MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Añez goes on hunger strike as coup trial looms over

Áñez claimed she was a victim of “prosecutorial lynching”

Carolina Ribera, daughter of former interim Bolivian President Jeanine Añez, has announced her mother had gone on a hunger strike on the eve of the start of her trial for the so-called “Coup d'etat II” case. Áñez is charged with violating the Constitution by proclaiming herself president of that nation.

“I make one of the hardest decisions of my life,” Áñez was quoted as saying. “I go on a hunger strike. I am desperate to see a country without justice or law.”

Áñez, who has been under preventive detention for a year, insisted the world needed to know that Bolivia's judiciary “belonged” to former President Evo Morales and current head of state Luis Arce Catacora, whom she dubbed “machos of power,” who -in her words- “will not be able to hide from history the fraud they [have] committed.”

Áñez has already sent a desperate letter to the Oorganization of American States (OAS) saying “sometimes I think the best solution is to die.”

Ribera said in a radio interview that her mother was “aware that she is going to be sentenced” because “there is no human power that can do anything to prevent her from being sentenced.” Áñez's daughter also highlighted a number of irregularities around the judicial case against her mother.

In the “Coup d'etat II” trial set to start Thursday Añez is charged along with former officers of the Bolivian Armed Forces of failing to perform her functions by having adopted decisions contrary to the Constitution and the laws, and of having assumed the presidency without complying with the procedures established for it.

Read also: Bolivian Prosecutor says evidence proves Macri's help to Áñez

Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri and other Latin American leaders have asked the Organization of the United Nations (UN) to visit Áñez in prison to get to “report on the abuses of power committed against her.”

A UN special rapporteur is due in Bolivia Feb. 15 to assess the degree of independence of the country's judiciary.

Leaders grouped under the Democratic Initiative of Spain (IDEA) demanded “strict respect” for the principles of democracy and advocated the non-judicialization of politics and considered the charges against Áñez (terrorism, sedition and conspiracy) were “arbitrary.”

Áñez thanked IDEA through her Twitter account, where she spoke of a “prosecutorial lynching.”