Guarded by almost 2,000 followers armed with spears and shieldsthe former president of Bolivia Evo Morales entangled in the tropics of Cochabamba to avoid being captured by a case of Aggravated and from his union bastion he insists on being a candidate, despite a Constitutional disqualification Recently ratified.
The related to Morales built a fort to protect your leader In the town of Lauca ñ, in the center of the country, with fences with Pointed stakes of wood, closure of roads and surveillance towers.
In addition, people sleep in tents near the ex -president’s house in what they call ‘La Vigilia’, with Two -meter wood spears, stones and artisanal shields in the hand in case an “invader” undermines their safety.
“The spears and shields are defenses according to our uses and customs,” the union leader told Efe Red Maicol And he added that “they are ready” to Stop any “hitman” that threatens the life of Morales.
Morales received Efe for an interview at the headquarters of the Radio Live the Coca Livean related medium that transmits all its interventions and speeches. To approach the building that protects it, the team was escorted half a kilometer by an agricultural truck and several of its followers, who secured the entrance after at least three control points.
The former leader of the official Movement to socialism (But) it does not leave that area since October 2024, when an arrest warrant was announced against him Trafficking in people aggravated by allegedly having a relationship with a minor with whom he had a son in 2016, when he was president.
The last point of vehicle control is a surveillance structure with two towers, one of at least four meters with a 24 -hour vigia.
To enter on foot, a stake must 20 permanent guardsmen and women, with colored spears and black caps with the word “security.”
Those who participate in ‘La Vigilia’ are identified with cards to avoid “infiltrated.”
According to Evo Moraleshis followers see this fort as’THE GUARD OF THE PEOPLE‘, the government building that ordered to build in La Paz during its presidency, since they receive delegations from all over the country “to defend the plurinational state” and “the Cultural Democratic Revolution.”
The interview with Morales was done at the radio facilities where he has his office, a desk with the flag of Bolivia and the Wiphala, the Teach indigenous multicoloredand a photo of a meter from when he was president, in addition to several football trophies and another image of 2005 in Havana that shows him with the then leaders of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and Cuba, Fidel Castro.
Morales said that if it were his decision He would have given the authorities Because he does not want his teammates to take care of him “day and night”, but that he accepted because “he could not reject them.”
“If there is no victim there is no crime,” said the former governor about the arrest warrant against him, which he described as a strategy to “isolate Evo (for) not to be an electoral rival.”
Land without law
The tropics of Cochabamba currently It does not have state security forcesbecause they retired through the supposed violence that Morales followers exercised for two weeks of road blockages that ended with the death of four police and two civilians.
According to the former president, the death of the police was “A assembly” He added that “They care about dead police, but not for the peasants”.
The government of Luis Arce He denounced it for Eight crimes Following the recent road blockages and violence that was during unlocking operations, including, Terrorism, public instigation to commit crimes and obstruction of electoral processes.
That is why, along dozens of kilometers in that cocalero territory, no police or military is seen, and for which the state bank union suspended its operations until new notice.
Morales exercises strong control over that area Since the 1990s, when he was a union leader of peasants who cultivate coca leaf, an ancestral plant recognized by the country’s constitution for consumption.
As leader of the Six federations of the Cochabamba tropics It generated a loyalty by groups of cocaleros, who are the ones who currently defend it and who, in addition, mostly made road blockages to force their registration as a presidential candidate.
Since 2021 Morales moved away from President Luis Arce, due to differences in government management and by the control of the MAS.
Arce says that The former president wanted to control the official party without taking into account social bases that make it up, while Morales says the president seeks “kill him“And take it out of the electoral contest.
