The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has stated that “armed groups” related to former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) have taken three military units in the Tropics of Cochabamba, the union and political bastion of the also official leader in the center of the country. . He has described this act as “betrayal of the country.”
“We denounce to the Bolivian people and the international community that armed groups related to Evo Morales have taken three military units in the Cochabamba Tropics by storm, holding military personnel and their families hostage, and threatening their lives,” Arce wrote in the social network “the right of the people to free movement, to work, to access to fuel, food and medicine.”
Former President Evo Morales is entrenched in Chapare, a region that is his political and union stronghold, while his followers known as ‘evistas’ have blocked roads in the center of the country for 19 days, in order to defend him against a possible order of capture against him. The Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office accuses Morales of committing crimes of human trafficking and statutory rape (rape of a person over 14 years of age and under 18) with a minor with whom he supposedly had a child. The former president sent a letter this Friday to Luis Arce to tell him that if he gives the order to intervene in the blockades with the police and military, he will bear “the responsibility of hurting and dividing Bolivia.”
Arce maintains that the takeover of a military installation “by irregular groups anywhere in the world is a crime of treason to the Homeland” and an “affront” to the Constitution, the Armed Forces and “to the Bolivian people themselves, who reject The criminal blockades of Evo Morales, as well as these criminal actions, are forceful.”
Letter from Morales to Arce
Morales said in the letter to Arce that “no one would have imagined that the last months of his administration would be so dark and regrettable,” and compared him to Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) for the use of violence against him and for the coup d’état in 2019. “His name will go down in history along with that of Áñez, as one of the presidents who impoverished the people, weakened the State and turned weapons against his own people,” he said.
At the end of the letter, Morales also accused the president of knowing “who gave the order to shoot” him, in an armed attack that the former president reported on Sunday, in which his driver was injured and his truck was shot 14 times. .
The ‘evident’ blockades on the roads in central Bolivia have affected the main cities of the Andean country, since fuel does not reach the distributors and for two weeks there have been long lines of up to a kilometer of drivers waiting to refuel. gasoline or diesel. Likewise, several products in the basic basket do not reach the cities, although the Government has made airlifts to distribute food in the markets, citizens denounce the lack or increased prices of products such as chicken and basic grains.
Meanwhile, in the Chapare region, the Police ordered the withdrawal of all its agents, due to the violence of the ‘evista’ sectors, who entered a military installation to extract several trucks to set them on fire, alleging that they were the vehicles used by the “hitmen” who tried to kill Morales.
The crisis in Bolivia occurs in the midst of a struggle between Arce and Morales for control of the MAS and the administration of the Executive. Both have been estranged since the end of 2021, which caused a strong division in the ruling party.
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