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Bolivia: as elections near, US-backed interim gov’t mobilizes military, arrests opposition leaders

Wednesday, January 22 marks the day that Jeanine Añez is set to stand down as “interim” President of Bolivia, beginning the process for fresh elections set for May 3. Añez came to power in November, following a U.S.-backed coup that deposed the Movement to Socialism’s (MAS) Evo Morales. However, she is certainly not acting as if she intends to relinquish her power, let alone move towards new elections. Instead, she has sent the military, replete with tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, into the capital cities of all nine departments of the country.

MintPress News’ Ollie Vargas was on the scene in the center of the capital La Paz, where he filmed hundreds of armed soldiers performing drills outside the Cathedral of St. Francis and dozens of military vehicles circling the city, sirens on and guns drawn.

“The purpose of that is to intimidate people ahead of possible protests against the coup on the 22nd of January…This was a show of force saying you are not going to be able to march what you want. The military is preparing for a war-style operations if marches do arrive in the city. It is about intimidating the people,” he said in an interview with TeleSUR English; “The point was to be a show of force, rather than itself be an act of repression. It was there to show what repression could come.”

The military played a leading role in the November coup, demanding Morales resign and handpicking Añez as his successor. The police, too, were crucial, rebelling against Morales and later repressing protests from the country’s indigenous majority, even conducting massacres in the towns of Sacaba and Senkata. “It seems like the police is following the instructions of the far-right in Bolivia,” said United Nations Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas. Last week, Añez rubberstamped a pay rise for the country’s police, bringing their salaries up to that of the military’s. 

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