Last week, Bolivian president Luis Arce made his first state visit. He traveled to Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemned the coup of 2019 in Bolivia. Jointly, the two heads of state called on the Organization of American States (OAS), the organization that promoted the coup, “to respect democracy and not intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign countries.”

The fight for sovereignty continues today in Bolivia — as it does in Mexico — even after progressive government has been democratically returned to power after a general election last year. Former “interim” president Jeanine Áñez, as well as some of her closest associates, were arrested by Bolivian police last month, charged for crimes while in power. For the OAS and many in the international press, these arrests have been willfully misconstrued as revenge from the governing party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). But the violence of the coup regime demands to be brought to justice, and this is rightfully what is finally occurring.

When Jeanine Áñez’s regime ousted former president Evo Morales in November 2019, it wrought violence across the country. Protests in support of Morales seeking to protect his presidency were met with torture and bullets in an effort to consolidate a right-wing government.