They reveal they fired projectiles at the Mexican plane that rescued Evo Morales in 2019 | “They tried to assassinate us and they failed,” denounced the former Bolivian president.

a Mexican Air Force pilot (FAM) confirmed that there was assassination attempt against Evo Morales the day the former president fled Bolivia after the civil-military coup against his government. According to Miguel Eduardo Hernández, on November 11, 2019, he came to see “rocket launcher fire” that the plane carrying Morales managed to dodge. The Mexican pilot also noted that before takeoff several soldiers had tried to force the ex-president down from the plane.

The information known a little more than a year and a half after this coup d’état which interrupted the constitutional order in Bolivia was provided by the Secretariat of National Defense of Mexico based on the statement of the man who drove the plane in which Morales went into exile. The document in turn appears mentioned in the last book of the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, entitled Half-way.

“The putschists tried to assassinate us and they failed”, noted Evo Moral after knowing the revelations. For its part Gabriela Montaño, former Minister of Health of Bolivia who traveled in the same plane, assured in dialogue with Page 12: “Having this confirmation is like knowing that this year and a half that I can be with my family and my daughters is a gift of life. Then everything you’ve been through then turns around in your head, but is the ratification that he might not be here“.

The instant of the blows

According to Hernández’s account, when the plane took off to leave Bolivia projectiles were probably fired from Chimoré air base in Cochabamba. “During the initial climb, the pilot managed to observe from the left side of the cockpit a luminous trail similar to a rocket below the horizon ”, underlines the official report.

When he realized the situation, the pilot “makes a sharp turn on the other side of the projectile’s path increase the rate of climb to avoid impact, observing that the trace, well below the aircraft, parabola towards the ground without having reached the height they already had at that time, about three thousand feet at above ground ”.

The document adds that the “possible rocket could have come from the RPG launcher he observed at the airport”. He also notes that the incident was not communicated to the crew to avoid a rise in “the tension of the diplomatic mission which sought to rescue the former president and give him asylum in Mexico”.

In its story, the FAM says that since the plane landed in Chimoré, an “element of the Bolivian armed forces pointed a rocket launcher at the plane, constantly”. And he assured to have himself asked the putschists “on several occasions to stop pointing the finger at the plane”.

The moments before the flight

In the report published in López Obrador’s recent book, it is also mentioned that when the FAM plane arrived at the Bolivian airport, it was already evident that presence of “armed elements” on the site. Despite this Morales and his two companions, former vice-president Álvaro García Linera and former minister Gabriela Montaño, managed to board the plane. An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also traveled with them, Froylan Gámez Gamboa, who a few hours before leaving Mexico had been a father. “In human terms, it shows a wonderful commitment,” Montaño noted.

While everything was ready for take-off, the clearance was refused at the last minute and the aircraft had to return to its original position. According to the report, pilot Eduardo Hernández He tried to contact Mexican Secretary of National Defense Luis Crescencio Sandoval to report the situation. After trying unsuccessfully, armed subjects hit the pilot trying to twist his willpower.

“They ordered him to raise his arms, telling him to get Evo Morales off his plane. At this point, another of the individuals approached him from behind and hit him in the back with the butt of a long gun, tipo Garand (…) another of the individuals, also in uniform, struck his abdomen with the flamebreaker of a light automatic rifle, loading his weapon and pointing it at his chest, for no apparent reason, ”indicates the Mexican National Defense file. The tension ended after the pilot, again according to the report, addressed the pointing subject to say: soldier, the brave do not kill. “

However, the threats were repeated ten minutes later when another group of uniformed and armed civilians attempted to board the plane. According to the report, Hernández prevented him from doing so by standing in front of the access ladder. After persuading the attackers for several minutes, the pilot managed to put them in contact with the Bolivian general. Jorge Terceros Lara, currently detained for his role in the coup, who gave him 30 minutes for the plane to leave Bolivia.

“When the pilot got off the plane, there was a huge possibility that everything that had been accomplished so far would fail. My soul came back to my body when I saw him get on the plane again“Montaño comments on this newspaper. Once the trip began, Peru did not let the Mexican plane land to load fuel, so it had to do so in Asunción, Paraguay. Then he flew over Brazil and Peru but Ecuador blocked the passage, which is why he had to surround the country until finally reaching Mexico.

“They tried to murder us and they failed”

The information known in recent hours confirms the hypothesis of Moral, that from the beginning said he suffered an assassination attempt. A year and a half after leaving Bolivia, “more details of the November coup are revealed,” the former president said. “The putschists tried to assassinate us and since they failed, now they are trying to eliminate us politically”Morales added on his Twitter account.

For its part, Mountain he insisted that he wear “a little over a year and a half of a gifted life“In light of the revelations of the accidental flight, the former president of the Chamber of Deputies and Bolivian senators warned that”the will to kill is something that always stops your hair “ because whoever intends to take the life of another is ready for anything. “We saw him in the following days in massacres such as those in Sacaba and Senkata, which demonstrated brutal content humans already wish we had banned“, he expressed.