Photo composition with Jair Bolsonaro (left) and Jeanine Áñez (right) with the colors of the Brazilian flag in the background. File photo: Radio Habana Cuba.
The Brazilian right-wing president offered political asylum to former Bolivian de facto ruler Jeanine Áñez.
On Tuesday, June 28, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta denounced Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, after he said that the former de facto ruler of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, was innocent, and that she would receive political asylum in Brazil. Bolsonaro’s offer represented a grotesque attempt to emulate Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who earlier this week reiterated his offer to provide asylum to the Australian journalist Julian Assange, persecuted by the US.
At a press conference, Mayta said that “under no circumstances can interference be accepted in the decisions that sovereignly correspond to Bolivian Justice.”
He recalled that Añez has been charged by Bolivian courts for numerous crimes committed during the coup d’état perpetrated in November 2019 against former President Evo Morales.
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Enérgico rechazo de Cancillería Bolivia a oferta de Pdte. Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, de dar asilo político a ex Pdta. de facto Jeanine Añez, con sentencia de 10 años de cárcel y procesos judiciales pendientes por delitos que incluyen masacre: Rogelio Mayta, Canciller @ConexiontlSUR pic.twitter.com/MoyoJgRXre
— Freddy Morales (@FreddyteleSUR) June 28, 2022
He specified that among those charges is “having committed serious human rights violations, according to the research carried out by the group of investigators and independent experts of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).”
He noted that these constitute “crimes against humanity, according to the Rome Statute,” and referred to the massacres that occurred in Sacaba and Senkata, on November 15 and 19, 2019, respectively, in which civilians who denounced the government coup were killed.
At the beginning of June, Áñez was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a court found her guilty of the crimes of breach of duties, in violation of the Constitution.
In this case, known as Coup D’état II, she was accused of assuming the presidency without meeting the necessary institutional requirements.
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"La impunidad es inadmisible, ratificamos el compromiso de #Bolivia para lograr el respeto de los #DDHH que fueron transgredidos en esos lamentables días del 2019, tal cual han expresado las recomendaciones del #GIEIBolivia de la #CIDH", manifestó el canciller @RogelioMayta_Bo. pic.twitter.com/VArV7ZRKLb
— Cancillería de Bolivia (@MRE_Bolivia) June 28, 2022
Mayta described Bolsonaro’s statements as unfortunate and impertinent, and said that they “constitute an inappropriate interference in internal affairs.”
The statements of the far-right president of Brazil “do not respect the forms of relations between states, and do not coincide with the relations of good neighborliness and mutual respect between Brazil and Bolivia, between our peoples,” said Mayta.
This Monday, Bolsonaro said to local media that the prosecution and imprisonment of Áñez was an injustice. The Brazilian president confessed a few month ago that he secretly met with Áñez while she was ruling Bolivia.
In addition, he tried to take political advantage of the matter and criticized his opponent in Brazil’s presidential elections next October, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for not condemning the ruling of the Bolivian courts against the former de facto president.
(Telesur), with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL/EF
