Bolivia has suffered more than $1.35 billion in losses to its economy due to ongoing road blockades led by loyalists of socialist former president and suspected pedophile Evo Morales, Rural Development Minister Juan Yamil told reporters on Tuesday.
Over the past two weeks, Morales sympathizers have blocked Bolivia’s main roads to protect him from possible arrest as a result of an ongoing probe into accusations of statutory rape and human trafficking allegedly committed during his presidency.
As of Tuesday, there are 24 reported main blockade points across Bolivia’s main inter-regional roads, most of them located in the central region of Cochabamba — Morales’ political bastion, where he remains “bunkered” under the protection of his followers.
“The blockades are hurting us in the sector, especially the tropics, we have really regrettable reports, the banana, poultry, pineapple sector, the issue of colleagues who produce soybeans, sugar cane, in fact we are really hurt,” Yamil explained, pointing out that the over $1.3 billion losses so far only include the country’s productive sector.
One of the truckers affected by the blockades told the local news channel Unitel that the situation is “critical” and that they have run out of travel expense funds because “it has been many days and we are practically reaching desperation” due to the lack of access to water or food. The truckers are also subject to harsh outdoor conditions.
The blockades have significantly affected the ability to transport food, medicine, and other supplies throughout the country, disrupting the normal flow of Bolivia’s economic activities and preventing residents of the affected areas from working or engaging in trade. The Chamber of Commerce of the Santa Cruz region warned last week that Bolivia is on “the verge of collapse” due to the ongoing political crisis.
Some of the protesters maintaining the blockades have responded to law enforcement attempts to dismantle them with violence, using stones and even dynamite to attack the police officers working to dismantle the blocks and riots.
A violent clash between protesters and the police took place in the early morning hours of Tuesday in the southeastern town of Mairana, leaving 44 police agents injured, one of them reportedly diagnosed with a life-threatening traumatic brain injury. At least one journalist covering the clash was also reported injured. The violent clash took place hours after protesters hijacked and vandalized a police station in Mairana.
According to police testimonies, the protesters refused to allow ambulances through the blockades to evacuate the critically injured officers. The Bolivian newspaper El Deber reported on Tuesday morning that a helicopter successfully evacuated 13 of the injured policemen, who will receive medical attention at a clinic.
Last week, a police officer lost part of a leg after pro-Morales forces attacked the law enforcement group with dynamite in the town of Parotani.
The National Autonomy Council (CNA), composed of representatives from Bolivia’s federal and regional government, condemned the ongoing blockades on Monday, describing them as a “criminal attack” on Bolivia’s economy and condemning the increase in food prices and difficulties in access to health, transportation, medicine, and fuel that they are causing to the nation’s population.
The blockades protecting Morales from a possible arrest occur in the context of an ongoing power struggle between Morales and his once-protegé, current socialist President Luis Arce, over control of both the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party and Bolivia.
Morales – despite being term-limited by the constitution, a limit he already bypassed for an unconstitutional term before resigning in 2020 – continues to insist in running for president for a fifth time in next year’s upcoming elections.
The former president accused the Arce government on Sunday of plotting to assassinate him. According to Morales, attackers shot a vehicle he was traveling in several times, injuring his driver.
Morales, who presented a video of the alleged events, did not suffer any injuries. Morales first claimed that he shot at one of the attacking vehicle’s tires, but then changed his story on Tuesday, claiming that he does not have “even a stick” to defend himself.
The Bolivian government has cast doubt on Morales’s claims, particularly in light of the inconsistencies in Morales’s own statements, accusing him of presenting edited videos and staging a “theater” show.
Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo accused Morales on Monday of lying and falsifying the purported murder plot. Del Castillo claimed to reporters that, in reality, it was Morales’s vehicle that first opened fire at police agents after refusing to stop at an anti-drug checkpoint, running over a police officer.
“Mr. Morales, no one believes the theatrics you have put on, but you will have to answer to the Bolivian justice system for the crime of attempted murder. This complaint was already filed yesterday by members of the Bolivian police,” Castillo said.
According to prosecutors, Evo Morales maintained a sexual relationship with a woman identified as Cindy Vargas in 2016 at a time at which Vargas was 15 years old. Vargas gave birth to a child when she was 16. Local authorities found a birth certificate in the city of Tarija listing Morales as the father of Vargas’s child.
Vargas, now 23 years old, and her child were declared missing by Bolivian police authorities this month and their whereabouts remain unknown at press time. They were both last seen in the evening hours of October 2 in the vicinity of a school located in the municipality of Yacuiba, a town at the border between Bolivia and Argentina.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.