Bolivia: WikiLeaks exposes US plot to kill Evo Morales

Bolivia is calling for investigations into cables leaked by WikiLeaks that reveal the US had plans in 2008 to topple the left-wing government of President Evo Morales, including potentially backing his assassination.

“This requires an in-depth investigation,” said Bolivia’s minister of the presidency, Juan Ramon Quintana. “We need to do an investigation to subsequently take decisions with regard to the United States government.”

Quintana referred to the cables WikiLeaks recently published in its new book, The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire.

“Tacitly it is a supported description of the destabilisation strategy of the United States that ranged between a coup and the assassination of President Morales,” he said.

“In 2007 the embassy of the United States installed a Centre of Operations in order to execute a civil coup to apply plan A, which was the coup, and plan B, which was the assassination.”

Relations have been strained between the US and the Morales government, first elected in 2005, which has brought key sectors of the economy into state hands, cut poverty by social spending and empowered the indigenous majority.

In 2008, Morales expelled the US ambassador from the country, alleging the ambassador was actively supporting a right-wing coup.

The US has denied the plans revealed by WikiLeaks. A representative described the WikiLeaks accusations as “absolutely false and absurd”. Despite the denials, the Bolivian government said it was pressing ahead with a thorough investigation.

“The relationship between the US and Bolivia couldn’t be any further apart,” political analyst Franklyn Pareja told TeleSUR English.

“They are opposed on almost everything, the ideology of the Bolivian government is anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and for the Bolivian people the icon for imperialism and anti-capitalism is the United States.”

With Morales seeking a referendum to allow him to run for president again when his current term expires in 2020 — which he is expected to win — political observers expect no change in the hostile relations between La Paz and Washington.

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