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(CNN Spanish) - The Ministry of Government and the Police of Bolivia revealed on Tuesday the Anti-Terrorist Group (GAT) in La Paz, in order to "disarticulate subversive actions" in the country, according to Government Minister Arturo Murillo in the presentation act.
However, in that same event the police commander Rodolfo Montero specified that the new elite group “will be destined to dismantle the groups of foreigners who trained to sow terror to citizens,” said the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI ). The Government has not disclosed a consolidated official number of detainees or a discriminated list of foreigners identified.
Montero also reported that the GAT is made up of 60 personnel from the Delta operating units, in El Alto, central and South of the city. According to the ABI, the commander also said that in each department capital that specialized unit will be created, a group that receives orders directly from the Minister of Government.
The presentation of the GAT comes after the Bolivian government, through Minister Murillo, denounced on Monday an alleged terrorist conspiracy plan of political and social destabilization against some Latin American countries. Also, after the Prosecutor's Office revealed on November 29 that in the "post-election conflict" there were a total of 29 dead and 33 injured throughout the country.
So far, the Bolivian government has not given an exact number of how many foreigners have been arrested since the crisis broke out after Evo Morales resigned. However, at a press conference on November 30, the director general of Migration, Marcel Rivas, said that entity repatriated more than 300 citizens of Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba for remaining illegally in the country, according to the ABI.
Rivas did not specify how many of those returnees had crimes related to terrorism or political participation. However, according to the ABI, Rivas said that with the data of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Government, it will be possible to “identify those foreign citizens who have alarms in the International Police, complaints at international level for terrorism for drug trafficking” .
Lieutenant Colonel Óscar Gutiérrez, director of the Special Force for the Fight Against Crime in Santa Cruz reported on Monday that those involved in this alleged "terrorist" conspiracy have a guerrilla and narco-guerrilla background. Among them is Facundo Morales Schoenfeld, an Argentine who would be a member of the FARC and that according to Minister Murillo is being held in Palmasola prison, Santa Cruz.
Others linked to this investigation, according to Colonel Gutierrez, are Pedro Nel Carvajalino Amaya (a Colombian based in Venezuela who according to the Bolivian government is a specialist in generating media terrorism), Oswaldo Rivero Curvelo and Oscar Martín Cerna Ponce.
The government minister, Arturo Murillo, accused Nicolás Maduro that “through Diosdado Cabello, using his cousin, they have financed all the terror that Bolivians have experienced in recent days, the terror that Colombians, Chileans are experiencing and the Peruvians. " Murillo, however, did not offer evidence on this alleged Venezuelan interference in other countries of the continent.
#Live | Government Min., Arturo Murillo: It turns out that Mr. Maduro through Diosdado Cabello, using his cousin, has financed all the terror that Bolivians have experienced in recent days. pic.twitter.com/lQ3jNqjF6C
- Bolivia tv (@Canal_BoliviaTV) December 2, 2019
Before the accusations of the Bolivian government, the president of the National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, addressed Carvajalino in an act on Monday in Caracas. When he was about to finish his speech, which was broadcast live on state television, he took a moment to say: “Carvajalino, you weren't in Bolivia? I saw a Twitter that had sent you to Bolivia, that you were taking terrorist groups to Bolivia. Look at it here, ”and smiled.
CNN contacted the Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information in Venezuela seeking a response from the Maduro Government. We have not received an answer yet.
For his part, former president Evo Morales, in his condition of asylum in Mexico, expressed through his Twitter account that “the coup plotters who raided power in #Bolivia, now invent incredible stories to blame others for the terror that they themselves they are imposing from the State ”, and added that“ the propaganda laboratories of the coup regime want to convince the world of their shameful lies ”.
The coup plotters who assaulted power in #Bolivia, now invent incredible stories to blame others for the terror they themselves are imposing from the State. The only terrorist plan they are executing is them with blood and fire against all Bolivians.
- Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) December 3, 2019
Crisis in Bolivia