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Luis Fernando Camacho, opposition governor of the Santa Cruz region, Bolivia’s economic locomotive, was arrested this Wednesday by order of a prosecutor accused of terrorism, which led to clashes between police officers and civilians protesting the arrest.
With Gabriela Orozco, RFI correspondent in La Paz
In compliance with a fiscal order, the Governor of Santa Cruz Luis Fernando Camacho was detained by the Bolivian police and transferred to the airport to be taken to La Paz, the seat of Government.
According to government sources, Camacho was apprehended when he was arriving at his home in a violent operation in which police officers broke the windows of his vehicle and held a gun on him.
Luis Fernando Camacho has several processes opened by people related to the Movimiento al Socialismo, government party, among them his participation in the 2019 crisis that for the Government was a coup and for another part of the population it was unleashed by a fraud of the ruling party at that time when Evo Morales governed.
Camacho said several times that there was never a coup, but rather a popular rebellion against the leftist Morales (2006-2019), whom he accused of fraud in the 2019 presidential elections to govern for five more years. The OAS made a report in which it revealed “irregularities” in the elections.
Camacho was one of the visible faces of the 2019 mobilizations that led to the resignation of Morales. The governor traveled on those dates from Santa Cruz to La Paz with the president’s resignation letter in his left hand and a Bible in his right hand.
Another of the accusations is for the recent 36-day strike in the months of October and November of this year due to the requirement to carry out the census before the 2025 elections.
The Minister of Government Eduardo del Castillo confirmed the arrest without specifying the reasons for which he was apprehended.
protests in the streets
After Camacho’s arrest, in various neighborhoods of Santa Cruz there were blockades of streets with the use of stones, sticks and even vehicles, to demand Camacho’s freedom.
Protesters also burned the offices of the Prosecutor’s Office in the region, without reporting any injuries.
Earlier, dozens of Camacho supporters gathered at the two Santa Cruz airports: the Viru Viru international airport and the Trompillo domestic airport, to unsuccessfully reject his transfer to La Paz.
The director of the state-owned Bolivian Air Navigation and Airports, Elmer Pozo, said at a press conference that flights were temporarily suspended in Viru Viru and El Trompillo.
“We do not have any commercial flights at this time, both domestic and international flights,” he said.
The Santa Cruz Governor’s Office said in a statement that Camacho “has been kidnapped, in an absolutely irregular police operation and taken to an unknown destination.”
Three former Bolivian presidents, the right-wing Áñez (2019-2020) and Jorge Quiroga (2001-2002) and the centrist Carlos Mesa (2014-2018), joined the voices that denounced the arrest of the governor.
“They set up a police/military mega-operation to kidnap the governor,” Áñez said on Twitter, while Quiroga stated in the same way that the “police violently apprehend the governor of Santa Cruz.”
Mesa pointed out that “this violates principles of international law” and “we demand that [al presidente] Luis Arce to clarify those issues immediately.”
The oficialistas reacted in favor of the arrest.
The Minister of Public Works, Edgar Montaño, stated that “in his condition as apprehended, we hope that he will answer for the crimes for which he is accused”, such as “the coup d’état of 2019”.
Wilfredo Chávez, State Attorney General and former Morales minister, said that “justice must operate on this subject. Justice!”
