Bolivia: 13 injured on first day of march against President Luis Arce

Rest Rest. The first day of the march led by former Bolivian President Evo Morales left thirteen people injured, including three police officers, said Minister of Government Eduardo Del Castillo. The incident occurred amid clashes between supporters of Morales — who will march almost 200 kilometers over a week to get from Oruro to La Paz, the Bolivian capital — and supporters of President Luis Arce.

During a press conference held in the late afternoon, Minister Del Castillo blamed the former president for the riots that occurred on Tuesday. “It was a day of violence organized by Evo Morales,” said Del Castillo.

The march — which pits two factions of the ruling party, the Movement Towards Socialism, MAS, against each other, seeking to control it, one aligned with Morales and the other with Arce, his political heir, now turned rival — left on Tuesday from the small town of Caracollo, in the Oruro region, about 190 kilometers from La Paz, where it intends to arrive in the next few days. In the late afternoon it arrived in Panduro, where the protesters will spend the night to resume the march on Wednesday morning.

After starting the so-called “March to save Bolivia,” Morales said that he is marching so that the MAS is respected. “They don’t just want to disqualify me,” Morales said, while accusing the president of wanting to “regulate political rights.”

A few kilometres after their departure, a group of supporters of Arce stood on the road to stop the march. On the road, they burned a doll representing Evo Morales while many protesters remained in the mountains, waiting for more Morales supporters to arrive and prevent them from passing.

However, Morales’ supporters outnumbered their opponents and threw stones at them amid tear gas in a confusing moment. The Morales-aligned group surrounded them and managed to advance while Arce’s supporters retreated.

Minister Del Castillo denied that the police had used tear gas to repel the protesters and claimed that the police were attacked by Morales’ supporters.

In a statement, the Bolivian police reported that police officers “were violently attacked with slingshots and stones without any cause and with the aim of provoking the security forces, resulting in several police officers being injured, as well as police vehicles (vans and Coaster-type buses, which belong to all Bolivians) with considerable material damage.”

“Morales has already had his chance, he has led us to this economic crisis. It is his fault that we are in this situation and now he claims to defend the people; it is unacceptable,” Rolando Flores, a pro-Arce miner, told AP.

Arce wrote on his Facebook account: “Destroying, threatening, blocking and spreading hatred will always be easier for those who do not believe in democracy, for those who believe themselves to be saviors of scenarios of uncertainty that they themselves seek to promote.”

Morales (2006-2019) called for the march against the deterioration of the economy and to pressure the government and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to accept his candidacy for the 2025 presidential elections by the divided ruling party.

“We are suffering from hunger… This is not how you govern,” Felix Torres, a peasant representative from the highland region of Oruro, told The Associated Press. He added that Morales is the hope for a return to economic prosperity.

“Arce, traitor. Where is the money? Evo Bolivia wants you back,” shouted Morales supporters who carried Bolivian flags, but from the MAS.

The dispute between Morales and Arce —both leaders of different factions of the MAS— began when the former president announced his candidacy for the presidency next year. Arce, who has not yet confirmed his candidacy, accused Morales of seeking to “impose” his candidacy “by fair means or foul.”

The president is facing a complicated economic crisis that began last year with the lack of dollars in an economy in which this currency is important because the productive sectors, merchants and artisans use it to import their inputs and merchandise. The government also uses dollars to import gasoline and diesel and sell them at a subsidized price.

Bolivia will spend 1.2 billion dollars this year on importing gasoline and diesel at international prices, which it will then sell at half the cost, according to official reports. To finance these purchases, the government has resorted to international currency reserves, which has worsened the shortage of dollars, which in turn has influenced the increase in prices for the basic basket of goods.

Gas production, which had driven the Bolivian economy until 2014, has entered into crisis due to the depletion of wells and the lack of new discoveries caused by a drop in investments.