Bolivia denounces assassination attempt on Luis Arce one year ago

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Minister of Government of Bolivia, Eduardo del Castillo, denounced this Monday (18) that less than a year ago there was an assassination attempt against the president, Luis Arce, when he had not yet taken office, in which those responsible for the death of the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, were allegedly involved.

Through a report by the Intercept news magazine, it became known that the former interim government had planned to assassinate Luis Arce while he was still president, which was confirmed by the Bolivian government through evidence presented by Del Castillo.

#Urgente: Ministro Gobierno, Eduardo del Castillo, revela que mercenarios que asesinaron a Pdte de #Haiti, se hospedaron en hotel Presidente de La Paz, cercano a Plaza Murillo, y en el Hotel Marriot donde sostuvieron reuniones con altos funcionarios del gobierno de facto en 2020. pic.twitter.com/TsynkSTfmT

— Rolando Segura (@rolandoteleSUR) October 18, 2021

In this regard, the government had access to audios, contract models. It intercepted e-mails that attributed the former Minister of Defense of Jeanine Áñez, Fernando López, with the destabilization plan.

Del Castillo mentioned the Colombian Germán Alejandro Rivera García, who was arrested for the assassination in Haiti, but who -according to the government- entered Bolivia by the Colombia-Viru Viru route on October 16, 2020, that is, two days before the elections .

He also indicated that between October 16 and 19, 2020, Colombians Arcángel Pretel Ortiz and Antonio Intriago entered the country, both with the route United States-Viru Viru. The Minister described Pretel as “the liaison” of the Miami-based security company Counter Terrorist Unit Security (CTU).

International press reports state that Pretel was the recruiter for the assassination in Haiti.
“We believe that the way to solve our conflicts is not violence and even less bringing hitmen to the interior of the Plurinational State,” considered the Minister of Government.

“… and, particularly, we understand that, according to information we are providing, that Mr. Lopez Julio had the objective of keeping power by killing Bolivians by hiring foreign hired assassins,” assured Del Castillo.

“These people (the mercenaries) would have had an initial annual contract of 125,000 US dollars or 10,416 dollars per month (…),” he denounced.

“There was a whole armed strategy to prevent the rise of President Luis Arce and to hijack our democracy, the contracts, the amounts, the resumes of the people involved, even the weapons they planned to use to kill Bolivian men and women,” he claimed.