Bolivian parliament remcommends that ex-interim president Anez face genocide charges

Bolivia’s outgoing parliament approved a motion recommending that ex-interim president Jeanine Anez and her ministers face justice for responsibility over last year’s unrest which left around 30 people dead.

Bolivia’s ex-interim president Jeanine Anez

The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, meeting in joint session, approved on Thursday a parliamentary report on the “massacres of Senkata, Sacaba and Yapacani, which recommends a judgment of responsibility against Jeanine Anez for genocide and other offenses”, according to the Senate’s Twitter account.

Parliament also approved the criminal indictment of 11 ministers.

A parliamentary commission, controlled by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party of former President Evo Morales, spent months investigating incidents that took place in several regions of the country between October and November 2019, which left about 30 dead.

It presented its report on Tuesday, a little over a week after new socialist President Luis Arce, the MAS candidate, took power.

An investigation by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH) found that 35 people were killed in these incidents. The unrest came after Morales won a fourth term in an election that sparked weeks of protests and charges of fraud.

Morales was forced to resign on November 10 before going into exile in Mexico and then Argentina.

Conservative former senator Anez assumed power as interim president after Morales fled.

Senate president Eva Copa, a member of MAS, specified that the report would be submitted to the Bolivian prosecution for opening possible proceedings.

She is also counting on the fact that the report will likely be approved by the new parliament, where the MAS retains its majority and which is due to take office next week.
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Credit: Al Jazeera