71 YEARS FROM THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

When rising to power, the transitional government expressed will of RECONCILIATION and
PACIFICATION. However, up to date, there are more than 30 unclarified deaths in Sacaba and
Senkata deriving from lethal bullets, numerous gunshot and metal pellet wounds (a new type
of pellets that penetrate deep into the body and move).

To date, ITEI has attended and received the testimonies of 90 people who have suffered
torture and other ill-treatment at the time of their detention at the Special Force to Fight
against Crime (FELCC) and at the Tactical Unit of Police Operations (UTOP). Highlighted are
abusive arrests, physical torture, psychological torture, biological torture, seizure of belongings
and documents in cases of foreign citizens.

Work of the IDIF and the Prosecutor's Office

In the cases documented by the ITEI, it has been possible to demonstrate that the actions of
the prosecution are far from being impartial and per the rules. When detainees have been
presented before the prosecutors in the offices of the FELCC, the authorities have consciously
ignored all the signs of ill-treatment and torture that were evident even by eyesight.

When the detainees have requested the corresponding forensic assessment, these have been
ignored, and in the case in which forensic assignment did take place, the report of the IDIF
professionals is far from pointing out truthfully the physical evidence presented by the
detainees, in addition to ignoring the statements that they have given. In one case, when the
detainee indicated that "he had been beaten by several policemen" the IDIF report notes that
"he was hit by other inmates." In these cases, the bias with which both the Prosecutor's Office
and the Forensic Investigations Institute work, have helped to perpetuate impunity.

Psychological effects of repression

Affected people, among which there are several young people, have intense and persistent
fear where the scare has been so great that the affected people have had difficulty to tell what
happened to them. One of the young men who seemed unharmed said he was threatened
with a firearm if he did not count "how much the Evo had paid him." To date, he wakes up
frightfully 4 to 5 times at night.

Many people were deeply affected by being presented to the media in handcuffs as if they
were criminals. Several said that when they got into police transportation, a policeman
photographed them. Subsequently, all appeared on Facebook, being publicly accused of
vandalism and stigmatized as terrorists without any evidence.

The police have arrested many protesters and random passers-by. The shock of suddenly being
in the cells of the FELCC and then in prison, or in a rehabilitation centre for young people with
behavioural problems, has been brutal for people and their entire families. It has caused
despair, particularly in parents who have been separated from their children without reason.
Being treated suddenly as criminals have been for many deeply humiliating and has created
feelings of injustice, anger and even hate.
We are living in a situation where human rights are violated by law enforcement, with the
aggravating factor that a part of the population approves these facts. Another part denies
them, even if they are internationally recognized. It is no coincidence that the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has had to talk about “unnecessary
or disproportionate use of force by police or military personnel.” As long as human rights are
not respected, the conditions for RECONCILIATION and PACIFICATION are not present, and
they remain impossible. Every death, every wound, every act of humiliating violence creates
more fear and more hatred in the population.

The executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Paulo
Abrão, after his stay in Bolivia, rightly speaks of a "massive number" of human rights violations
after October 20 and that "in these situations, the national institutions are not prepared to
solve the massive violations of human rights ”. The facts prove him right, in a polarized, partial
and wounded society, a true RECONCILIATION and PACIFICATION will only be possible at the
moment when human rights are applied to all.

For that reason, ITEI is calling for the arrival of an international commission of experts to
intervene in Bolivia with the mission of:

-Visiting the detention centres where the people affected by the military/police repression are
located.

-Visiting affected people inside and outside of the detention centres.

-Requesting that the rights of detained persons need to be respected and that the detained
persons shall have access to decent treatment and medical treatment.

-Facilitating a commission composed of forensics and ballistics experts to evaluate cases of

military/police repression and perform autopsies of the dead (independently and impartially).

-Questioning the Bolivian government about its repressive actions.

-Demanding the government to order law enforcement units (Army and Police) to respect
human rights without the indiscriminate use of force against citizens.

-Demanding the government to comply with the UN Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, signed and ratified by Bolivia, preventing any abuse
of power that goes against the population.

-Asking the government to guarantee that the human rights organizations can fulfil their
functions and attend the people affected by the military and police repression.

In that regard, we fully support Paolo Abraõ's recommendation to “coordinate an investigation

with an international panel of experts, similar to the one formed to investigate the
disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, in Mexico”.

La Paz, December 10th, 2019.