The Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office has expanded the investigation against former president Jeanine Áñez for the Senkata massacre of November 2019, including charges of genocide, homicide and serious injury, for events in which a dozen people lost their lives.
This has been confirmed by the Minister of Justice, Ivan Lima. The accusations against Áñez are part of a criminal proceeding against the former general, Luis Fernando Valverde Ferrufino, as well as against other high-ranking military officials for the events that took place in this town of El Alto.
In the midst of a political crisis after the opposition and part of the Armed Forces did not recognize the victory of former president Evo Morales, which was also questioned by the Organization of American States (OAS), thousands of his followers took to the streets to protest.
The best known episodes of this crisis are those of Senkata and Sacaba, where the forces of law and order were used with particular harshness, as certified by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which described what happened as massacres. A score of people were killed and more than 200 injured.
The Prosecutor’s Office has decided to broaden the charges against Áñez for his direct responsibility in the issuance of a presidential decree signed days before the events in Senkata and Sacaba, which exempted police and military personnel from their actions during the repression of the protests.
Áñez, who is serving a ten-year prison sentence for violating the Constitution when she proclaimed herself president in the so-called Coup d’Etat case, is also being prosecuted for the irregular appointment of her cousin, Karina Leiva Áñez, as manager of Empresa Boliviana de Alimentos (EBA), in 2020.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
