, while still President of Bolivia, he publicly resigned from office through the media and social networks, without formalizing the acceptance or rejection of his resignation by the Legislative Assembly, which resulted in 18 hours of State vacuum, chaos in the country and in the Executive Branch, escalation of violence and [a] state of necessity; and he is free with impunity,” she wrote.
“Evo Morales is guilty of being a criminal apologist and [enacting] crimes against the security of the Bolivian State, in his condition of political refugee of the complicit socialist governments of Mexico and Argentina in 2019 and 2020 and he is free with impunity.”
“The hunger for unlimited and perpetual power has consumed the MAS with Evo Morales.”
“The same magistrates and Attorney General Lanchipa, who inaugurated with me as President of Bolivia the Judicial Year 2020 in Sucre, capital of Bolivia, are the ones who like Peter to Jesus have denied me several times, under pressure from the government of Arce Catacora,” the letter read. “They are more afraid of temporal power than of Divine Power, of God, of their consciences and of complying with and applying the Constitution.”
Áñez demanded the release of over 250 opposition political prisoners, asserting her own imprisonment confirms her status as a political prisoner.
“Three years after my kidnapping and illegal ‘preventive detention,’ which every day reaffirms my condition as a political prisoner, even the ‘MASistas’ themselves, accomplices of the cowardice and crimes of their narco-blue circle, have confessed the instructions they received from their boss before and after their attempted self-coup on November 12, 2019,” the letter read.
“Beloved Bolivia: I demand the release of the more than 250 political prisoners,” she wrote.
During her presidency, Áñez had restored ties with the U.S. and Israel severed under Morales, though those ties were cut again under the current socialist government.
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