Who caused the violence? Timeline of event discarding much of the rhetoric blaming the "opposition"
- Carolina Monroy Rosso
- Nov 13, 2019
- 3 min read
There were no increasingly violent protests over Evo Morales’ claim to have won the presidential election on October 20. There were mass peaceful protests throughout the country after it became blatantly clear that his political party had staged a fraudulent election. A civil strike was held in a number of cities, shutting down traffic throughout the cities. The violence that has been reported has been caused by Evo Morales’ supporters, incited by Evo Morales and his ministers.
The first attack happened in Montero, a town to the north of Santa Cruz when a horde of paid thugs from the coca growing region, Evo Morales’ bastion, attacked. Amongst the violent horde were armed individuals who fired at the local population who were defending the town. Five people from the defenders were shot and wounded. A second attack led to two fatalities from gunshot wounds of the defending population. Dozens were injured by the attacking force.
The next serious outbreak of violence took place in Cochabamba. Again, masses of Evo Morales supporters marched into the city with the express intention of causing injury and destruction. They were repelled by the local population on five separate occasions, mainly by an organized force of students and other young Cochabambinos on motorbikes. There was one more fatality, a young 20 year old, killed by the Evo Morales supporters. Again, there were dozens injured.
Further violence took place in the city of El Alto, again instigated by supporters of Evo Morales, bussed in from the coca growing region by Evo Morales’ government for this purpose. El Alto is just a few kilometers from the capital, La Paz. The marauding thugs marched into the city and attacked the students and La Paz population who were demonstrating peacefully. Again, there were dozens injured among the defenders.
11 buses transported students and miners from Sucre and Potosi to La Paz. The buses were ambushed by Evo Morales supporters on the road between Potosi and Oruro. The buses had all their windows broken, students and miners were captured, stripped naked and beaten up by Evo Morales supporters. Further along the journey, they were ambushed again, this time by an armed mob and with snipers amongst them. This resulted in two fatalities and five injured with bullet wounds. Through pressure from the population, the armed forces took action, sent jets to fly over the zone and sent ground troops to rescue the students and miners.
After Evo Morales resigned on Sunday, the mob from El Alto descended again to the city of La Paz and attacked businesses and private property, torching 31 buses, and set fire to the house of Waldo Albarrazin, one of the leaders of the opposition. The hordes threatened to attack the city again today, which led to the armed forces agreeing to support the police to defend the city.
With very few exceptions, the vast majority of violence has been carried out by Evo Morales supporters, attacking the peaceful mass demonstrations by the majority of the Bolivian people who do not want Bolivia to become another Cuba or Venezuela.
- Collin Dunlop
Below are the miners that decided to protect the buses of delegations headed to La Paz for peaceful protests. They got attacked by government sent groups, armed with weapons of high caliber. Many got very badly injured.
On the right, the miners running next to the busses to protect the student and women inside on their way to La Paz. The day previous the first delegation of buses on the same route had been attacked by government sent groups throwing rocks, gas bombs, and molotov bombs.
Miners fighting for democracy, weaponless, in the midst of the attack they suffered.
Seen sippers that shot protestors from a far in the Montero confrontation. The protestors had no arms, yet the groups in support of the government, paid or pressured by the government had rocks, sticks, stones, dynamite, and some arms.
Comments