The offensive by former Bolivian President Evo Morales, ordering his supporters to blockade roads and highways nationwide to prevent transportation of goods, food, fuel, etc. between cities, has provoked both economic chaos and violence. According to the daily Los Tiempos, Interior Minister Roberto Rios announced yesterday that joint military-police forces have been deployed to locations largely in the department of Cochabamba to clear the blockades that began on June 4. Morales, who governed Bolivia from 2006-2019, vows he’ll continue the blockades until current President Luis Arce resigns, accusing him of causing shortages of food, fuel and dollars that have harmed the population. Morales insists he is running for President in the Aug. 17 elections, even while he is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Government officials charge that Morales is actually trying to disrupt or prevent those elections from taking place, and threatenIng Bolivia’s democratic institutions.
Over the past few days, the situation has turned ugly. On June 6, some 1,000 of Morales’s supporters violently took over the Chimore airport in Cochabamba, and did significant damage before being dislodged. According to the Bolivian Information Agency, Morales’s supporters also attacked ambulances in the Vinto district of Cochabamba, one of them carrying a wounded policeman, and doctors and healthcare workers, who were physically attacked. President Arce charged that this is a violation of international humanitarian law and the American Human Rights Convention. At least 53 people have been injured as a result of the violence.
