Buenos Aires Herald 
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales’s vehicle was hit by gunfire in an apparent assassination attempt on Sunday morning. Morales, who was en route to a radio show, was uninjured and has blamed his successor President Luis Arce Catacora.
The three-term former president uploaded a video to Facebook showing the wounded driver and multiple bullet holes in the windshield of the van. The person filming is agitated throughout the two-minute video, which has several jump cuts. Morales is shown speaking on the phone and informing authorities on the street of the attack.
“This is how the attempted magnicide which happened at 06:20 a.m. went,” said Morales in the Facebook post. He said they were intercepted by two vehicles in the municipality of Shinahota, where four hooded men dressed in black got out and shot at the car.
The Herald could not independently verify the contents of the video.
Shinahota is a small tropical town in the central department of Cochabamba. It is located in Chapare, the coca leaf-growing region where Morales rose to political prominence as a coca growers’ union leader and where he still commands a passionate core of support.
On the outskirts of town is the headquarters of the powerful coca growers’ federation, the Coordination of the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba. Opposite its headquarters is Kawsachun Coca radio station, an ardently pro-Evo community radio station where Morales frequently speaks.
According to a document shared later on Sunday by Morales, the car was hit by “at least four gunshots.” The group changed vehicles, and according to the former president the second car was shot at 14 times. The driver was grazed by bullets on his head and arm in that second car, the text added.
“I was surprised. Thankfully, we saved our lives,” Morales said in an interview with Kawsachun Coca radio after the incident.
“Police did not receive any orders to apprehend Evo Morales,” said Deputy Security Minister Roberto Ríos in an interview on the state television channel Bolivia Tv Oficial. He told journalists that the government is investigating the incident “whether it’s true or not.”
The country’s Ombudsman Office made a general call for peace in a communiqué published on Sunday afternoon.
“We asked that those involved in the conflict stop being guided by personal interests and take on the responsibility of de-escalating the violence and lead the way to solutions that will allow us to reestablish a peaceful coexistence,” read the statement posted to X.
Bolivia at boiling point
The attack happened as political tensions in Bolivia reach boiling point. President Arce and Morales have been engaged in a bitter public feud that has split their Movement Towards Socialism (MAS, by its Spanish initials) party. Arce was previously Morales’s economy minister.
“We hold Luis Arce Catacora, Government Minister Eduardo del Castillo, and Defense Minister Edmundo Novillo directly responsible for this attack on Evo Morales’ life, as well as those of the people who were with him,” read a document by MAS-IPSP published on X. Arce was expelled from MAS as a product of the party infighting in October 2023, but not all factions recognized the move as legitimate.
On Sunday afternoon, Morales wrote on X that he reported the incident to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, claiming the attackers were “elite agents of the Bolivian state.” The Commission did not immediately respond to the Herald’s requests for confirmation.
Morales was formally accused of statutory rape in late September. The Tarija department Prosecutor’s Office accused Morales of having a relationship with a 15-year-old girl, allegedly in exchange for political favors for her parents. A birth certificate shows the name Juan Evo Morales Ayma as the father of a child, whose mother gave birth at the age of 15.
Morales has claimed that the accusations are politically motivated. Three days before prosecutors charged him, Morales had led a “March to Save Bolivia,” a protest against Arce. The march’s main demand was for Arce to dismiss ministers Evo claims are involved in the drug trade. Morales also suggested that Arce resign.
In response to the accusations, Morales supporters have been blocking roads around the cities of Cochabamba, Oruro, and La Paz for the past two weeks. Several protesters and police have been injured, and there have been shortages of some goods, including food and diesel.
Bolivia’s ailing economy has also contributed to these shortages.
In June, there was an apparent coup attempt against President Luis Arce. However, many in Bolivia believe the attack was staged, given that it was shut down almost immediately and former General Juan José Zúñiga, who led the attack, claimed that Arce had asked him to do something to improve his popularity.
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