The President of BoliviaLuis Arce, denounced this Friday that “armed groups” related to the former president, Luis Arce, denounced on Friday that “armed groups” related to the former president Evo Morales took over three military barracks in the Tropic of Cochabamba, the union and political stronghold of the pro-government leader in the center of the country. Arce, who said that there are hostages, described this act as an act of “treason to the homeland”..
“We denounce before the Bolivian people and the international community that armed groups related to Evo Morales have taken by assault three military units in the Tropic of Cochabamba, holding military personnel and their families hostage.and threatening their lives,” Arce wrote on the X social network.
The governor argued that the seizure of a military installation “by irregular groups anywhere in the world is a crime of treason” and an “affront” to the Constitution.The Bolivian government, the Armed Forces and “the Bolivian people itself, which strongly rejects the criminal blockades of Evo Morales, as well as these criminal actions”.
Prior to Arce’s message, a group of Bolivian soldiers denounced this Friday that they were taken as “hostages” by followers of the former president inside his military installations in the Tropic of Cochabamba, and they assured that their lives “are in danger”. In a video broadcast by Bolivian media, a group of soldiers standing in front of some military installations sent a message to the Government “not to unblock the Parotani road”, in the central region of Cochabamba, since they are surrounded by more than 2,000 ‘evistas’, as the sectors loyal to the former president are known.
“They have cut off our water, electricity, they have taken us hostage, we ask for a prompt solution, do not intervene in the blockade points, please my general. We are family members, we are parents, children, brothers and sisters of entire families.”asked a soldier who did not identify himself. The soldiers of the Cacique Juan Maraza Military Regiment in Villa Tunari in Cochabamba, a region that is Morales’ political and union stronghold, assured that their “guarantees are cut off”.
The Armed Forces pronounced themselves in a communiqué before these facts and, in the same line as Arce, pointed out that the armed uprisings are a “betrayal to the homeland”. The military entity urged “to abandon attitudes and to leave the barracks immediately and peacefully” and mentioned that the military held “as hostages are sons of the people who are fulfilling” their duty to “prepare for the defense of the homeland”.
This Friday hundreds of police and military began to unblock the Parotani highway, one of the main blockade points of Morales’ followers, who have been exercising the pressure measure for 19 days in defense of the former president against a possible arrest warrant against him for a case of human trafficking and rape. EFE reported that there have already been some clashes between the “evistas” and the police, with an exchange of tear gas and explosives on the part of Morales’ followers.
This Wednesday, President Arce gave him a ultimatum to Morales and his loyalists to free the passage in the central region of the country. In an open letter, Morales told Arce that “no one would have imagined that the last months of his administration would be so dark and regrettable”, and compared him to former interim president Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) for the use of violence against him, and whom he accuses of having given him a “coup d’état” in 2019. He also warned Arce that if they unblock the roads, he would be the one “responsible for hurting and dividing Bolivia”.
Morales has been barricaded in the Tropic of Cochabamba, in the Chapare province, for the past 19 days in the face of the possibility that an arrest warrant may be issued against him for the human trafficking and statutory rape prosecutions.
Bolivian police withdrew from the Chapare four days ago due to violence by Morales’ followers, so all banks in the sector closed for security. The crisis in the country is taking place in the middle of a struggle between Arce and Morales for the control of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the Executive Bolivian Executive.