Former Bolivian president Evo Morales is on his second day of hunger strike to force the Government of Luis Arce to dialogue about his political and economic demands, which have kept his followers in a road blockade in the center of the country for 21 days.
He former president of Bolivia Evo Morales (2006-2019) assured that President Nicolás Maduro “saved his life” by lending him two vehicles for personal use in which he traveled last Sunday, when he reported an “armed attack” in the Tropics of Cochabamba , his political and union bastion.
«If Maduro had not lent me the two cars, I don’t know what would have happened to Evo’s life. In other words, President Maduro saved my life,” Morales said on November 3 during his program broadcast on the coca radio station Kawsachun Coca.
The former Bolivian president is on his second day of a hunger strike to force the Government of Luis Arce to dialogue about his political and economic demands, which have kept his followers in a road blockade in the center of the country for 21 days.
Morales affirmed that President Arce, from whom he is estranged, is aware of the loan of the cars to ensure his safety.
*Read also: Abortion, flag and lynx heads: Americans vote for more than just their president
Last Tuesday, the former ruler admitted for the first time that he travels in vehicles “borrowed” by Venezuela, which was described as “interference” by the opposition force Citizen Community (CC).
The controversy over the use of the two vehicles arose after the “attempted assassination” that Morales denounced the previous Sunday, because the CC deputy Jairo Guiteras verified that at least one of the two cars used that day by the former ruler appears as owned by Miguel Ángel Lozano, president in Bolivia of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA (Pdvsa).
“Venezuela, with a left-wing or right-wing government, has always supported Bolivia, it knows that Bolivia is Simón Bolívar’s favorite daughter,” Morales said this Sunday.
The “armed attack” denounced by the former president aggravated the situation that has kept Bolivia in suspense for 21 days due to the road blockade, so much so that sectors loyal to him even took over some military units in the Tropics of Cochabamba.
Last Sunday, Morales reported that armed men fired a hail of bullets at his car while he was on his way to his weekly radio show in the city of Cochabamba. After the event, his party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), published a statement in which he directly blamed President Luis Arce, the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo del Castillo; and the Minister of Defense, Edmundo Novillo.
The statement stated that the vehicles that shot at the former president’s car entered a military barracks and that, according to witnesses, its occupants then left in a helicopter.
Following Morales’ complaint, President Luis Arce said that he had ordered an “immediate and thorough investigation” to clarify this event. His administration then rejected Morales’ claims.
The Minister of the Interior, Eduardo del Castillo, said that the former president’s convoy fled from an anti-drug patrol that was carrying out a routine vehicle check on the Cochabamba Tropic highway. According to this version, during that escape, Morales’ security team fired at the police, wounding one of them and running over another.
Del Castillo called the former president a “liar” and indicated that Morales’ driver did not want to stop at the orders of the agents and increased the speed.
In turn, Morales has denied this version and said in a publication on X that he had been shot “more than 18 times.”
“It took them 30 hours to create a lie (…) they want to turn the victim into the perpetrator. There is a lot of evidence that they ambushed us, but they say we shot them. “None of us carried any type of weapons.”
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, said on Friday that progress was made in the work to “free” the department of Cochabamba from the “kidnapping to which it is subjected,” and stated that “no dialogue is possible” as long as the blockades remain in place.
The official statements came after former President Evo Morales called on his followers to “consider the fourth intermission in the road blockade” that has kept the country in suspense for almost three weeks, while announcing a hunger strike to demand dialogue with the Bolivian Government.
“The revolutionaries do not give up or give up. “We will remain firm in the defense of better days for our country and we demand the immediate release of the comrades unjustly arrested during the day of protest,” added the former Bolivian president in X.
Post Views: 810
