Carlos Sanchez Berzain Abogado | Estadista | Político | Politólogo
Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
November 14, 2018
(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Anyone who insists to continue believing the farce that Evo Morales’ regime is an imperfect democracy, attempts to distance it from the undisguisable dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, now with the increase of political prisoners in Bolivia, has one additional proof of the dictatorial nature of this regime. An ordinary citizen who shouted “Bolivia said NO” to Evo Morales in the city of Potosi is now under arrest and is being prosecuted by the Castroist Chavist system.
The most recent political prisoner in Bolivia is a young Bolivian construction worker of 26 years of age, Moises Montero Chambi who now faces up to 10 years in jail for shouting a truth established by the majority of Bolivians through a constitutional referendum.
Each 10th of November, the anniversary of the foundation of the Potosi Department is celebrated as a remembrance of its uprising for freedom in 1810. The capital of the Potosi Department is “the Imperial Villa of Potosi” worldwide known for the riches of its “Cerro Rico de Potosi” where the world´s greatest silver mine, since the 16th century is located, a source of huge wealth for the Spanish Crown in the colony and a very important source of support to the nation´s economy.
It is customary that in the celebration of the anniversary of each of the Bolivian Departments, there be a Presidential visit when he announces forthcoming ¨gifts¨ for the Department celebrating. This practice, in Evo Morales‘ regime, has been institutionalized by the centralism and overdependence on the President´s power, exacerbated by the fact that every project or expense of public funds must pass through the cycle; decision, control, and inauguration by the President, process that affixes his name to them, and demands political retribution -or payback- for such projects or expenditures which, in general, are notorious for being of poor quality, having cost overruns, and resulting from corruption.
This past November the 9th, the Head of State arrived at the city of Potosi where a young man shouted at him ¨BOLIVIA SAID NO¨, reason why the young man was immediately detained with an initial argument claiming that he had shouted such unprecedented phrase, poured a glass of water, and had hurled a bag with coca leaves at the President attending a Departmental Assembly meeting. Afterwards, the official version removed the glass of water and the bag of coca leaves because their detainee was never ever even near the dictator.
Bolivia is living today a growing social and political crisis generated by Evo Morales’ persistence to remain indefinitely in power. Morales climbed to Bolivia’s presidency in January of 2006 for a five-year term and without the possibility of continuous reelection, but despite of that he has already remained 13 years in power.
Using the Castroist Chavist mold, previously applied in; Venezuela with Chavez, Ecuador with Correa, and now being applied in Nicaragua with Ortega, he supplanted the Republic’s Constitution in order to force the formation of a Constituent Assembly, he is responsible for having caused over 20 bloody massacres to assassinate, imprison, and exile those defenders of the Republic and after supplanting the text of his own Constituent’s constitution, he created in 2009 the “Plurinational State of Bolivia” that allows him to have total control.
The constitution of his “Plurinational State” allows Morales a one-time consecutive reelection, argument he used immediately calling for elections the same year (2009) and being sworn-in as the Head of the Plurinational State in January of 2010 for five-years. In 2014, however, he used a subservient Constitutional Tribunal so that with one ruling, it authorized his second consecutive candidacy using the flawed argument that “since the Plurinational State was founded in 2009, his election for the former Republic of Bolivia did not count.”
With the use of every trick in the book, massacres, corruption, and other crimes, Morales, in January of 2015, was again sworn in as Head of the State for another five years and immediately thereafter called for a Bolivian people’s referendum to allow for his indefinite reelection. The referendum election took place on 21 February of 2016 (21F) and BOLIVIA SAID NO. This meant that by popular mandate, the Bolivian people wanted to put an end to the forced chain of crime and that Evo Morales can no longer be a candidate and to simulate electoral victory through fraud and more crime.
But, just as Hugo Chavez had done and Nicolas Maduro does in Venezuela, and Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales is already in an electoral campaign to simulate his reelection in 2019, reason why he obtained yet another “despicable ruling” from his Constitutional Tribunal who, going over the head of the people’s popular mandate and its own constitution, has ruled that Morales has “the human right to an indefinite candidacy”.
In Bolivia there are close to 80 political prisoners and over 1,200 political exiles, all accused and prosecuted by the dictatorship’s judicial system that retroactively applies laws, does not recognize the right to one’s own defense, is comprised by prosecutors and judges that are mere operators of the regime, are not impartial, and are not qualified. It is a copy of the Castroist system that has turned justice into an apparatus for the repression and the assassination of those defenders of freedom and democracy.
It is in this context that Moises Montero Chambi a citizen of 26 years of age, for shouting BOLIVIA SAID NO, has been formally charged for the crime of “attempting against the President and other Dignitaries of State”, as prescribed in the dictatorship’s Article 128 of the Penal Code, with a sentence from 5 to 10 years in jail. He is the most recent political prisoner and the dictatorship now offers him to option to confess to a crime he did not commit, apologize to the dictator, obtain a less harsh sentence and regain his freedom, or follow the path of those Bolivians who have died in jail or are still there.
Published in Spanish by Infobae.com Sunday, November 11th 2018
Translated from Spanish by; Edgar L. Terrazas, member of the American Translators’ Association, ATA # 234680.