On 24 May 2008, the city of

Sucre Sucre () is the Capital city, capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the List of cities in Bolivia, 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . T ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

, experienced clashes, hostage-taking, assaults, and alleged public humiliation against primarily

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

rural leaders and their supporters. The events arose from an announced visit from President

Evo Morales Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019. Widely regarded as the country's first president to co ...

, during which he was scheduled to preside over the donation of ambulances to rural municipalities of Chuquisaca, the department of which Sucre is the capital. Prior to the planned visit, the civic movement led by the Inter-Institutional Committee and the Chuquisaca Civic Committee demanded that Morales apologize to the families of three Sucre residents who were killed in November 2007 clashes outside the final meetings of the

Bolivian Constituent Assembly The most recent Constituent assembly of Bolivia was the Constituent Assembly of 2006–07, which drafted a new Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis ...

. These organizations planned disruptive protests of Morales' visit. However, under pressure from the protests, Morales decided on May 24 not to attend the presentation. Participants in the civic movement protests then engaged in street clashes with peasants that came to Sucre to counter the local protestors. During the afternoon, several dozen indigenous peasants were marched by civic movement protesters to Sucre's central square, the Plaza 25 de Mayo. There, they were punched, threatened, forced to strip off their shirts and kneel, subjected to alleged racist insults, and supposedly publicly humiliated in various ways. The incident heightened political and racial tensions in Bolivia, then in the midst of a political conflict between Morales and the CONALDE group of governors. On the second anniversary of the violence, May 24, 2010, the first public draft of Bolivia's Law Against Racism was presented. In May 2011, Bolivia's Law 139 established May 24 as Bolivia's National Day against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination.

Trial

A large number of officials in the Inter-Institutional Committee and Sucre's municipal government were indicted for conspiring in the violence in April and May 2010. Former Inter-Institutional Committee president

Jaime Barrón Jaime Barrón Poveda (born 1959 in Sucre) is former mayor of the city of Sucre, Bolivia, representing the Pact of Social Integration (PAÍS) political party, which is closely aligned with the Inter-Institutional Committee of Chuquisaca. Following hi ...

, who had recently been elected mayor, was suspended by the City Council and later resigned in the wake of the indictments., however the trials advanced slowly. An initial trial, held in Sucre, was dissolved in August 2012 after two of the presiding judges resigned from the case. A second trial was then held in the town of Padilla. The trial of fourteen people accused of orchestrating or participating in the May 24 violence ended in March 2016. Prosecutor Lisandro Álvarez sought 15 year sentences for the defendants, and the victims asked for 30 years. The verdicts and sentences issued by judge Hoffman Padilla Blacutt were as shown below. All sentences will be discounted for time already served in jail. On November 11, 2016, the Departmental Tribunal of Justice ruled on an appeal by the defendants, extending these sentences in 10 of the 13 cases.

Trial

References

Further reading