Local civilians in El Alto, Bolivia, detained three Cuban nationals and handed them over to police on Wednesday, who found evidence that the foreigners were paying people to riot on behalf of the nation’s socialist party.
The revelation follows the arrests of several Venezuelan and Cuban citizens among the thousands rioting in El Alto and La Paz, the seat of the executive branch, and the positive identification of a man injured during protests two weeks ago as an Argentine member of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group.
Members of anti-socialist groups who organized peaceful protests against the fraudulent October 20 presidential election also revealed this week that they have seen “people with white faces,” believed to be Cuban and Venezuelan nationals, serving as snipers targeting anti-socialists amid orchestrated riots.
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales ran for a fourth term in office in the October 20 election after forcing the nation’s constitutional court to find that he had a “human right” to run despite constitutional term limits. This weekend, the Organization of American States (OAS) published their preliminary findings from a probe of that election that amassed significant evidence of election fraud. Morales responded to the report by voluntarily resigning, fleeing to Mexico, then declaring that he was the victim of a “coup.”
Morales called on followers of his party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), to take the streets of Bolivia’s major cities and prevent another government from forming. Nearly 50 high-ranking members of his government also resigned and defected to Mexico, claiming violent threats against them, leaving Bolivia without a president for nearly three days.
On Tuesday, the constitutional court approved the appointment of Senator Jeanine Áñez interim president of the country who, as deputy senate president, was the highest person the chain of command left in the country. Áñez is a staunch religious conservative and has vowed to organize free and fair elections as soon as possible, but must first build a government out of those remaining in the country. She appointed a conservative cabinet late Wednesday, as Morales took his MAS supporters out of the country with him.
Bolivia’s Página Siete newspaper, which has been out of print all week due to socialist attacks on its offices, reported on Wednesday that police have confirmed that three individuals arrested were Cuban nationals, found to be carrying $13,000 in cash in a backpack in their vehicle. The neighbors who corralled the suspects told police that they witnessed the three handing out cash to rioters in exchange for looting, burning down, and otherwise destroying neighborhoods in the city.
Two of the arrested have been identified as Amparo Lourdes García Buchaca and Ramón Emilio Álvarez Cepero, employees at the Cuban embassy in the country.
INTERVENCIÓN CASTROCHAVISTA EN #BOLIVIA Detienen a funcionarios cubanos por incentivar protestas violentas en Bolivia. Tres de los cuatro detenidos son personal técnico de la Embajada de #Cuba en Bolivia, como integrantes de la Brigada Médica Cubana. https://t.co/SvddwmvC2R
— CarlosSanchezBerzain (@Csanchezberzain) November 14, 2019
The suspects claimed they planned to give the cash not to socialist rioters, but to Cuban slave doctors present in Bolivia.
Cuba runs a global slave doctor network in which it sends its medical personnel to friendly countries to work in areas where native doctors feel too unsafe to do so. The doctors do not get paid living wages and often fabricate statistics to make them appear more productive than they actually are, according to doctors who have escaped to the United States.
The Cuban outlet ADN Cuba reported on Thursday that Bolivian police had arrested a fourth Cuban national, this one identified as Idalberto Delgado Baro, on charges of similarly paying people to loot businesses and burn down homes. Delgado reportedly also carried a bag full of cash on him – a little over $10,000 – and identified himself as part of the “technical personnel” of the Cuban slave doctor network in the country.
Arrestaron al responsable de los pagos a personas que ejercían actos vandálicos, demostrando así que no hay tales…
Posted by Ahora Con Roxana on Wednesday, November 13, 2019
The Cubans join three Venezuelan nationals police identified among 25 rioters arrested in La Paz on Tuesday. Police officials said the group had amassed bags of dynamite and AN/FO, an industrial explosive, and that “most of these people have criminal records.”
“We have captured three Venezuelans, blended into the crowd … yes, there are foreigners infiltrating these protests,” a police official told the Bolivian network Unitel.
Policía de #Bolivia informa que detuvieron 25 personas (entre ellos 3 venezolanos) en los operativos conjuntos con las Fuerzas Armadas anoche en La Paz.
Algunos de los detenidos portaban dinamitas y otros objetos presuntamente para causar destrozos.
Vía @unitelbolivia #12Nov pic.twitter.com/vxnhoZpq77
— Gabriel Bastidas (@Gbastidas) November 12, 2019
Conservative community organizer Marco Pumari alleged in an interview with CNN en Español Wednesday that some of these foreigners are operating as snipers, targeting anti-socialists who have come out in the streets to protest the Morales supporters’ riots. During a march by miners demanding a free a fair election, “they faced a vile attack by snipers, allegedly from indigenous original peoples’ communities in Potosí.”
“We have seen through images that there are people disguised … people with white skin disguised as peasants, shooting at the caravan of miners marching towards La Paz,” Pumari alleged. “They are snipers that I do not believe for one minute are peasants.”
“There have been arrests of Cuban and Venezuelan people, identified as such, that clearly shows a joint operation,” he concluded, “An operation not just executed by militants of the socialist movement … there have been Cuban people instructing peasants to conduct these attacks.”
Joining the Cubans has been at least one Argentine national: Facundo Molares Schoenfeld, a member of the FARC terrorist organization. Police revealed on Thursday that Molares appears to have been hired by yet-unknown individuals to travel into Bolivia and teach Morales supporters terrorist tactics and help generate violence.
Newly minted Defense Minister Arturo Murillo warned late Wednesday, following his appointment, that his government would prosecute foreign agitators “to the fullest extent of the law.” Asked about Molares, he said, “he’s not the only one.”
“There are FARC people, there are Cubans, Venezuelans, guerrilla people who have been living here,” he noted. “All these people, we will target to the fullest extent of the law. Bolivia cannot be suffering because of these people – foreigners who come to this country to kill Bolivians.”
The arrests of foreign non-indigenous leftists contradict the image that Morales and his MAS party have been fabricating of the thousands-strong mob that attacked La Paz on Tuesday and Wednesday. Interviews with indigenous members of that mob indicated that they were marching into town seeking vengeance after a video circulated on social media of unidentified individuals burning the Wiphala flag, an official flag of the state of Bolivia that represents its 36 indigenous communities. The mob has demanded “the heads” of conservative leaders and adopted “here we go, civil war” as their marching chant.
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