Añez Regime Sought Weapons from US and UK to Repress Bolivians

The coup administration of Jeanine Añez wrote to the embassies of the United States and United Kingdom, making requests for military aid, presumably to “repress the Bolivian people,” according to Bolivia’s Deputy Minister of Citizen Security, Roberto Ríos, who displayed the letters before the Bolivian press.

The request for supplies was made at a time when a second coup was being prepared with the participation of foreign mercenaries, renegade police squads and vigilante mobs who sought to prevent a Luis Arce Presidency, with plans to assassinate him if necessary. This coup plot was led by former defacto Minister of Defense, Luis Fernando López Julio.

“The de facto Government, through Vice Minister Wilson Santamaría, made the request for equipment and weapons to the American embassy and the British embassy, ​​three weeks before the 2020 general elections,” Ríos denounced.

On September 25, 2020, Santamaría, outside of his legal powers, addressed a note to the British Ambassador in which he requested “pistols, cartridges, gas grenades , complete uniforms, gas masks, night goggles, thermals, binoculars, helmets, protective suits and equipment that it considers important for the Bolivian National Police in order to defend the integrity of the Bolivian people, its territory and security ”.

According to the documentation presented, in May 2020 a letter was addressed to the US diplomatic representative in Bolivia, Bruce Williamson, Charge d’Affaires, asking him to meet a request “in order to defend the integrity of the Bolivian people and their territory.”

The original letter sent to the US embassy adds that “the assignment of the equipment, description and justification of the equipment” is attached as annexes, however, the details of these additions have not yet been found in the archives of the Ministry of Government.

Whether the United States and Great Britain granted such weapons and supplies has not been established, but the official requests by the Añez regime “give us clear indications that all this weaponry, this equipment and everything that they requested from other authorities was going to presumably to be used to repress the Bolivian people and what is most striking is that it was requested weeks before the 2020 general elections,” said the Vice Minister.

These efforts to obtain weapons before the elections, in which Arce was the favorite, took place alongside preparations for a second coup, with the participation of foreign mercenaries, to prevent the now President of Bolivia from democratically assuming command of the country. A report by The Intercept in June elaborates on some of the plan to deploy hundreds of mercenaries from the United States to prevent the MAS from returning to the presidency. Evo’s former Minister of Economy won with 55.11% support.

By Kawsachun News with information from Agencia Boliviana de Información