INDIGENOUS activists in Bolivia have blamed the government for an alleged attempt to assassinate former president Evo Morales.
Mr Morales reports surviving a bid to kill him in the coca leaf-growing region of Chapare on Sunday after unidentified heavily armed men dressed in black opened fire on his car.
He was not injured in the alleged attack, which quickly became the latest flashpoint in a struggle between the former leader and current President Luis Arce.
Mr Morales, who served as Bolivia’s first indigenous president from 2006 to 2019, blamed Mr Arce’s government for the outburst of violence, saying it was part of a co-ordinated campaign by Bolivian authorities to sideline him from politics.
The incident coincides with a bitter rift at the highest levels of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS).
Mr Morales and Mr Arce, his former economy minister, are fighting over who will lead the party into next year’s elections.
“This is not an isolated incident,” the Morales-aligned faction of MAS said in a statement. “It's clear evidence that we are facing a fascist government that does not hesitate to attack the life of former president Evo Morales.”
Responding to the attack, Mr Arce said: “The exercise of any violent practice in politics must be condemned and clarified.
“Problems are not resolved by trying to kill people or by partisan speculation.”
But indigenous activists from the Bartolina Sisa Resistance offered “full solidarity” to Mr Morales and said the attack on the former president had been carried out by “fascist and ultra-reactionary forces, heavily armed, seeking to end his life.”
The group said Mr Arce and Vice-President David Choquehuanca had betrayed the principles of the MAS, were “steeped in hatred towards indigenous people and make every effort to disqualify, prevent and now try to physically eliminate our brother Evo, a symbol of struggle and resistance.”
The group added: “We demand a detailed investigation at the international level to ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished.”
