Evo Morales (at right) in ceremony before his inauguration, at pre-Inca ruins of
Tiawanaku, 21 January 2006. (Photo: David Mercado/Reuters)
Posted on 07/30/2010 1:47:53 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LA PAZ (Reuters) – The Aymara priest who blessed Bolivian President Evo Morales at an inauguration ceremony four years ago has been arrested in possession of 530 pounds (240 kg) of cocaine, police said Thursday.
Anti-drugs police in the Andean country found a cocaine laboratory in the home of priest Valentin Mejillones. His son and a Colombian couple were also detained. The stash of liquid cocaine seized in the raid was valued at $240,000.
Mejillones told local media he had been tricked by the Colombians, and Vice President Alvaro Garcia said Morales had not chosen the priest to preside at the traditional swearing-in ceremony at the sacred Tiwanaku ruins.
"He was a person who moved within the Andean religious structure," Garcia told reporters. "Whether he's a priest or not, if he's committed a crime, he won't get any kind of protection when he faces justice."
Morales, an Aymara Indian and former coca farmer, was sworn in as Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2006.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
oh i thought the priest just had a little bit in his pocket or something/s
A priest with a son? There's a few things we don't know about this guy.
Evo Morales (at right) in ceremony before his inauguration, at pre-Inca ruins of
Tiawanaku, 21 January 2006. (Photo: David Mercado/Reuters)
Oh, an AYMARA priest. Never mind.
This is a “priest” in some Indian religion Bolivia is trying to revive in order to get rid of the “European” influence of Christianity. BOlivia, of course, is the place that has a coca-growers union. They’re very left-wing, mostly Indians, and were influential in the events that got Morales into office.
Garcia, btw, is just a long time radical leftist. But when Morales was inaugurated, Garcia had to hold the freeze-dried baby llama that was apparently an offering to this priest’s god. I saw a photo, and Garcia looked extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable.
But I guess a radical leftist will do anything to get his program through, even have his photo taken with a freeze-dried baby llama in his arms.
LOL, yes.
‘Litmus test’ in the US = “freeze-dried baby llama test” in Bolivia.
Lets keep it that way. 
Evo Morales, who identifies himself as a Socialist, is another lefty friend of Hugo Chavez and the Castros. Everything wrong in his country is the fault of the Yankees. He has stirred up hatred and resentment between the indigenous people there and everyone else, and his anti-capitalism has resulted in some areas demanding autonomy from the federal government. In the words of Alvaro Vargas Llosa, he is a Perfect Latin American Idiot (a book I enthusiastically recommend.)
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