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News > Argentina

Ex-President Macri Took Part in Arms Smuggling to Bolivia

  • Former President Mauricio Macri, Argentina.

    Former President Mauricio Macri, Argentina. | Photo: Twitter/ @Mario_Moray

Published 19 August 2021
Opinion

In November 2019, Argentina's National Agency of Controlled Materials authorized the shipment of weapons to Bolivia to allegedly protect the Argentine embassy in La Paz.

On Wednesday, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez expanded his complaint about the illegal shipment of war material to Bolivia’s 2019 coup-born regime of Jeanine Añez by former President Mauricio Macri.

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"The official documents found in recent weeks give an account of facts that reinforce the timely denunciation: Macri ordered and directly organized the smuggling maneuver through the police," stated the Fernandez administration. The new evidence also shows that former Chairman of the Council of Ministers Marcos Peña, ex-foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Faurie, and former Strategic Affairs Secretary Fulvio Pompeo took part in the crime.

On Nov. 11, 2019, Argentina's National Agency of Controlled Materials (ANMC) authorized the shipment of weapons to Bolivia to allegedly protect the Argentine embassy in La Paz. The following day, the Police ratified that authorization.

The new war material comprised 70,000 anti-tumult ammunition and 121 gas grenade and tear gas spray, all of which coincided with the armament that the Bolivian Police and Air Force used to suppress social protests against the coup d'etat in that country. 

That day, the ex-Argentine President met with Peña and Pompeo to coordinate the instrumentalization of the smuggling with the security forces. Macri also met with Faurie, who afterward requested the sending of gendarmes to the embassy in writing as an alibi to hide the true purpose of the war material.

Currently, the Argentine economic criminal jurisdiction investigates the illegal shipment of weapons. Its Prosecutor Claudio Navas Rial will have to decide whether to formulate new charges against the abovementioned officials before the extension of the complaint.

In 2019, at least 37 people lost their lives in Bolivia due to the brutal police repression unleashed on protesters. Massacres were committed during the first days of Añez’s regime in Sacaba and Senkata city under a decree that freed police and military personnel from any responsibility for the murders.

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