The cars in which former Bolivian president Evo Morales was traveling on a highway in Chapare received 18 shots from two unidentified vehicles. The former president has described the events as an attempt by the Government to arrest him, which turned into an attack on his life. Morales was unharmed, but his driver suffered a superficial wound to the back of the head. “This is another failure of the Government. It is very serious, very serious,or what Lucho Arce has done and David Choquehuanca with my life. “This is not against Evo, it is against the indigenous movement… Lenin Moreno (the former president of Ecuador who confronted Rafael Correa) was dwarfed by Arce’s betrayal,” he declared to Radio Kausachun Coca shortly after what happened.
“We were moving forward and there was a blocked car, we got out (to pass it) 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 the interview.
#Urgent| They tried to learn Evo Morales Ayma at the point of bullets. At least 14 shots hit the vehicle where the former president was traveling. The driver was injured. #potosidigitalnoticias
Posted by Potosi Digital on Sunday, October 27, 2024
A video recorded from inside Morales’ truck, and released by his press teams, shows the former president in the passenger seat cowering 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 transportation. All this happens in Chapare, the coca growing area where Morales lives. and has reigned politically since the nineties.
Morales’ aides stated that the attackers were hooded men dressed in black with long-range weapons. Radio Kausachun Coca He 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,” said Evo Morales. 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) Añez; Fought “He 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 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.”
El Chapare is the epicenter of a 14-day road blockade by the “evistas” farmers against the Government of Luis Arce and to prevent Morales from being detained by the police. The Bolivian prosecutor’s office is looking for him on a charge of statutory rape.There was a 15-year-old girl, which supposedly happened in 2016, and she became pregnant. He considers him 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.
The Government has not commented so far on what happened, although some of the most radical official spokespersons have come out to talk about a “self-attack” and relate this to supposed new revelations about Evo Morales’ behavior with minors.
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