Luis Arce compared the 1971 military uprising led by Hugo Banzer with the overthrow of Evo Morales in 2019. | Photo: EFE

La Paz, August 22 (RHC)-- The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, announced this Saturday the installation of the Houses of Memory in different parts of the country with the purpose of not forgetting the massacres and serious violations of human rights that occurred during the dictatorship presided by Jeanine Áñez.

During a public meeting, the president compared the 1971 coup d'état, led by then Colonel Hugo Banzer, with the one that happened in 2019.  He assured that both had a similar objective -- that of appropriating natural resources, "also to fill their pockets with the hunger of the people."

That military uprising -- 50 years ago -- and the dictatorship that followed resulted in at least 468 deaths, 3,059 detainees, 1,922 people arrested, confined and exiled during the seven years of Banzer's military regime.

President Luis Arce asserted that "the objective of the dictatorship should never be forgotten, and that was the appropriation of natural resources and the wealth of our people," he said. 

Regarding the Houses of Memory, he explained that these institutions will be installed not only in La Paz, but also in other parts of the Andean country.  "They will serve to make known the struggles for democracy," he said.

He also expressed this Saturday his desire that the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) of La Paz becomes again a trench to resist and defeat the right-wing coup, as it was in the time of the military dictatorships.