Federico Mayol
07/12/2021 18:50
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 07/12/2021 6:50 PM
In the run-up to the electoral campaign, the Government made it clear on Monday
that it is willing to go to the lengths against the previous administration
for the shipment of arms and ammunition to Bolivia days after the forced departure of Evo Morales, in November 2019, and passed the ball to Justice.
The ministers of Justice and Security, Martín Soria and Sabina Frederic,
and the federal administrator of Public Revenues,
Mercedes Marcó del Pont,
criminally denounced Mauricio Macri and the former ministers Patricia Bullrich, Jorge Faurie and Oscar Aguad, and a handful of former officials
for "contraband aggravated"
by the "irregular shipment of arms and ammunition" to that country "through an adulteration in the quantities and destinations declared in the different control instances and, in particular, before the customs service".
The complaint, of 20 pages, was presented this Monday in the federal courts of Comodoro Py after an investigation by Customs and the Ministry of Security for the temporary export of war material in November 2019 - it must be re-entered into the country - that both The former President and Bullrich justified as part of the shipment to guard the Argentine embassy in Bolivia, a presentation of the Casa Rosada that they rejected outright.
"This public complaint gave rise to a series of administrative investigations by the current National Government of our country, through which information and documentation were collected that corroborates the shipment of the material - which was intended to cover up under the need to protect the Argentine Embassy - and its subsequent diversion to the Bolivian armed forces, "the Government highlighted in the letter.
In addition to Macri and the aforementioned former ministers,
officials included Normando Álvarez García, former ambassador to Bolivia;
Jorge Dávila, former Director General of Customs;
Eugenio Cozzi,
former Executive Director of the ANMaC -the former RENAR, the body that authorized the shipment of the material-;
Gerardo Otero, former director of the Gendarmerie;
Rubén Yavorski, former Major Commander Director of Logistics of the Gendarmerie, and Carlos Miguel Recalde, former Director of the Gendarmerie Operations Directorate.
For the Government, the action of the previous administration constitutes an event of "institutional gravity" that could also be framed in the crimes of "abuse of authority" and "embezzlement of public funds".
Alberto Fernández with Evo Morales.
"The material sent had as its final destination the armed forces that days before had overthrown the constitutional government of then-President Evo Morales, and that days after the shipment would commit multiple Human Rights violations, among them, the remembered 'massacres' of Sacaba and Senkata ", abounded in the complaint.
"This support sought to be concealed from the beginning, through concealment maneuvers that tried to disguise it in an alleged objective of providing physical security for the facilities and officials of the Argentine Embassy in Bolivia. However, part of the material sent was diverted and made available to the Bolivian dictatorship, "they abounded.
The information was released in the middle of last week by the Bolivian government that showed a letter from the then commander general of the Air Force of that country addressed to Ambassador Álvarez García, dated November 13, 2019, where he thanked him for the reception of ammunition, tear gas and gas grenades sent by the Cambiemos administration.
In the first instance, both Bullrich and other former officials justified the shipment as part of a logistical task aimed at preserving the Argentine embassy in Bolivia, the integrity of officials and journalists, and even former ministers of the Morales government.
"Pain and shame" were Alberto Fernández's first words once the Luis Arce government released the news, which provoked a barrage of criticism from Macri and Bullrich.
"It's all a lie," the former president wrote in a letter on his social networks.
The presentation lists in detail the authorizations and records issued then by the Gendarmerie, the Ministry of Security and the ANMaC with the export of the materials, procedures and training of the Bolivian forces.
According to the complaint, there are inconsistencies between what was declared and what was received
in the first weeks of November 2019, transported in a Hercules plane that left the El Palomar airport with a group of eleven members of the Alacrán de la Gendarmería special group.
"The Bolivian Police accepts the authorization requests presented by the Argentine representation in that country. In the first one, dated November 12, 2019, and in relation to material that would be transported 'on November 12-14. of the present management, in a Hercules aircraft, belonging to the Argentine Air Force '(according to the authorization itself), a variety of controlled materials are reported. Among them, the quantity of' CARTRIDGES CAL 12/70 'is reduced to 3,600 cartridges , of which 2,250 would be PG cartridges and 1,350 would be AG cartridges. As can be seen, the number is far from the 70,000 cartridges of this type that the National Gendarmerie informed the ANMAC and the Argentine Customs that it would allocate to the protection of the Argentine Embassy. ", they emphasize.
In the Casa Rosada hypothesis,
the material sent does not match what is officially registered. Neither does his re-entry into the country.
"Under the supposed cloak of legality of that measure, it carried out criminal activities in support of the seditious group that had overthrown the democratic government days before. The improvised and illegal decision was reflected in the documents requesting authorization for the transfer of controlled material on 12 December. November, in which they decided to add to the transfer of personnel and original security material, a completely disproportionate additional order of ammunition and grenades for civil repression operations. The destination of this extension request was undoubtedly different from that of the custody of the Argentine embassy and truly unspeakable ", remarked Soria, Frederic and Marcó del Pont among the conclusions.
Customs, according to official sources, must now deepen the investigation into the functions that the agents of that body may have failed to fulfill.
El Palomar, at that time, was in charge of Javier Zabaljauregui, Deputy Director General of Metropolitan Customs Operations, who currently continues in the same position.
Look also
Alberto Fernández assured Luis Arce that he feels "very ashamed" for the alleged sending of repressive material to Bolivia
"Pain and shame": harsh response from Patricia Bullrich to Alberto Fernández for the complaint of sending repressive material to Bolivia
