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For four and a half years a makeshift camp has become part of the fabric in central La Paz. It’s become such a familiar feature, in the busy Prado neighborhood, thousands of La Paz natives - known as Pacenos - barely give it a second glance.
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The victims of Bolivia’s dictatorship regimes originally erected it across the street from the Ministry for Justice in March 2012 as just a temporary measure. Survivors took their campaign for justice, compensation, the establishment of a truth commission and recognition by the state for their sufferings to the front door of the Ministry for Justice.
"The toll this has taken on our lives has been immense," says Victoria Lopez, one of the campaigners permanently stationed at the fortress like campaign headquarters. "We live here, sleep here, eat here always in a constant state of readiness incase anything should happen."
Members of the group, known as the platform of advocates against impunity, claim they’ve been targeted by unknown assailants on several occasions. "This place was attacked and set on fire last year," says Victoria.
Since the protest began 19 members have lost their lives, some due to ill health and others after long periods of sleeping in tents in freezing conditions. The last victim, 87-year-old César Villca Fernández, died in the tents in December 2015.
Despite the hardships the survivors are determined to keep the vigil going. "We’ve been through worse," says 77-year-old Julio, who has been there from the beginning. He and his wife were victims of the Luis Garcia Meza dictatorship in the early 1980s.
''They took us and removed our fingernails with pliers. I have a broken shoulder, a wound on my leg and my femur was destroyed by the state paramilitaries," Julio recalls.
Julio ran a small shoe factory in Santa Cruz in the late 1970s. He and his wife were arrested in 1980 and subjected to interrogation by the military regime.
With tears in his eyes the quietly spoken pensioner struggles to collect his thoughts. "I was imprisoned for 1 year and 4 months. They took my wife and accused her of being a socialist. They pulled out all my teeth. I lost everything," says Julio. "Two years later my wife died because of all the abuses she suffered at the hands of the state paramilitaries."
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According to Amnesty International, during Bolivia’s dictatorship years between 1964 and 1982, 200 people were executed, 150 disappeared and 5,000 were detained for no reason. Many of them were tortured under Operation Condor, an organized program of state sponsored terror by South American military dictatorships, tacitly supported by the U.S. government in the 1970s and 1980s.
The military regimes arrested, kidnaped and killed left-wing activists across the continent especially those who rose up against military dictators in the 1970s and 1980s.
Neighbors Argentina, Brazil and Chile are among those that have established truth commissions to establish the facts. But for many nations the process has been neither easy nor fast. Brazil waited until 2011 to launch an inquiry. It took three years to fully investigate all the claims and in 2014 a 2,000-page report was finally published into the abuses perpetrated by the military dictatorship.
However, Bolivia has not followed suit, leaving survivors feeling like they've been airbrushed from the history books. According to Julio Llamos, President of the advocate’s platform, Bolivia is "the only country targeted under Plan Condor that has not set up a truth commission."
"These were not casual dictators," said Llamos. "They implemented a plan to physically eliminate all socialist revolutionaries in Latin America under the military governments.’’
Twelve years ago Bolivia’s government passed Law 2640, which promised to address the demands of the survivors of the dictatorship regimes. There was to be financial reparations, free medical and psychological care and recognition of the suffering the thousands of victims went through.
‘’We met with Evo Morales in 2003 to discuss law 2640’’ remembers Victoria Lopez. "He listened to us and we asked for his assistance and he helped get the law passed in the senate."
However, she claims relations soured after he became President. "He told us he would help get everything implemented but unfortunately since then (Morales) has forgotten that promise," according to Lopez.
For its part the government insists it is has complied with and fully implemented law 2640. Victims are still entitled to seek compensation but survivors say the bar has been set too high. Victims have to present proof of their injuries with detailed medical documents listing the injuries sustained when they were tortured. "Most of us don’t have these type of forms from thirty and forty years ago," says victim Victoria Lopez.
In March 2015 six national and international organizations reported Bolivia’s government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington due to the "insufficient progress of the Bolivian State" to clarify the facts of violation of human rights during dictatorial governments. They asked for reparations for the victims of political violence between 1964 and 1982.
Bolivia’s Minister of Justice, Virginia Velasco, says the government is still waiting for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to rule on the complaints raised by the victims. “There is a demand that has been raised at an international level and we are awaiting the outcome,’’ said Velasco.
The victims of three of Bolivia's most brutal military regimes say they'll keep on campaigning until they get justice.
''Why do we do it? Because many families have suffered in my country," says Victoria Lopez. "There is no justice, there is no truth commission, there is no political will by the current government to investigate all of these inhumane crimes.''
As the long wait for justice continues, there is fear that the lack of progress leaves Bolivia's thousands of dictatorship victims in limbo. Recognition and compensation from the authorities could take many years yet to finalize.
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