They denounce Lenín Moreno for sending material …

Correista lawmaker Fausto Jarrín denounced the former President of Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, for the allegedly irregular sending of “tear gas and projectiles of different types to the Bolivian police in exchange for nothing”. This armament was delivered in November 2019, while Jeanine Áñez’s de facto government cracked down on thousands of Bolivians who rejected the coup against Evo Morales. According to Jarrin, “Arbitrary disposition of public resources” should bring Moreno and other former officials of his government to trial for the crime of peculation. The complaint was presented to the Ecuadorian prosecutor’s office and Jarrín’s wish, member of the Union for Hope (UNES), is that the cause is coordinated with the legal actions that have already been generated in Bolivia and the United States.

Support for brutal repression

Thanks to official documents to which Luis Arce’s government had access, it was learned that Ecuador had handed over repressive material to the Áñez regime at the height of the protests in Bolivia. In order to Vase, defense lawyer for former President Rafael Correa in various cases, two elements deserve to be underlined. ” The first is irregular delivery of this material, in order to At the moment, it is not known in what quality it was delivered, being configured in an arbitrary arrangement of public resources.. The second is that With this irregular delivery, he supported the brutal crackdown that dictator Áñez carried out against the Bolivian people., to become manifest interference in internal affairs of the neighboring country ”, declared the legislator in dialogue with Page 12.

The loan of gas and ammunition from Ecuador was requested by the Áñez regime just two days after the start of its interim administration.. When the former senator assumed the presidency without a quorum in Congress on November 12, 2019, Bolivian police have suffered a shortage of tear gas.

The need to arm themselves to confront the protesters who repudiated the impeachment of Evo Morales led to then government minister Arturo Murillo to purchase “non-lethal police supplies” that were collected in Ecuador by a Hercules C-130 aircraft of the Bolivian Air Force. According to the Bolivian government, The cargo arrived in the country “with a low profile” on November 16, 2019, the day after the Sacaba massacre and three days before the Senkata massacre, which left a toll of 21 dead and around 200 injured as a result of police and military crackdown.

A few weeks ago, a letter dated May 2020 from the former Ecuadorian police commander, Hernán Patricio Carrillo Rosero, to the defense attache of the Bolivian Embassy in Ecuador, José Frías, was published in Bolivia. . In her, The policeman asked the diplomat to return “5,000 GL-302 hand grenades; 2,389 long-range 37mm projectiles; 560 37 mm caliber short range projectiles and 500 sound and flash grenades for outdoor use ”. that his institution had lent to Bolivia. The cost of this ammunition would be around nine million Bolivian pesos ($ 1.3 million).

Vase held that he learned of the existence of the loan “just after Arturo Murillo was involved in an international corruption scheme linked to the purchase of police equipment”. Former Bolivian government minister was arrested in the United States in May on charges of corruption and money laundering in an investigation into the payment of $ 5.6 million for the purchase of gas tear gas in 2019. However, Murillo has reportedly already been released after reaching a deal with the United States attorney’s office.

According to the Ecuadorian legislator, For the loan to Bolivia, former President Lenín Moreno, his then government minister, María Paula Romo, and senior Ecuadorian armed forces and police officials could be involved.. “We have requested that international criminal assistance be requested from Bolivia and the United States, where investigations are already advanced. We hope that the Ecuadorian authorities will cooperate with the investigations carried out in these countries,” Jarrín said.

Until, no Ecuadorian government ministry or agency has spoken about the case. In this sense, Jarrín fears that the “accomplice authorities who took care of Moreno while he was in office” could hinder the investigation that should be undertaken by the prosecution. “We do not trust our justice, but it is time that it stopped being selective and acted in law and on the merits of the elements of conviction that can be obtained”, the lawyer told this newspaper.

A week ago, the minister of the government of Bolivia, Edward del Castillo, said he suspected the Ecuadorian shipment contained weapons for military use. “We have seen that the Ecuadorian government loaned tear gas to Ms Áñez’s government. However, we have unofficial information that he also provided high caliber ammunition“, remarked del Castillo to local reporters.

Former Ecuadorian Minister María Paula Romo confirmed loan of “riot gear” to Bolivian police, but denied that they were weapons of war. Romo added to Ecuadorian newspaper Express that “cooperation between police officers is common.” In the same vein, the General Commander of the Ecuadorian Police expressed, Tannya varela. Asked by the Teleamazonas channel, Varela pointed out: “We do not use lethal weapons, we use tear gas and the like that are used to control public disturbances”.

But the deputy Vase he specifies that this does not imply that the borrowed material is harmless. “In Ecuador and Bolivia, people were suffocated with this material and others were mutilated.. In Ecuador, at least a dozen people have lost an eye due to impacts with “non-lethal weapons” and they are even capable of causing death by impacts ”, declared the leader of UNES, while recalling that precisely because of the “brutality” in the use of riot equipment the Ecuadorian assembly sacked former minister Romo in November 2020.

Like the Condor plan

Jarrín does not hesitate to compare this “collaboration” between Ecuador and Bolivia with the Condor Plan applied decades ago by dictatorships in the region to coordinate repression and state terrorism. “International cooperation to support coups d’état like the one in Bolivia is a wake-up call. Unfortunately, what is harmed is the rule of law and civil society who have seen to what extent this type of foreign interference undermines the will of the people at the polls. It happened in the 1970s and I think that’s the greatest similarity we have from the news, ”the lawyer warned.