Jeanine: 3 years and 11 months in captivity | Jeanine: 3 años y 11 meses de cautiverio

Hatred, Abuse, Revenge, Torture, Political Retaliation

By Gabriela Ichaso Elcuaz, Eju.tv:

On March 13, Jeanine Añez will mark four years since her abduction and deprivation of liberty, orchestrated by the elite of the Movimiento Al Socialismo and the government of Luis Arce Catacora.

The Year of the Republic’s Bicentennial will mark the shameful milestone of the planned and executed imprisonment of Bolivia’s President by the regime of the political party that has held power since 2006. Its electoral fraud on October 20, 2019—uncovered by the OAS and the European Union—was rejected in the streets until Evo Morales resigned and fled to Mexico.

During this time, Jeanine Añez has been subjected to nine ordinary judicial processes, all null and void since they were conducted outside the jurisdiction established by the Constitution, bypassing the trial of responsibilities.

None of the charges involve corruption. She holds the moral authority of someone with nothing to hide, as no one can be held accountable, according to legal principles, for crimes committed by others.

She has goodwill tripled:

  • The goodwill of her actions in accepting a responsibility demanded by the opposition unity at the moment of the power vacuum and an imminent democratic breakdown forged by the resignation and escape of the fugitive;
  • The goodwill in the unity required by the Bolivian people around an opposition candidacy that wins the August elections to rebuild the democracy seized by the MAS; and
  • The goodwill in God, intact.

She has written a book in her own handwriting, handwritten letters that convey her constant reflections on the (in)justice she has personally experienced as a political prisoner, her concern for the lack of attention to the problems faced by the Bolivian people. She has woven, embroidered, and sewn hundreds of handmade creations of her own design. She stays informed despite severe restrictions on visits and has not lost the good spirit and smile that characterize her—just a couple of the many traits of a Joaquiniana and a woman of the lowlands that make her stand out.

She faces the worst of trials through a screen where none of her accusers dare to show their faces. She listens to long tirades against her with the helplessness of someone who has no right to be part of her own trial, to confront her executioners, to examine the integrity of what they call evidence, to raise objections against the abuses of multiple state agencies, all staffed with salaried public officials piling up pages and pages of rhetoric detached from her complex mandate as president. With the helplessness of someone denied the right to a fair defense, she is assigned a lawyer she does not know, and every time he attempts to speak on her behalf, she must remain vigilant to remind the court that she has not authorized him to do so.

The afternoon sun falls over the graffiti-covered wall of number 1889 on Francisco de Miranda Street, where Jeanine has spent 47 months imprisoned in the maximum-security women’s prison of the national government’s headquarters, at 3,800 meters above sea level.

Her sacrifice reminds us that as long as the political class plays its games of self-interest and selective memory, the innocent will remain imprisoned, while criminals roam free.

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