Argentina: Former president Macri had sent weapons to Bolivia

The Argentine government criminally denounced former President Mauricio Macri for the alleged illegal shipment of weapons and ammunition to Bolivia for the repression of street protests amid the political and social crisis that shook the neighboring country at the end of 2019.

The brief, presented on Monday before the federal justice of Buenos Aires, indicates that the donation in different quantities of cartridges, tear gas spray and gas grenades was intended to “put this repressive material at the disposal of the dictatorship that had just taken the power in the neighboring country headed by Jeanine Áñez after the coup “.

According to the Alberto Fernández government version, the irregular shipment of the material occurred on November 12, 2019 “through an adulteration in the quantities and destinations declared in the different control instances and in particular before the customs service.”

“The institutional gravity of the event is consolidated by noting that the material sent had as its final destination the armed forces that days before had overthrown the constitutional government of then-President Evo Morales, and that days after the shipment would commit multiple Human Rights violations, among them, the remembered ´masacres´ (as described by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) of Sacaba and Senkata”, according to the complaint.

Bolivia is in an open controversy in which the current government of Luis Arce and the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) party accuse the opposition of having committed a coup. For their part, opponents say that Morales perpetrated an electoral fraud that sparked protests among supporters and opponents of the former president that left 36 dead.

Áñez has been in jail for four months, accused of sedition, terrorism and conspiracy.

The alleged shipment of weapons and ammunition to the neighboring country two years ago was revealed last week by Bolivian Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta, who presented as evidence an alleged letter of thanks that the former commander of the Bolivian Air Force, General Gonzalo Terceros, sent him to then Argentine ambassador in La Paz.

For the Argentine government, the illegal shipment of ammunition to Bolivia falls within “the possible commission of smuggling crimes aggravated by the number of people involved, by the quality of public officials, by the participation of a customs service official, and because they are weapons and ammunition of war, in competition with the crimes of embezzlement of public funds, abuse of authority and crimes that compromise the peace and dignity of the Nation”.

Macri (2015-2019) denied the accusation and said that the only action his government took during the political and social conflict in the neighboring country was to offer asylum “in the Argentine embassy to Evo Morales officials and even their families, along with journalists. Argentines assigned in that country ”.

“Everything said is false. Everything is a lie,” the ex-president defended himself in a letter published days ago on social networks, and pointed out that it is a maneuver mounted by his successor Fernández to “divert attention from the failure to manage the pandemic, from economic failure and of the failure of vaccine management”.