After the attack against Evo Morales, now the government of Luis Arce plans to militarize Bolivia.
The current president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, has given the order to militarize the country; it is not yet clear whether the country’s military and police forces will comply with the order throughout Bolivian territory. This is the continuation of the strategy to violently stop Evo Morales’ candidacy in the next elections (scheduled for August 2025), after the assassination attempt against Morales, which occurred on October 27, and after the change of the Bolivian military leadership, to cleanse it of military and police who remain loyal to Morales, as well as to avoid demonstrations, under the pretext of guaranteeing the restoration of public order against the road blockades of followers of the former president that have already been underway for more than two weeks.
The exact whereabouts of Bolivia’s first indigenous president is unknown, but it is presumed that he is in the tropical region of Bolivia, the place that has been historically linked to the life and political militancy of Evo.
On October 27, 2024, the former president and presidential candidate of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was on his way to his weekly radio program in the city of Cochabamba, when he was the victim of an attack that had the support of the Bolivian police and military, who shot at Evo’s vehicle and left by helicopter.
About this fact, the Minister of Defense of Bolivia, Edmundo Novillo, denied the existence of a plan by President Luis Arce to assassinate Evo. According to the government’s version, the coca grower leader had previously shot at military and police personnel.
For his part, Evo Morales asked the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to carry out an independent and complete investigation.
After the assassination attempt on Morales, his followers took over an airport in the coca-growing region of Bolivia, took to the roads and took to the streets in support of that country’s first indigenous president, who is also being investigated by the Bolivian prosecutor’s office for alleged rape, trafficking and smuggling of minors.
Regional and International Impacts
Bolivia enters the global geopolitical game due to its significant reserves of lithium (used in the manufacture of batteries, cell phones, ceramics, glass, lubricants and even in some medicines used for bipolar treatments), it is the country that has the largest amount at global level.
A president like Evo Morales, who achieved an economic bonanza thanks to the high level of gas production and export, with favorable future conditions could return Bolivia to economic stability.
In regional politics, when Evo served as Head of State and Government, he entered the country as a member of ALBA, UNASUR and CELAC, blocks that seek regional integration. Alliances that are outside the area of influence of the US imperial agenda, which were interrupted by the one-year transitional management of the right-wing Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020), who left ALBA, announced that she would dissociate herself from UNASUR and he had problems with CELAC, when he denounced Mexico for preventing him from exercising the pro tempore presidency of the bloc. In 2020, Luis Arce joined again.
Morales’ return would imply strengthening these ties, channeling them towards regional integration and the Global South, within the framework of the process of Bolivia’s incorporation into the BRICS + group. For this reason, it is important to observe the attack against Evo from a regional perspective linked to the attempt to delegitimize the presidential mandate of Maduro Moros, ignoring his electoral success and the decision of the majority of the people. The recent actions of the Brazilian government, especially Itamaraty, which placed Lula as the “Trojan Horse” of the BRICS by vetoing Venezuela’s entry into this organization and the past statements of Lula, who asked Maduro to show the electoral minutes, thus joining the countries that questioned the decision of the Venezuelan people. Brazil becomes not only a Trojan Horse of the BRICS but of Latin America.
The attack against Morales represents an attack against regional integration, against South-South cooperation and integration. A political action that aligns with the imperial agenda of the United States and its allies.
Some final considerations
The attack against Evo Morales is a very serious event. The political confrontation between the presidential candidate of Bolivia, previously Head of State and Government between 2006 and 2019, and the current Bolivian government, is not a conflict between two left-wing leaders to return to govern or to maintain the presidency of Bolivia.
The concrete possibility of Morales’ death would impact regional integrationist policy, because although under Arce’s mandate, Bolivia has managed to rejoin UNASUR, CELAC and ALBA-TCP, the current Bolivian president does not have a high positive image, for On the contrary, it has lost the support of the social bases. Therefore, Arce’s re-election, even without Evo Morales in the electoral race, is not assured.
In reality, a hypothetical physical disappearance of Evo would mean an electoral advantage for the Bolivarian right. Under this premise, it can be said that Arce is also serving as a “Trojan Horse” in Latin America, because the possibility of Evo’s physical disappearance would mean a right-wing government that would act just like Jeanine Añez, withdrawing Bolivia from the regional integrationist blocs of Latin America (ALBA, UNASUR and CELAC) as well as from the new BRICS initiative.
Within energy geopolitics, the prospects for the use of gas indicate that this product will continue to acquire use value, since it will be the first energy resource to be used, according to assessments by the International Energy Agency, OPEC, and BP. A right in Bolivia would allow the delivery of resources to the transnational energy hegemony.
Finally, the militarization of Bolivia in search of violently stopping the popular support expressed by a great part of the Bolivian people, as well as the frustrated assassination attempt against Evo, seem to be paving the way for a single solution: the exile of the first indigenous president of South America.
