Clashes between police, army and countries in support of deposed President Evo Morales have killed five people in Bolivia on Friday (November 15th).
Five coca growers were killed in the suburbs of Cochabamba, the political stronghold of the former president, in the center of the country. Throughout the day, thousands of protesters opposed the police who prevented them from going to the city center.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) confirmed the five deaths and an indeterminate number of injuries. She denounced in a statement "the disproportionate use of police and military force", including firearms to suppress demonstrations.
"It's a real massacre, it's a genocide, I deplore all these deaths," responded Evo Morales, interviewed in Mexico by CNN.
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The protesters "carried weapons, rifles, Molotov cocktails, homemade bazookas and explosive devices," defended Cochabamba police commander Colonel Jaime Zurita, who announced a hundred arrests but said did not confirm the deaths.
Pro-Morales also maintained pressure in La Paz, the administrative capital, where new clashes erupted. Police and the army dispersed the protesters with tear gas.
The interim president denounced the presence of "armed subversive groups" composed of Bolivians and foreigners tasked, inter alia, with sabotaging the distribution of gas by going as far as using "explosives" to destroy hydrocarbon production centers. .
Jeanine Añez, a former right-wing senator, ruled that Evo Morales was "on his own" for Mexico after his resignation on Sunday. If he returned to the country, he should "answer to justice" irregularities in the presidential election of October 20 and "corruption charges", she added, during a meeting with the foreign press . Evo Morales, said Ms. Añez, has "still accounts".
Three days after declaring herself the interim president of this landlocked Andean country, 52-year-old lawyer Añez pledged to "hold transparent (presidential and legislative, editorial) elections."
Evo Morales, 60, proclaimed himself the winner of the presidential election on 20 October, thus claiming to hold a fourth term. But the opposition shouted at the fraud and many demonstrations, sometimes very violent, took place. A mutiny in the police and finally his cowardice by the army pushed him to leave the presidency.
Since Evo Morales announced his resignation, it is his supporters who display their anger, assuring that his departure was due to a "coup" fomented by the opposition.
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With AFP