April 24, 2024, 18:10 PM
April 24, 2024, 18:10 PM
Juan Carlos Montenegro, who was manager of Bolivian Lithium Deposits (YLB) between 2017 and 2019, died this Wednesday, April 24, after releasing a “public letter” with which he proclaimed his innocence in the face of an investigation into the alleged fallas in the extraction of lithium.
“He asked for help for his family; We started looking for it and unfortunately They have found it with their last breath and has already arrived dead at the University Insurance”, explained his lawyer Audalia Zurita, to whom he wrote shortly after 9:00.
Montenegro worked at the Metallurgical and Materials Research Institute of the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Umsa). His colleagues from that entity were the first to warn of the death of the former YLB executive, as explained by several of his former colleagues.
According to former minister Teresa Morales, Montenegro he could have fainted in his office and then they asked for medical assistance to help him. The Umsa Institute of Metallurgy is about six blocks from the University Medical Insurance of La Paz.
“I will not lend myself to being harassed and humiliated for a rigged justice that is sold to political power or to the highest bidder. I can’t allow it“Montenegro wrote in the “public letter” with which he rejected the accusations leveled against him.
According to the State Attorney General’s Office, Montenegro and 12 other former YLB authorities, including former Minister Luis Alberto Echazú, incurred a “serious economic damage to the State” of Bs 425 million due to failures in the swimming pools for lithium extraction.
Morales reported that, while he was going in a taxi to the offices of the Special Force to Fight Crime where was Echazúread the message from Montenegro and shuddered. “I did not doubt his signature or his wordsbecause he was a professional of convictions,” he said.
“This morning I received a message from him, at 09:04 minutes; He sent me a note for public opinion, clarifying that he had not committed any crime, that he is innocent and that “It seemed like an injustice to him that he had been involved.”explained his lawyer.
His colleagues and former colleagues explained that Montenegro suffered from heart problems and did not rule out that The news of this legal process could have damaged his health.
Both Montenegro and Echazú, in addition to the former ministers of Evo Morales’ administration (2006-2019), questioned the nature of this judicial process that was raised by at least cuother corruption crimes, including contracts harmful to the State.
The legal process raised by failures in the contracting, inspection, monitoring and maintenance of the evaporation pools for the extraction of lithium through the crystallization of salts, They also point to a contracting company.
What does the letter say? Juan Carlos Montenegro?
“FGiven the abuse to which those of us who started the lithium project in Bolivia from scratch are being subjected, I find it extremely necessary to issue this public letter.
The only purpose of the process that has been initiated against us is to justify and hide the resounding failure of the illusory strategy of direct lithium extraction (EDL) that was adopted arbitrarily and YLB and the current government irresponsibly since 2021, abandoning and discrediting the fractional crystallization process in solar evaporation pools, which was carried out until the end of 2019, in compliance with BCB contracts. Until the end of 2019, more than 90 pools were built and waterproofed up to line 12, of which, according to information from YLB, 18 pools would be without operation. It is mentioned that, due to the lack of these 18 pools, the industrial potassium chloride and lithium carbonate plants would not have enough raw material to reach their capacity. However, they do not mention that since 2021 they had the OBLIGATION to complete the 64 missing pools, which correspond from line 13 to 20 and look for repair alternatives for those 18, but they did not do it, they did not waterproof even a single new one, They abandoned and discredited them. These 64 missing pools represent 40% of the raw material, which has not been produced in the last four years. I reiterate, they abandoned them for adopting the false illusion of EDL, as a supposed quick alternative to produce large volumes, there was even talk of reaching 100,000 tons of lithium carbonate by 2025. They confirmed that large industrial plants via EDL are still not viable and They realized, belatedly, that only small pilot plants could be viable, which to date do not exist. This is the true dimension of what is intended to be hidden.
Today they try to undermine our dignity by forcibly incriminating us with acts of corruption. Engineer Luis Alberto Echazú and I have a deep revolutionary commitment and honest track record alongside the workers and the aspirations of the Bolivian people since our adolescence.
My limpid academic and professional career cannot be dented with this type of abuse and I will not allow myself to be harassed and humiliated by a rigged justice system that is sold to political power or to the highest bidder. “I can’t allow it.”
“This should move us to reflect”
Héctor Córdova; Mining engineer
What has happened should help everyone, the people in the government, reflect to see what image they are projecting. Why do we condemn someone if there has not even been an investigation or trial. They have not been listened to and we directly condemn.
Montenegro was a manager at YLB, but also had a notable career in the mining field. He worked at the university in research, He worked in the Ministry of Mining, he was a student of the subject of lithium, a person of very great professional quality, respected, respectable and greatly appreciated the quality of his work.
We also wrote some articles for national and foreign magazines on the subject of lithium, because I was deeply familiar with this whole situation, all this reality. What he says in his letter is truly very hard, very sad.
