Boliviagate: Argentine documents show far larger post-coup weapons shipment than previously known

[peppertree]

5. Amazing update. Thank you, Judi.

This Macri Boliviagate scandal recalls the Videla regime's support for Bolivia's brutal "Cocaine Coup" in 1980.

Amid news of the coup - and all the brutality and disappearances that followed - Videla denied any Argentine involvement.

But it wasn't long before photos and reports of Argentine weapons, ammunition, army rations, supplies, light tanks - and even torture equipment - began emerging.

Victims also reported hearing Argentine accents among both those leading the quashing of protests, as well as among the torturers.

Before long Videla could no longer deny involvement, so his regime simply hid behind Reagan's tacit approval of Bolivia's García Meza regime.

Galtieri - then head of the Argentine Army - boasted to top Reagan adviser Gen. Vernon Walters (a real Cold-warnik, as you know) in '81 that "I decide who's in power in Bolivia, when, and for how long."

Later investigations in Argentina itself indeed showed that they, all told, spent over $800 million on the Bolivian coup
mostly as financial aid to García Meza (much of which was, of course, pilfered).

A tidy sum in 1980: equal to around 2 months of Bolivian GDP at the time.

Granted, the 2019 Bolivia coup was a more restrained version (if you'll excuse the expression) of their 1980 coup - but it does have involvement by a right-wing Argentine administration in common, as well as the initial denials, the drip-drip of evidence, etc.

Thanks again for finding, and posting, these news Judi. Here's hoping there'll convictions for this - and that Trump's collusion will be revealed, to the extent he (and Ivanka) took part in it.