Reply #26: It was almost a year ago they caught two of the local right-wing shock troopers at the Santa Cruz

[Judi Lynn]

airport with a rifle with telescopic sights right before Evo Morales was scheduled to arrive:

Assassination plot suspected in Bolivia

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivian officials said Friday they have arrested two men who may have planned to kill President Evo Morales. But a local prosecutor quickly released them.
Police said the two were arrested Thursday at the El Trompillo airport in the eastern city of Santa Cruz minutes before Morales was scheduled to arrive. They said one of the suspects carried a rifle and rounds of ammunition.

"The government has well-founded reasons to believe this involves an attempted assassination," said Sacha Llorenti, deputy minister of social movements, at a news conference.

But the two had already gone free before Llorenti spoke. The Santa Cruz prosecutor's office released the men late Thursday for lack of evidence they had committed a crime, said Ruben Gamarra, vice minister of the interior.

"The prosecutor's decision is lamentable because one of them was carrying a Mauser rifle with a telescopic sight," he said.

The Interior Ministry, in charge of security, said the two men were members of a conservative Santa Cruz youth group that has led protests against Morales' leftist policies.

Relatively wealthy Santa Cruz has been a center of opposition to Bolivia's first Indian president and the region's leaders are trying to win greater autonomy from the national government.

Morales' visit to the region went on as scheduled, but with heavy security.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/topstories/2008-06-20-460684427_x.htm

http://www.stratfor.com.nyud.net:8090/files/mmf/0/f/0f8eac6a9e5b83d9612f043367661023241c95cb_two_column.jpg http://www.hollow-hill.com.nyud.net:8090/sabina/images/bolivian-thugs.jpg

Members of the opposition shock troopers "youth movement." They use the clubs to beat indingenous Bolivians
when they march into their neighborhoods and attack them, or when they can catch individual or small groups
of indigenous people alone, and unprotected.

http://www.theepochtimes.com.nyud.net:8090/n2/images/stories/large/2008/09/11/bl82765086.jpg

Pro-Santa Cruz autonomy activists throw stones at a riot police bus in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. (Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images)

Attacking buses last September.