While the concern of the international community for the persecution of the Nicaraguan Church grows, in Bolivia the opposition denounces that the government of Luis Arce is taking the same path as the dictator Daniel Ortega.
former presidents Carlos Mesa (2003-2005) and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga (2001-2002) criticized this Sunday the request of the State Attorney General’s Office (PGE) to the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate some Catholic bishops for the events of the 2019 political crisis.
Both ex-presidents reacted to a memorandum, presented by the state entity on January 30, in which the request is made to the Public Ministry to call several members of the Episcopal Conference of Bishops to testify in the “coup d’état I” case. Bolivia (CEB).
In a message on Twitter, Mesa maintains that the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS), the party of President Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales, he is “emulating” the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.
“The MAS now seeks to persecute Bishops who defend democracy and human rights. Political persecution in its crudest execution,” said Mesa, who is also the leader of the main opposition party in Parliament, Comunidad Ciudadana (CC).
For his part, Quiroga said on the same social network that the president “Arce ‘Orteguiza’ when trying to crucify Bishopsto whom the MAS requested mediation in 2019″ and asked Pope Francis to “pronounce on the persecution of the Church in Bolivia”.
The “coup d’état I” case, presented by a former pro-government deputy at the end of 2020, is based on the accusation of terrorism.
For this figure, the former internal president is prosecuted by ordinary means jeanine anez and the opposition leader as well as the Governor of Santa Cruz, Luis Fernando Camachoboth detained in Bolivian jails.
On several occasions, the Catholic Church stressed its mediation role during the 2019 political and social crisis that led to the resignation of then-President Evo Morales and the institution of a transitional government headed by Áñez.
In 2021, the CEB delivered to Pope Francis a report on the role of the Catholic Church between October 2019 and January 2020 in which He “rejected any accusation” of his work that is related to “an alleged coup d’état” against Morales.
This day, the newspaper Duty de Santa Cruz published some fragments of the request to the Prosecutor’s Office to declare those who in 2019 were vice president of the CEB, Ricardo Centellas, the Episcopal secretary, Aurelio Pesoaand the former auxiliary bishop of El Alto, Giovani Aranaamong others.
The role of the leaders of the Catholic Church has been questioned by the ruling party, mainly due to a meeting at the Catholic University in La Paz in which various political leaders, including members of the MAS at the time, discussed the issue of presidential succession.
For the Government, the events of 2019 were a “coup d’état” against Morales, while for the opposition the social protests were due to electoral fraud to favor Morales’ access to a fourth consecutive term.
The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Government was tense due to the criticism of the religious entity of the Morales Government and that has become even more distant in the administration of President Luis Arce due to the events of 2019.
With information from EFE
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