The Bolivian ruler orders an investigation // Díaz-Canel, Maduro, Petro and Cristina Fernández, among the leaders who condemn the aggression
▲ In an image taken from video, the bullet impacts on Evo Morales’ vehicle.Photo AFP/Kawsachun Coca
Afp, Ap, Prensa Latina, Europa Press and Sputnik
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, October 28, 2024, p. 24
La Paz., Former Bolivian president Evo Morales (2006-2019) was the target yesterday of an assassination attempt perpetrated by hooded that they shot at his vehicle and wounded his driver in Cochabamba, denounced the leader of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), who accused President Luis Arce of the attack.
The Vice Minister of Citizen Security, Roberto Ríos, declared that the authorities are investigating what happened and do not rule out the possibility that it was a self-attack. Arce ordered a judicial investigation.
Presidents Miguel Díaz-Canel, of Cuba; Gustavo Petro, from Colombia; Nicolás Maduro, from Venezuela, and Xiomara Castro, from Honduras, as well as the former leaders of Ecuador and Argentina Rafael Correa and Cristina Fernández de Kichner condemned the attack.
From Argentina, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo expressed solidarity with the Bolivian politician, as did the Confederation of Ecuadorian Indigenous People, among other political and social organizations on the continent.
The secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, published in X that violence has no place or justification in politics.
Morales recounted in his program on the Kawsachun Coca radio that he was heading to the radio station accompanied by a second vehicle with his escort, when they were ambushed by two trucks from which they got out. four hooded men dressed in black and started shooting.
The bullets did not damage his armored vehicle, but a bullet hit a tire and he had to change to the second vehicle. One of the cars was shot 14 times and the other five.
In the video released by friends of Morales, he is seen in the passenger seat denouncing over the phone that they were chasedand one of its drivers with blood on the back of the head, because a bullet grazed him. https://goo.su/UbDw8E
Morales assured in X that the attempted murder was a combined operation with military and police forces and published a video that would prove that accusation.
In the recording, an army soldier in Cochabamba explains that two police vehicles – which according to Morales’ followers are those with which the ambush was carried out – entered that barracks and that the officers in them left in a helicopter.
When a crowd demanded explanations, the commander of that unit reported that the police were allowed to enter for their safety, as they said they were coming from a confrontation with drug traffickers and they had injuriesthat is why they were later evacuated in a helicopter, according to the video image published by Kawsachun Coca. The military did not confirm that the vehicles are those used in the attack. https://goo.su/y245St
Morales blamed his political heir and successor, President Arce, for having ordered the attack to eliminate it and asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the case.
Lucho Arce is going to become the worst president in history, shooting a former ruler is already the last strawhe maintained, and added: Lucho went crazy.
It is not with the search for the dead that problems are resolved nor with tendentious speculationsArce wrote in X, and instructed a immediate and thorough investigation to clarify the fact.
The attack took place after 13 days of road blockades by Morales followers in rejection of a court order for the former president to respond to justice for the alleged abuse of a minor when he was president – with whom he had a daughter. – and after Arce unexpectedly changed the military leadership on Saturday night to ensure the restoration of public orderin the face of protests in support of Morales.
The government reactivates joint operations between police, military and paramilitary forces to direct repression and attack the lives of sisters and brothers at the blockade and social protest points.Morales assured.
Road closures have deprived cities of food and fuel, increased the cost of living and fueled discontent amid the economic crisis. Over the weekend, the government transported more than 100,000 chickens and 18 tons of beef by plane to supply the markets of La Paz.
At the close of this edition, the command in chief of the armed forces denied in a statement categorically the false accusations related to the alleged attack on former President Evo Morales and in the face of threats to take over military units by sectors seen in the tropics of Cochabamba, called on the population to remain calm in order to avoid painful moments.
