With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Hidden cells reveal Bolivia's dark past

"There is no beginning without an end, but you will pay me back," reads an engraving on the wall of a dark and humid room in the basement of a government building in Bolivia's administrative capital, La Paz.

Next to it, stains of blood drawing four fingertips seem like grim blemishes, not at all adornments. Bolivia is unearthing this dark part of its past.

The left-wing government of Evo Morales has recently discovered what his government calls"the horror chambers" - torture cells found by chance when contractors uncovered blocked off hallways in the basement of the Ministry of the Interior.

Those hallways led to cells where around 2,000 political prisoners were held and tortured during the 1971-1978 military rule under General Hugo Banzer.

Read entire article at BBC