NATIONAL REPORT 2016 Victim Stories Case of Chúa: In September 2014, ITEI conducted a psychological evaluation at the request of the Office of the Ombudsman. This evaluation was conducted on eight students (men and women) out of a sample of 81 students from the Tupac Katari Aymara Indigenous University, who had filed a complaint of torture and ill-treatment against the Bolivian army to the Ombudsman.12 The Vice-President of the University ordered students (44 women and 37 men) of the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences to do military exercises for one day. This was meant as a punishment measure because of their behaviour and was agreed with the military hierarchy. At 6am on 3 September 2014, the students were brought to the Marine Battalion in Chúa. During the day, they had to do exercises that were accompanied by insults, shouts, threats, and obscene comments against the women, who had to sing degrading sexists songs, repeating the words of an officer. They jeopardised the students´ health as they had not undertaken a medical military inspection. Two women fainted and another had to be brought to hospital the following day. The fear of sexual abuse had been latent throughout. But the worst thing occurred after 9 pm in darkness: at night, several students were beaten in sensitive parts of their bodies, they were kicked, the recruits walked over the students´ bodies and several women were groped. All of them were exposed to the excessive and dangerous use of tear gas. The students were threatened with death by the use of dynamite while the soldiers played funeral music. The officers said, “Let’s go to the cemetery”. The students found themselves in a world of arbitrary omnipotence in which the only salvation was being submissive. The Vice-President and the military hierarchy were taking advantage of the fact that the students were not aware of their rights, threatening them by saying that they would not pass their exams if they did not engage in the military exercises. The evaluation conducted by ITEI exposed these facts and highlighted the impact on eight students and was read out loud to all of the 81 students. Finding the right words to explain what has happened had a therapeutic function because they had to recount their suffering and, importantly, they recognised that they were not insane. It was formulated and written down. They felt “rehabilitated” with the help of their complaint. The act of sharing collectively what they had experienced helped them to confront and assume publically the humiliating situation of impotence and to surmount the shame they had. The psychological evaluation was a public recognition of what they were exposed to and suffered from. It became a tool to explain what had happened to their families, their communities and to the administration of the University. At the time of writing, the students and their parents have received acknowledgement of their accusations and managed to have the Vice Rector dismissed. page 9 Finding the right words to explain what has happened had a therapeutic function because they had to recount their suffering and, importantly, they recognised that they were not insane...They felt “rehabilitated” with the help of their complaint.