Santa Cruz will be militarized

Santa Cruz, Bolivia will be militarized

Nothing that comes from this interim government is surprising. People still have the images of the dead from Senkata and Sacaba fresh in their minds—people killed by military-grade bullets, aimed at the very people of protesters opposing the coup that installed Jeanine Añez as interim president. Human rights organizations and individuals reported that during the political confrontations between supporters and opponents of the electoral process, 30 people died, 27 of them killed while citizens were repressed in their protests against the interim government.

Then came the entrance of the interim president into the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, carrying a Bible larger than her head, with the intention of intimidating the heretics who dared to disobey her orders. The cross and the Bible ratified the unlimited power she was about to deploy, regardless of the cost, using methods that continue to threaten the dwindling peace of the Bolivian people.

The pandemic came to them "like a glove"; it turned out to be the most convenient thing for their aspirations to remain in power. Uniformly, they declared quarantine and a health emergency in a country so diverse, with communities and people with so many unmet needs, that even if they wanted to, they could not stay at home; it would be like resigning themselves to watching their children slowly die of starvation.

Now, adding insult to injury, as the saying goes, to illustrate the gravity of a specific situation, that is precisely what the Minister of Productive Development (with a lowercase "p") Wilfredo Rojo just announced when he said: "citizens in times of war only obey," justifying the militarization of the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, starting next Tuesday, April 14, 2020.

What's going through the minds of these authorities? They probably know they lack legitimacy and feel they must tighten the screws even further before citizen disobedience exposes the ineptitude and failure of their measures. No one would dare deny the importance of fully complying with health prevention and protection measures in the face of a pandemic, nor is anyone willing to remain passive while their children beg for bread and milk. Therefore, preventive measures must consider the differentiated impact they have on different populations and their socioeconomic characteristics.

Militarization is typical of dictatorships; this measure is resorted to when the government understands that it has no possibility of dialogue with the population. We must ask ourselves: did this government ever lose the support and credibility of those it governs? Why not consider other imaginative approaches where the population shares responsibility for prevention and care for their families, neighborhoods, or communities?

Militarization produces fear, but fortunately, this feeling is not eternal and the hope of better days has sustained over time the creative spirit of the people to prevent, protect their families from evil, but also to find solidarity solutions to crises.