In the Mexican president's book A la mitad del camino, details of the so-called Bolivia Mission are provided. | Photo: @evoespueblo
Mexico City, September 1 (RHC)-- Bolivian coup plotters launched a projectile against the plane of the Mexican Air Force (FAM) in which the former president of that South American country, Evo Morales, was rescued in November 2019, according to the most recent book of the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
López Obrador stated on Tuesday during his daily morning news conference that in his latest editorial work called "A la mitad del camino," he tells "how we decided to give protection and asylum to Evo Morales" in an operation that was called Misión Bolivia.
The book disseminates a document from Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense, in which elements of the FAM expressed their suspicions that a rocket had been launched against the plane in which Evo Morales, who was the victim of a coup d'état on November 10, 2019, was on board.
"During the initial ascent, the pilot managed to observe from the left side of the cockpit, and when he almost reached 1,500 feet above the ground, a luminous wake similar to the characteristic of a rocket at the seven o'clock position (back left of the aircraft's trajectory) below the horizon," the official text noted.
"The pilot estimated that, in case it was a projectile, the point from where it was launched could be located in the vicinity of the Cochabamba airport," it added.
The document specifies that, since they were at the air terminal, an element of the Bolivian armed forces permanently aimed at the aircraft with an RPG rocket launcher.
"He made a tight turn to the opposite side of the projectile's trajectory (right side) increasing the rate of ascent to avoid impact, observing that the tracer, far below the aircraft, made a parabola towards the ground without having reached the altitude that at that moment they already had, approximately 3,000 feet above the ground," the report continued.
"Concluding his assessment that the possible rocket could have come from the RPG launcher he observed at the airport," it stated. The document indicated that the incident was not communicated to Evo Morales, so as not to increase the tension that existed at the time.
Gabriela Montaño, who at the time of the coup d'état was the Minister of Health in Morales' government, commented on her Twitter account: "I got a lump in my throat again, not only because I was also on that plane. But because of what could have happened in the country if they had achieved the goal of killing Evo Morales."
"The shadows of terror sown in the Bolivian people cannot go unpunished," said the former minister.
