• EFFICIENCY, unity and steadfastness. Those are the principal weapons of the Evo Morales government and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) in response to attacks by the coup-plotting right wing, which has not hesitated in resorting to foreign mercenaries to try to overthrow the president and his revolutionary program.

Given a massive opposition offensive in the mass media, an attempt to protect the top leaders of counterrevolutionary actions in Bolivia, President Morales called a meeting of all social, business, military and police organizations at the government palace. They unanimously condemned the separatist movement and the terrorism that has its center in the department of Santa Cruz, and is led by its prefect, Rubén Costas, the millionaire plantation owner Branco Marinkovic and the recent addition of rancher Guido Náyar, all of them implicated in the most recent coup attempt and summoned by government prosecutors to give evidence in the investigation into the mercenary group that was planning the president’s assassination.

The meeting was not attended by the four prefects who want to tear apart Bolivia (Santa Cruz, Beni, Tarija and Chuquisaca), thus demonstrating their support for the gang disbanded by the police in Santa Cruz.

However, the meeting was characterized by the unity of its participants, who charted the central lines of a "national pact against terrorism."

Even Gabriel Dabdoub, president of the Bolivian Federation of Private Enterprises, participated.

The latest attempt to frustrate change in Bolivia by using mercenaries was exposed after authorities shot Hungarian-Bolivian Eduardo Rozsa – the visible ringleader of the armed group – in a Santa Cruz hotel, and his deputies, Romanian-Croatian Mangyarosi Arpad and Irishman Michael Martin Dwyer, and uncovered the tentacles of the terrorist plot not only to separate Santa Cruz from Bolivia, but to assassinate Evo Morales.

It was very significant that suspects detained included members of the pseudo-fascist Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (Santa Cruz Youth Union), the shock troops of those who want to tear the country apart, led by Rubén Costas and the so-called Pro-Santa Cruz Committee (previously the Civic Committee), influenced by the magnate Marinkovic.

This reporter believes that one would also have to ponder on the role of the U.S. embassy, with its sinister involvement in every anti-government conspiracy cooked up by the oligarchy against Evo Morales in the last three years.

The Santa Cruz oligarchy, Bolivia’s most powerful, which is leading the entire secession movement, would appear to be bankrolling the mercenary gang’s attacks, given that statements from the conspirators mention Branco Marinkovic’s handover of $200,000 to that effect.

The revelations were very significant and concrete, leaving no doubt about guilt or intention. Prosecutor Marcelo Sosa revealed that the key witness, detainee Ignacio Villa, stated that "the mercenaries were constantly meeting with 20 other individuals… in some cases, Branko Marinkovic would be there, Guido Náyar almost always, and those never absent were Hugo Achá, Mauricio Roca and others."

The $200,000 "donated" by Marinkovic for the assassination of Evo was given to a group of Argentines who had fled, Sosa added, quoting the statement of another witness, Alcides Mendoza, who was arrested and charged with selling weapons to the mercenary group.

According to the Bolivian News Agency (ABI), during the anti-terrorist meeting in La Paz, the state was asked to provide greater provincial control in those regions where there are tendencies to illegal acts such as contraband, plunder, drug trafficking and terrorism.

The government and the MAS, together with social, trade union, indigenous and human rights organizations, agreed on two mechanisms for countering attacks by the right-wing mass media.

The first is to reinforce the police and armed forces in order to improve their professional capacity for confronting the separatist movement and terrorism. The second is a permanent commission to follow up on commitments adopted and to promote campaigns aimed at preserving the country’s unity, raising awareness and promoting patriotism.

The government has not left everything up to the initiatives of those organizations, and given that Santa Cruz is at the center of the counterrevolution in Bolivia, decided very correctly to create a major military unit in that department, in an area close to the Brazilian border.

Bearing in mind the public statement made by the Bolivian high military command affirming that it will not allow the country to be divided and will defend the Constitution, the measure is correct as a form of dissuasion for those who are bent on secession, such as Costas, Marinkovic and Náyar, as a means of protecting their economic power, even if the rest of the population is dying of hunger.

Prior to the announcement, the government ordered the reinforcement of troops in the region, and the president himself told these forces: "It doesn’t matter if they kill Evo Morales; you (the Armed Forces) cannot allow national territory to be torn apart."