United States urged Bolivia to defend inter-American civil rights after arrest of Jeanine Áñez

United States Government on Saturday called on Bolivia to “defend” inter-American civil rights, although he did not make a specific comment on the recent arrest of the former interim Bolivian president Jeanine Áñez.

“We urge our friends and neighbors in Bolivia to uphold all civil rights and due process guarantees of the American Convention on Human Rights and the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.”, said on his Twitter account Julie chung, in charge of Latin America at the State Department.

Chung also said that “Americans and many in the Americas know from experience the need to constantly safeguard and renew democratic government by and for the people.”.

There was, however, no mention of Áñez’s arrest at dawn this Saturday, apprehended in the Amazon region of Beni and transferred in a Hercules plane of the Bolivian Air Force to the city of La Paz.

On Friday they were also arrested two former ministers in the same region where they were taken to the Bolivian administrative capital.

The former president and former ministers are accused of “Sedition and terrorism” during the 2019 crisis after the failed elections which resulted in the resignation of Evo Morales as president.

This morning, Áñez was transferred from the cells of the Special Crime Fighting Force (Felcc) in La Paz to the prosecutor’s office to testify for the alleged “coup” against Morales, who ruled the country between 2006 and 2019.

Despite the importance of these facts, The United States made no statement and only spoke through Chung’s post on Twitter, which confined itself to citing two of the most relevant legal instruments of inter-American law.

Bolivia ratified the American Convention on Human Rights in 1993, which Washington has never signed, and also respects the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to which the 34 active member countries of the OAS adhere (Cuba is part of the organization but has not participated since 1962).

The American President, Joe biden, He did not specify what his policy will be towards Bolivia.. The two countries have had a strained relationship in recent years. They severed diplomatic relations by 2008, when Morales expelled the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and then US Ambassador Philip Goldberg, after accusing him of an alleged conspiracy, which Washington denied and reacted by sacking the Bolivian ambassador, Gustavo guzman.

After this incident, Washington and La Paz only had a relationship at the charge d’affaires level until, in 2019, Áñez’s interim government appointed Walter Oscar Serrate as the representative of Bolivia in the United States.

The White House, however, did not choose an ambassador for Bolivia, and currently the most senior diplomat is Charisse Phillips, who has the title of charge d’affaires.

(With information from EFE)

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