Bolivia: elite force threatens actions against the President

The “satinadors” of Sanadita threaten to “enter into action” against “tactical targets”

An open letter sent by the “Condors and Satinadors of Bolivia”– specially trained elite forces in Sanandita (in the Bolivian Chaco) – flung a direct threat against the President, the business-magnate Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada who gave a pay raise to the military, probably with the intention of having them under absolute loyalty, the same as was beginning to decline.

The exact words of the letter, sent on the 19^th of this month, day of protest marches in La Paz, Oruro, Potosi and Cochabamba, are as follows:

“GAS FOR CHILE? !!!!!TELL YOUR GRANDMOTHER SHE’S FOR SALE [TOO], YOU BASTARD!!!!!  From the abode of condors, the land of real men.  Open letter to Gonalo Sanchez de Lozada “From the incandescent sands of the Chaco, abode of Bolivian condors and satinadors, we notify you of the following:  As the prayer of the Condor says every night before sleeping after an exhausting day, we swear before the Highest to comply and defend the integrity of the fatherland above all things.

“We beg the general population which does not see us obligated to intervene in defense of our natural resources to pardon us, because given the circumstances blood will flow, but this time it will be blood of the present and former government officials; as they stripped the Bolivian people of their natural resources by way of capitalization and other forms of handing them over, we affirm that recovering them is a duty.

“The Chacarera of the condor says: From its abode the Aguarague of the Chaco will keep watch and going up over the Andes will arrive at the beaches.

“Mr. Sanchez de Lozada, this does not signify crossing the Andes from the Chaco in order to see how are given away our strategic natural resources, which will have to be taken advantage of with all the benefits they can yield once industrialized.

“We will NOT permit that the 300 million dollars derived from the Mapocho for corrupting the 3 principal political parties that are found in the functioning of government, put in danger the integrity of the Bolivian Nation.

“We thank you for the present that your government made to us in having awarded us extra wages, which does not commit and never will commit us to gas being exported thru Chile.

“Up till now we have kept silence, in the actions of February, no soldier of our armed forces was in the streets, but this time is obvious to us the necessity of defending the fatherland and we will do it with great pleasure, even sacrificing our lives, for which we are disposed to fire at tactical targets beginning with your cabinet in full and including some generals at the head of you.

“Twenty years of democracy have served only to corrupt the politicians that govern us, 20 years where the Armed Forces have demonstrated respect to the Constitution, we have not intervened in any type of attempt on the democracy, constituting ourselves as zealous guardians of the same.

“Sadly the badly named political class has not known how to mark a route for the development of the country, the extreme poverty of all Bolivians growing every day greater and greater.  The Armed Forces for being a vertical institution, in which orders are carried out and not discussed, we have seen ourselves obligated to repress the poor, which already we are not disposed to do.

“Mr. Sanchez de Lozada we believe that it is time to totally change your policy of handing over [Bolivia’s resources] to the transnationals, we also believe that the slogan ‘Struggle against poverty’ does not signify ‘Struggle against the poor’.

“Because of this we greet you suggesting !!!do not provoke the ire of the soldier!!!