Following the shooting dead of Michael Martin Dwyer from Ballinderry, County Tipperary in the town of Santa Cruz in Bolivia, local media in that country tried and convicted him of being involved in a band of international mercenaries, funded by right wing groups hell bent on destableizing the left-wing government of Evo Morales. But the official story has more holes in it than the walls of the hotel rooms where these men died.
The politicians in Bolivia cannot be believed due to the extreme politics on both ends of the spectrum. Bolivia has never really had a stable government since it gained independence.
Bolivian media cannot be trusted either as they would be alligned to either the left or the right. There is no real “newspaper of record” in the country.
The claims about the killing have ranged from the five men were killed for political show, and that there were no conspiracy to kill Morales, to one crazy claim that renagade freemasons funded the supposed assassination attempt.
But as Dwyer was from our part of the world, let’s focus on him. The profile of an international assassin, he does not fit. The Junior Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dick Roche stated on RTE radio this morning that Dwyer had never come to the attention of the Guards here.
Initial reports in Bolivian media claimed that Dwyer was involved in the Balkan war. The Balkan war ended when Dwyer was in his early teens, so this is not likely.
The media, both in Bolivia, and here, printed pictures of Dwyer in military garb. This too does not make him fit the profile of a mercenary. The photos were taken during Airsoft outings. Airsoft is a sport where enthusiasts get to play soldier with guns that fire small pellets. The only difference between someone who does airsoft and someone who likes shoot-em-up videogames in my book would be that the airsoft guy gets fresh air and excersise.
Dwyer himself was barely out of college, having graduated from GMIT in 2008, he went to Galway to work in security before going to America. It wasn’t his intention to stay there as he was due home again at the end of this year.
The “Shoot-out”
It was claimed that there was a half hour shoot out between the elite army unit and the so-called “mercenaries. However, the proprietor of the hotel where the men stayed has denied this. The men were also accused of taking refuge in the hotel after being chased by this army unit. However, press photographs show that the dead men were in their underwear. Dwyer is shown in one photograph lying beside his bed. There were no guns in the photographs of the corpeses, nor are there any shell casings.
There is one bullet hole in the wall of Dwyer’s room, and that was fired from the room’s door where the army unit entered. Hardly indicative of a half hour gun battle.
It is also worth mentioning that despite there supposedly being a gun battle, where it is claimed a grenade was used, there is no report of a single member of the army unit being injured.
Weapons, supposedly stashed away in preparation for the assassination, were “found” as much as a a mile away , even though the police claimed they were in a nearby building. A mile isn’t all that near.
Several photographs of the dead men show that their hands were tied. Since when did it become necessary to tie dead men up. If their hands were tied while they were alive, why was it necessary to kill them if they could not return fire due to they’re being restrained in this manner?
Michael Dwyer’s remains have been released to Irish consular officials for repatriation back to Ireland. It would be prudent that a propper, and trustworthy autopsy be carried out by our own state pathologist on it’s arrival.
While the case for this being a load of Bolivian Bovine is quite strong, there are certain questions which require answering.
How did a young Irishman end up working security in one of the most dangerous countries in South America. What company thought it would be a good place to get training, which has been claimed in the Irish media.
On his Bebo page, Dwyer claimed that he liked cruisin around in his BMW. Not exactly a cheap banger, where did the money for this come from after only a few months in the country?
How did Dwyer become friends with a former Balkan war veteran, Eduardo Rozca Flores. Dwyer was one of his friends on the Facebook social networking site. They were both killed on Thursday.
