The former president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, entered the Obrajes prison in La Paz on March 15. AIZAR RALDES / AFP
Former Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez, who has been in a prison in La Paz since Sunday, has stopped eating and is in a depressing situation, according to the president of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights, Amparo Carvajal.
“I have seen it very badly.
'Why fight?
Why live? ', He told me, ”Carvajal told the local press.
Last Wednesday Áñez suffered an episode of arterial hypertension and wanted to be transferred to a private health center, but the authorities did not allow it.
The resources of the women's prison in which she is held were sufficient to control her pressure, authorities reported.
After the incident, a photograph of the former president reclining with her eyes closed, after receiving a sedative, circulated.
Her daughter Carolina denounced that she is not allowed to enter the prison to see her mother.
He asked the president, Luis Arce, to “be human, because here his children are also suffering.
She needs to have medical attention ”.
He also recalled that at the time, when Arce was persecuted during his mother's government, she granted him a safe-conduct to leave the country and attend to his health problems.
Áñez was surprisingly detained at dawn on March 14, at her mother's house, where she was hiding.
Hours earlier, the prosecutors in charge of the
coup case
in Bolivia had issued an arrest warrant against her and five close collaborators.
Two of them were immediately apprehended.
Two others were already out of the country.
The latter is still free, although "in hiding", and has held the Government responsible for the safety of his family, which is constantly monitored by the Police.
At the same time, two former military commanders are also inmates in different ordinary prisons.
Áñez's arrest was surprising because the former president and her ministers were not included in this trial and it was assumed that they would not be, since it investigates the moments prior to the resignation of Evo Morales on November 10, 2019, in the which did not have a prominent participation.
The great cause against Áñez was his alleged responsibility in the military repression of the protests against the interim government, which ended with more than 30 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
However, in order to take it to court for this reason, the Movement for Socialism required two-thirds of the votes of the Legislative Assembly, which it does not have.
Áñez's situation has sparked a series of protests from different international and national institutions and personalities.
The most striking has been that of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who suggested that the great judicial cases of the efforts of Evo Morales and Jeanine Áñez, including those that refer to "crimes against humanity ”, Are served by international commissions and courts.
In Almagro's opinion, Bolivian justice, always dependent on political power, is not reliable to deal with them.
After the strong reaction of the Government of Luis Arce to this proposal, the Secretary General of the OAS said that he would send these cases to the International Criminal Court on his own.
Immediately afterwards, the collaborators of President Arce have rejected this possibility as "illegal" and "interference".
Others who have expressed doubts about the correctness of the expansion of the
coup case
against Áñez and his former collaborators have been the human rights institutions Amnesty International and Humans Rights Watch, who suspect an instrumental use of justice.
The Bolivian opposition has condemned what happened as "dictatorial."
In his last public statement on the subject, former President Carlos Mesa considered the authorities' treatment of the former president a "total abuse" and expressed solidarity with Almagro's position.
Another opposition leader, Samuel Doria Medina, described Luis Arce as "cruel" and "revengeful" for not allowing Áñez to be admitted to a private clinic.
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