Evo returned from Venezuela and didn't hold back. First, he described it as a racist act to criticize him for traveling on private flights, like his colleague Loza going to see a Real Madrid match, and then he attacked a minister.
Former president Evo Morales described it as an act of racism to question him for traveling on private planes, and admitted that he receives invitations from left-wing governments that used to send him in business class alongside "old men and women full of rings" and now they put him on fully paid private planes, "to safeguard his security."
"I deeply regret those questions about why Evo travels on a private plane. I want the Bolivian population to know that my first invitation to Europe was in 1989, all expenses paid. Then I had many others, as a leader I traveled to four continents, all expenses paid. Once the Government of Portugal invited me to a three-day conference and in the end the organizing team gave me 600 dollars as an allowance. I was scared, I didn't want to receive it. I got scared. They insisted. I brought that money and accounted for it to the special federation of workers of the Tropic of Cochabamba," said Evo Morales this Sunday.
He admitted that for subsequent invitations "they sent business class tickets, there only old men and women full of rings and jewelry traveled. As time goes by, now the former president receives invitations and they send him private planes. I ask Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Paraguay, Brazil or Peru, how much do they pay? And they respond to me that they send a plane for security reasons."
Therefore, he clarified that these comments against him have a "racist" tint. "Leonardo Loza (MAS Senator and coca grower like him) goes to see a match in Europe and a scandal is created. Racism, racism, racism. They pay me private planes, and another scandal."
As retaliation, the former president sent a message and asked the Minister of Public Works, Édgar Montaño, former deputy: "If he is honest, let him say it. Two years ago, at around 6:00 in the morning in the La Coronilla area, he only arrived in his car, his former driver whom they fired, let him publicly say how much money he received. If he is honest, he knows. That driver will speak out, anytime he will tell the truth. Hopefully they don't repress him, the minister knows what we are talking about."
He demanded Minister Montaño to execute the guarantee bonds for the execution of sections in the Tropic of Cochabamba, and he went on: "because that has a cost. He said that we need to investigate, let's investigate, but thoroughly."
He then insisted that he feels like a victim of a racist act. "How can an indigenous person travel on a private plane, how can an indigenous person go to see a match in Europe. Pure racism. I have two trips, one to Brazil and one to Paraguay, and for both they will send private planes," he asserted. "Once they refused to sell jet fuel to a plane, dogs everywhere, you can't imagine the telephone argument I had."
He also complained about entering with his passport, "On Saturday I got angry, and mind you, I have a diplomatic document, but still I told them to check, they got scared. I realized that a guy was taking a picture of me, I also took one of him. I commented on this at a meeting outside the country and former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa told me that they shouldn't control me because I am a former president. They don't understand what's going on in Bolivia."
Regarding the meeting in Caracas, Morales recounted that "there were (representatives from) more than 60 countries, people convinced in this anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle. Commander Nicolás Maduro, following in the footsteps of Hugo Chávez and consolidating the revolution in Venezuela. He reported that we must continue resisting, between last year and this year there were five assassination attempts, interventionism by the US, I was impressed."
