by Enrico Tortolano
BOLIVIAN security forces stopped an assassination plot against President Evo Morales last week, killing two Balkan mercenaries and an Irishman in a half hour shoot-out in the opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz. Two others were captured after they exchanged gunfire with troops and detonated a grenade that blew out the windows of a hotel. Bolivian Police Commander Victor Hugo Escobar said they also confiscated explosives, high calibre weapons and plans to follow the president’s motorcade.
Mr Morales said he ordered the attack after receiving word of the plot against him and vice president Alvaro Garcia. “I had information several days before that they were preparing an assassination attempt,” Mr Morales told journalists. “I gave the vice president and the commander of the national police instructions to stage an operation and detain those mercenaries.”
The two arrested men were formally charged with “terrorism” by a court in La Paz, where they have been transferred, and state authorities say they have found evidence linking the cell to the Santa Cruz autonomy movement. Officials are now trying to find out who financed the plot and what foreign mercenaries – including two veterans of the Balkan wars – were doing in Bolivia.
Mr Morales also said he had asked US President Barack Obama to repudiate the plot – which he thinks might be linked to previous American-backed efforts to undermine him. If Mr Obama does not repudiate the conspiracy, “I might think it was organised through the US embassy”, Morales told reporters. “I don’t want meddling in my country”.
The new electoral code which President Morales had gone on hunger strike for has now been secured. He said: “Faced with the negligence of a bunch of neo-liberal lawmakers, I had no choice but to take this step [to go on hunger strike] because they didn’t want to pass a law that guarantees the implementation of the constitution”.
The new legislation, approved after nine hours of intense debate, allows Mr Morales to run for a second five-year term, although he has not formally announced his candidacy. It sets new standards for voter registration, gives minority indigenous groups eight seats in the new congress to be chosen in the December 6 election and allows Bolivians living abroad to participate in elections.
