The delegation in which Evo Morales was traveling this Sunday has received a burst of shots from two vehicles that have not been identified for the moment. The former Bolivian president has described the events, which occurred on a highway in the province of Chapare, as an attack on his life organized by the current president, Luis Arce. Morales faces an arrest warrant for failing to appear to testify in a case of alleged sexual abuse of minors.
Arce, hours later, denied any involvement in a plot to attack Morales and ordered an “immediate and thorough investigation.” “It is not with the search for the dead that problems are resolved nor with biased speculation,” the president has written on social networks, although, yes, he has described the attack as “alleged.” Although Morales was unharmed in the attack, his driver suffered a superficial wound to the back of his head. “This is another failure of the Government. It is very serious, very serious, what Lucho Arce (current president) and David Choquehuanca (vice president) have done with my life. This is not against Evo, it is against the indigenous movement… Lenín Moreno [el expresidente de Ecuador que se enfrentó a Rafael Correa] was small in the face of Arce’s betrayal,” Morales told Radio Kawsachun Coca shortly after what happened.
“We were moving forward and there was a blocked car, we got out [para rebasarlo] and another came to block us; There I said, ‘this is an operation.’ Fortunately, there was a space and then we passed and they started shooting… They shot us from behind. “I crouched down to protect myself and I couldn’t see who they were,” Morales said in an interview, adding that there were 14 shots that hit.
The attack has further raised tensions in an already turbulent time. A group of coca farmers has positioned itself in front of the barracks of the army’s Ninth Division and demands that the military leave Chapare immediately. The farmers claim that the vehicles that fired at Morales’s delegation are hidden inside the battalion.
A video recorded from inside Morales’ truck, and released by his press teams, shows the former president in the passenger seat shrinking to protect himself, bullet holes in the windows and blood running down the driver’s head. Everything happens with great nervousness and shouts, while Morales talks on the phone and asks someone to “mobilize.” The former president arrives at a town and orders people to “block” the road because they are persecuting him; finally changes vehicle. All of this happens in Chapare, the coca-growing area where Morales has lived and reigned politically since the 1990s. The small towns of Chapareña rise along the highway that connects the mountainous west with the plains of eastern Bolivia. The entire Chapare can be crossed by car in about three hours.
Morales has been taking refuge there since it became known, at the beginning of October, that the prosecution was looking for him because he allegedly impregnated a 15-year-old teenager in 2016 and recognized her daughter a year later. This Sunday, Morales left the city of Villa Tunari, where he lives, towards Lauca Eñe, where Radio Kawsachun Coca is located.to carry out his Sunday program. His vehicle was intercepted near the headquarters of the army’s Ninth Division, which is based in this region.
Morales’ aides stated that the attackers were hooded men dressed in black with long-range weapons. Radio Kausachun CocaHe also showed videos of helicopters flying over the Chimoré runway, close to where the events occurred. “This is totally planned. A bullet passed centimeters from my head,” Morales said. He also pointed out that he knew since Saturday that there were agents from the Ministry of Government (Security) in Villa Tunari, where he lives. “That is worse than the dictatorship of [Jeanine] Áñez; “Lucho is crazy for stealing,” declared Morales, who seemed calm.
Juan Ramón Quintana, former Minister of the Presidency and close collaborator of Morales, suggested in a later video that the former president’s life is at risk in Bolivia and that the international community should help him leave the country. However, the former president had pointed out: “I am not hidden, I have no reason to escape, no reason to hide. “I am not a criminal to hide.”
road blockade
For 14 days, El Chapare has been the epicenter of a blockade by farmers evistas against the Arce Government and to prevent Morales from being detained by the police. The former president considers himself the victim of a political campaign against him, due to the fierce fight he is waging against Arce for the leadership of the Bolivian left and the candidacy of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) in the 2025 elections.
On Friday, with numerous injuries and arrests, the police unblocked two strategic roadblocks for the purpose confessed by Morales himself of “tiring the Government,” with which traffic between Cochabamba and La Paz has resumed. There is a widespread request from city residents, particularly those from Cochabamba, and from both the ruling party and the opposition, that the routes that remain blocked be forcibly unblocked.
The civic or regional leaders of Santa Cruz, in the far east, have demanded that Arce send the military to confront the coca growers, who have once again been considered, just as in the 1990s, “criminals and drug traffickers.” Morales is isolated, but it is not the first time in his history as a union and political leader that he only has the support of rural residents. The difference now is in the type of accusation that has been brought against him.
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