Del Castillo: “We do not have any transcendental element that demonstrates the participation of other countries in the coup”
21 July 2021
After various official statements that point to regional Governments as participants in the alleged coup d’État in 2019, the Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, clarified that, so far, they do not have “any transcendental element” that supports such hypothesis. However, there is evidence of a meeting between diplomatic authorities, in which there was already talk of fraud in the general elections.
“Initially what we have is that in July 2019, long before the electoral calendar was approved in our country, there was a meeting between an official of (Donald) Trump’s Government with several Ambassadors from the region, including Argentina, Brazil, Peru, [and] the European Union. There, the Trump administration official stated that there was going to be electoral fraud in Bolivia. Basically, they were following a common thread and a manual that had been approved,” said Del Castillo, in an interview with the Argentine Newspaper Página 12.
“Currently we do not have any transcendental element that demonstrates the participation of other countries in the coup d’État, we only have these cables from the United States and then we have the participation of Ecuador and Argentina with the delivery of weapons. (…) We have preliminary reports that show that intelligence groups from different countries have operated,” he added.
Regarding the case of Argentina, where processes have already been initiated against former authorities of the Government of Mauricio Macri, Del Castillo affirmed that the former Argentine President or former members of his administration have not yet been included in the investigations for arms trafficking; however, it is something that cannot be ruled out.
“This will be determined by the investigations as they progress. Initially, we have presented a complaint to the Bolivian justice to investigate the former Commander of the Bolivian Police, Colonel Yuri Calderon, and also the former Commander of the Air Force, General Jorge Terceros Lara. We are also seeing that there has been the participation of Argentine representatives.”
In turn, the Minister explained that Argentina sent 70,000 rubber cartridges, but that the whereabouts of 3,100 of them is unknown. The hypothesis is that they were used in Senkata and Sacaba.
“The Argentine Government record tells us that 70,000 rubber cartridges would have been sent. This was never legally interned in our national territory. We are going to continue investigating this because we are aware that 26,900 went to the Bolivian Police, 40,000 to the Air Force and we are investigating where the difference went,” he revealed. “One of the first hypotheses that we are handling is that the difference would have been used in the repressions of Senkata and Sacaba. Initially, we are investigating whether it was granted to paramilitary groups, representatives of the armed forces, or the Bolivian Police. We have already ruled out that additional material has entered the Bolivian Police and, therefore, we are awaiting the corresponding reports and verifications ‘in situ’ to see if this armament is not in another place.”
