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Evo Morales arrives to Argentina and asks to be welcomed as a refugee Evo Morales travels to Cuba and the last of his final departure from Mexico to be installed in Argentina
diplomatic relations between Mexico and Bolivia have arrived to a new point of tension. The mexican Government has reported on Monday that its Embassy in La Paz has been under the stalking of dozens of security agents bolivians and their staff has been harassed and intimidated by the Police of the south american country. The mexican foreign ministry has said “concerned” that the violation of the immunity of its diplomatic representatives and demands to put an end to the “excessive surveillance” since the Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador made public the decision to give asylum to former president Evo Morales last November 11. “It is a concerted action against Mexico,” says Maximiliano Reyes, undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean. The mexican authorities claim to exclusive that there is a direct link between the harassment and the decision to grant asylum to nine officials of the Morales Government in the legation, mexico, that are under arrest warrants issued by the interim Government of Bolivia led by Janine Áñez.
The main target of the officials guarded is Juan Ramón Quintana, former minister of Government and one of the strongest men of Moral, pointing to diplomatic sources in THE COUNTRY. Ex-captain of the Army and a degree in Sociology, Quintana was a key man in the Cabinet of Morales, to occupy the portfolio of Government between 2006 and 2017, as well as from the beginning of 2019 until the departure of Morales last October. I was in charge of the management and administration of all activities presidential. Before, between 2017 and the beginning of the year he was ambassador of Bolivia in Cuba.
The interim Government accuses him of sedition and terrorism for purportedly instigating and funding the protests in favor of the Morales Government. The oil shocks of the followers with the Police and the Army have left at least 23 dead in the past three months. In October, when it still occupied the position of minister, Quintana had said that Bolivia will become “a Vietnam modern”, in allusion to the popular uprising that would be caused by the (then hypothetical) departure of Morales. This statement also forms part of your order of apprehension, which was filtered by the interim authorities in Bolivia at the end of November. “Let’s go to the hunt of Quintana,” said Áñez to mid-November. Six weeks after the siege continues, even in the legal limits of the Vienna Convention, the instrument that mediates the right of diplomatic representation between countries.
The list of officials kept in the mexican Embassy in La Paz is complete with Javier Zavaleta Lopez, a former minister of Defense; Hector Arce Zaconeta, exprocurador general; Félix César Navarro Miranda, former minister of Mining; Wilma Alanoca, minister of Cultures between 2017 and 2019; Hugo Moldiz, a former minister of the Government until 2015; Víctor Hugo Vásquez Mamani, a former governor of the department (province) of Oruro; Peter Damian Golden López, deputy minister of rural development, and Nicolás Laguna, director of the digital agency of the Government of Morales (Agetic). They are also under siege four diplomats from mexico: ambassador Teresa Market, the councilor Ana Luisa Vallejo, the second secretary Luis Guillermo Romero and the technical administrative Mariana Peña.
The common denominator of the five former ministers who sought asylum in the mexican Embassy in La Paz is that are part of the intimate circle of Moral and are accused of committing alleged acts of sedition against the interim Government. In Mexico is also Luis Arce Catacora, former minister of Economy, and one of the favourites of Moral to contend for the presidency, another source of tension between the two Governments. In turn, the Lagoon is sought by the Prosecution for his role in the alleged fraud committed in favor of Morales in the elections of the past October 20. Vásquez Mamani, for his part, is wanted for misuse of State property.
Agents bolivians outside the headquarters of Mexico in Peace. Government of Mexico
The mexican officials claim that the forces in bolivia have followed in their vehicles, they have made reviews unusual and they have been questioned with insistence on the agendas of official and personal from employees of the Embassy. The vehicle of the ambassador Market was also reviewed in an irregular manner, even when prohibited by the international law, has claimed the mexican foreign ministry in a letter sent to the Organization of American States (OAS). In addition, 150 elements of police and intelligence officers from the bolivian Ministry of the Interior, some heavily armed, surrounding also the official residence of Mexico in The Peace.
The fear of the mexican authorities is that there will be an assault to apprehend the officials asylees, which would be a serious violation of international norms and an escalation of tensions in both countries. “These people are acting worse than the worst dictatorships in central america and south america of the sixties and seventies,” claimed Reyes. “They are acting with so much malice because on the one hand accuse, threaten, and intimidate, and on the other they do not want to engage in the communication that the situation warrants,” says the assistant. “We are a country that is respectful of the diplomatic immunities”, has responded to the chancellor Karen Longaric, after qualify as “impossible” that forces bolivian take on the representation of mexico in Peace.
The mexican authorities rule out that they will break relations with the south american country, although they have gone to the United Nations, the OAS, the inter-American Commission on Human Rights and have been put on notice to the diplomatic offices of the hemisphere to promote what you advocate as an exit dialogue. But the Government of Áñez has sent signals that the pressure will not cease, and has already announced his intention to leave the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which will be hosted by Mexico next year.
Morales left Mexico in early December for asilarse in Argentina. The exmandatario made a stop in Cuba to attend a medical appointment before coming to Buenos Aires, last December 12. “A month ago I arrived to Mexico, a country brother that saved us life (…) Now arribé to Argentina, to continue fighting for the more humble and to unite the patria grande”, the president said upon landing. In the background of the dispute at stake are the political equilibrium in Latin america for the next year, as well as the perspectives and power struggles to close the presidential succession of Bolivia, despite the fact that there is still no date for the elections.
