August 21, 2021
Senkata and Sacaba, “it’s not revenge, it’s justice” photo: @LuchoxBolivia
BOLIVIAN INFORMATION AGENCY (ABI). – In response to a complaint from the victims of the Senkata and Sacaba massacres, the State Attorney General’s Office accused Jeanine Añez Chávez for the crime of genocide, which has a prison sentence of up to 30 years, because she was in charge of the Armed Forces and Police in 2019 and approved money for her planned operations that caused massacres, extrajudicial executions of at least 20 people and hundreds of wounded who were protesting against her government that was formed without meeting the quorum required in the Legislative.
This information is contained in the Indictment for prosecution and request for authorization of trial. Case CU FGE20210005, submitted this Friday by the Attorney General’s Office to the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.
The document includes a long list of military and police officers who participated in the massacres of Sacaba and Senkata, the list of the 20 relatives of the victims who filed their complaint, their testimonies, the autopsies of the people killed in those massacres, international documents, jurisprudence, official reports submitted by the Armed Forces, expert reports, interviews, supporting reports, among other inputs.
Regarding Jeanine Áñez Chávez, the Requerimiento Acusatorio points out that she self-proclaimed herself president of the country and assumed command of the FFAA and the Police in 2019.
” (…) of Ms. Jeanine Áñez Chávez, and to that effect, it should be noted that according to the documentation collected and filed in the proceedings, on November 15 and 19, 2019, she exercised the functions of President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, (self-proclaimed in a Parliamentary session of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly carried out without quorum and without complying with the formality provided by law, which was widely questioned by various social sectors of the country), Thus assuming the highest hierarchical level of the entire structure of the Executive Power of the Bolivian State, and at the same time the control and total domination of the Armed Forces and Bolivian Police, with absolute power of command for the conduction and direction of the actions and policies of order and security in the interior of the country, exercising in these conditions the repression against a sector of the Bolivian population, more specifically against citizens of the Tropic of Cochabamba, identified as members of “intercultural communities” of Sacaba and Senkata…” according to document of the Prosecutor’s Office.
The Prosecutor’s accusation indicates that the massacres of Senkata and Sacaba, “took place after the planning and execution of joint military police operations ordered by the central level of government under the authority and acquiescence of JEANINE ÁÑEZ CHÁVEZ, who at that time was President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, having also assumed control of the forces of order and security of the State (Armed Forces and Bolivian Police), which was operationalized by the then Ministers of State Arturo Carlos Murillo Prijic (Minister of Government) and Luis Fernando López Julio (Minister of Defense), with the participation of the national commanders of the Bolivian Armed Forces and Police, General Sergio Carlos Orellana Centellas and General Sergio Carlos Orellana Centellas, with the participation of the Bolivian Armed Forces and Police. Sergio Carlos Orellana Centellas and Col. Rodolfo Antonio Montero Torricos, respectively, who agreed and tolerated the participation in these events of specialized military groups, armed with lethal weapons and ammunition, among which was the group called GCAII (Group Against Acts of Illegal Interference “Libertador Simón Bolívar”) based in the Air Brigade in the city of La Paz, under the command of the Commander of the Bolivian Air Force, at that time Gen. Brig. Ciro Orlando Álvarez Guzmán”.
Therefore, the Prosecutor’s Office stated that “Mrs. Jeanine Áñez Chávez committed the crime of GENOCIDE, whose description and penal sanction is defined as follows: Penal Code – Article 138. – (Genocide) Whoever or whoever with the purpose of totally or partially destroying the Bolivian population, an indigenous native peasant nation or people, intercultural communities, Afro-Bolivian communities, or a segment of them, or a group of a religious creed, kills or injures its members, or subjects them to conditions of inhumane subsistence or forced assimilation, or imposes measures intended to prevent their reproduction, or violently displaces children or adults to other groups, shall be punished with imprisonment of fifteen (15) to thirty (30) years”.
The accusation adds that, during Áñez’s administration, the commission of extrajudicial executions also incurred ” (…) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the same way that it was committed during his term of office”. ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as the content of the GIEI report, allows sustaining the existence of extrajudicial executions that took place on November 15 and 19, 2019 by the joint police and military forces, who were under the authority and command of Jeanine Áñez Chávez, who at that time was the President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, thus constituting the highest government authority with command power over the entire organizational structure of the State”.
Source: Plurinacional, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English