State Violence and Repression Under Bolivian Interim Government

Jul 29

Bolivia endured a coup d’etat in November 2019. In its first week, the illegal regime, led by de facto President Jeanine Áñez and de facto Minister of Interior Arturo Murillo, carried out massacres in the town of Sacaba and the Senkata zone of El Alto, killing dozens of Indigenous protestors and injuring hundreds. In 2020, democracy returned to Bolivia. Áñez was arrested for her role in the coup, and Murillo, who fled to the United States, was arrested in Florida for money laundering. Neither, however, has been held to account for their role in massacring Bolivian civilians.

Since the 2019 coup, the University Network has worked closely with the survivors and family members of those killed in their struggle for justice. Together with Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, the University Network authored and released They Shot Us Like Animals. The report documents, among other violations, two state-sponsored massacres in Senkata and Sacaba, political persecution of opposition-party supporters, and paramilitary violence. The report has contributed significantly to debates in Bolivia and elsewhere regarding the country’s October presidential elections. University Network staff have presented the report’s findings before international bodies, including the MERCOSUR Parliament and the 45th General Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

In January 2024, a UNHR supervisor traveled to Bolivia with students from Yale and Harvard to strategize with the victims of the 2019 killings about legal mechanisms for accountability and to gather materials and testimonies for a lawsuit. The students interviewed survivors, family members, witnesses, human rights advocates, and government officials. They also prepared materials for a bill to ensure reparations for the family members of those killed in the massacres.