Bolivia on Friday denounced the entry of officials from the Spanish embassy, hooded and apparently armed, to the Mexican embassy, where a dozen officials from the former evo Morales government are assilated.
Police “stopped the entry of vehicles (Spanish diplomats) to the facility, as the presence of hooded women poses a potential threat” to the Mexican headquarters, said Chancellor Karen Longaric, although she did not confirm whether it was a escape plan.
The incident, he said, occurred this Friday morning, when diplomatic staff and others with their faces covered sought to break a Security Fence by Bolivian police around Mexico’s residence, which prevented them from passing.
Longaric noted that the “diplomatic and security staff of the Spanish embassy in Bolivia is not authorized to carry firearms, nor to wear outfits that hide their identity”, adding that “these acts contravene diplomatic practices”.
For this reason, he denounced spain’s “abusing the diplomatic privileges” granted by the Vienna Convention and thus severing a note to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding “for these outrages that profoundly affect the dignity and sovereignty of the Bolivian state”.
He explained that the Bolivian letter of claim would also be sent to accredited ambassadors in Bolivia, the United Nations, the European Union and the Organization of American States.
A dozen former officials of the Morales government are based at the Mexican embassy in La Paz.
Among the asylls are the former ministers of the Presidency, Juan Ramón Quintana, and of Culture, Wilma Alanoca, on whom arrest warrants are held for the charges of “sedition and terrorism”. There are also complaints against the other asylates, who were denied safe passage by the right-wing government Jeanine Añez.
Consulted if there was a plan to escape, designed by Spaniards and Mexicans, Chancellor Longaric responded that “we are in a process of analysis”, but expressed her strangeness by the presence of Iberian hooded.
“We will be able to give the answer that corresponds in a case of such an offense to the sovereignty of Bolivia,” he said.
The version of Mexico
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that this morning there was an incident at Mexico’s residence in Bolivia involving Spanish diplomats.
An information note from the Chancellery states that the Spanish business manager, Cristina Borreguero, and the consul of Spain, Alvaro Fernández, made a courtesy visit to the Mexican ambassador María Teresa Mercado; the event was agreed from the previous day.
According to the fact-by-fact briefing, after the 40-minute meeting, Spanish diplomats decided to leave but their vehicles were not waiting.
“Seeing that diplomatic vehicles were not arriving, and visitors could no longer communicate with their chauffeurs or their security elements, the Market ambassador moved to the end of the terrace to see if they climbed a car from the urbanization down the slope.”
“Spanish diplomats were informed that their cars had been stopped at the access of the urbanization to the Residence Of Mexico and they weren’t allowed in,” Foreign Relations said.
Afterwards, the Chancellery recounted, Ms. Borreguero was able to communicate with the Bolivian Chancellery, and told diplomats to go down on foot.
Spanish diplomats refused to make the trek to their cars, without their security features.
However, “Later the Spanish visitors were informed by the Chancellery of Bolivia that a car of that dependency would enter for them, which they accepted. The car arrived just over an hour later.”
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