Bolivian lawyer and professor Gabriel Villalba Pérez spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the political conflict at the center of the anti-government strike called by the conservative opposition

The far-right opposition in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department has been seeking to destabilize the socialist government of President Luis Arce using the Population and Housing Census as pretext

Arturo Murillo, who served as government minister in the coup-installed regime of Jeanine Áñez, fled Bolivia to escape prosecution in a series of corruption and human rights violation cases

Workers from diverse sectors, peasants, students, and members of various Indigenous organizations and social movements from all nine departments of Bolivia arrived in capital La Paz to ratify their support for President Luis Arce and Vice President David Choquehuanca’s government

The governor of the Santa Cruz department, Luis Fernando Camacho, who was the president of the far-right Pro Santa Cruz Civic Committee in 2019, was one of the main promoters of the violent and racist demonstrations against the socialist government of former President Evo Morales in October 2019

Bolivian Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta described Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s plan to grant Jeanine Áñez political asylum as “absolutely impudent” and “inappropriate interference in internal affairs”

The First Anti-Corruption Sentencing Court of La Paz found Jeanine Áñez and other former police and military chiefs guilty of “breach of duties” and taking “resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the Law” following the coup d’état against then President Evo Morales in November 2019

Evo Morales described the ICC verdict as a “victory of truth over falsehood.” Jeanine Áñez’s coup-installed government had blamed Morales and union and farmer leaders for COVID-19 deaths after the 2020 general strike

Jeanine Áñez faces charges of “breach of duties” and “resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the Law” for her illegal self-proclamation as “interim president of Bolivia” during the US-backed coup d’état against former president Evo Morales in November 2019

Under the rule of President Luis Arce and vice president David Choquehuanca of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, Bolivia recovered from the economic losses suffered during the coup regime of Jeanine Áñez

The trust will provide loans to the relatives of the deceased and living victims of the human rights violations committed during Jeanine Áñez’s de-facto rule, with a 10-year repayment policy and an annual interest rate of 0.5%

President Luis Arce thanked Bolivian citizens for their overwhelming support, and promised to continue working to rebuild the country and the economy with the people