Bolivia’s Evo Morales told the AP he will continue his hunger strike until his rival agrees to dialogue.

LAUCA Ñ, Bolivia (AP) – Transformation and divisions in Bolivia former President Evo Morales said on Sunday he would continue his hunger strike until the government of his protégé-turned-rival agreed to political dialogue. It is an attempt to ease protests that have paralyzed the Andean nation over what Morales’ supporters call political persecution.

Morales spoke from the misty tropics of Chapare, a rural coca-growing region of Bolivia that serves as his political stronghold.

“My fight is to improve the situation in the country and to start a dialogue without any conditions on two fronts: economic and political,” Morales told The Associated Press from the office of the coca growers federation, which he long led. He said he began the hunger strike on Friday in the hope that “international organizations or friendly governments” would help him work with his political enemy, President Luis Arce.

Tensions have increased over the past three weeks. since Morales’ supporters have erected powerful roadblocks aimed at rebuking Arce, the ex-president’s former economy minister with whom he is vying to lead Bolivia’s ruling Socialist party in elections next year.

While calling for Arce’s resignation, protesters also sought to challenge his government’s attempt to reopen a 2016 statutory rape case against Morales, an ethnic Aymara who was the first member of an indigenous community to become president of Latin America’s only indigenous nation.

Morales denies any wrongdoing. “My crime is being indigenous,” he said Sunday.

The AP reached Morales after an arduous 11-hour journey by car, motorcycle and on foot through hills and highlands, avoiding road blockades, crossing debris-strewn roads and weaving through more than a dozen checkpoints, in some cases manned by profiteers.

Roadblocks are a common protest tactic in Bolivia, where mountainous terrain means a few strategically placed checkpoints can isolate major cities and bring the country to a standstill.

That’s what happened earlier this month, increasing pressure on Arce to take action against protesters who have displaced hundreds of thousands of highland residents, fueling fears of food and gasoline shortages and driving up already inflated prices in major cities, even the capital La Paz.

“I see people rising up even more,” said Eusebio Urbano, a farmer who protested in support of Morales during one of the road blockades on Sunday. “I don’t know what this government is thinking. … They’re not trying to solve anything. We’ll have to keep the pressure on until he goes away.”

Last Friday, Arce’s government sent about 3,000 police armed with tear gas and backed by helicopters to forcefully break the blockade.

Senior minister Eduardo Del Castillo said security forces had arrested dozens of protesters in a crackdown that cleared a road connecting Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third-largest city, and La Paz. Security forces have transferred more than 50 of them to a detention center in the capital, he said.

“What happened was very inhumane,” Morales said, adding that his refusal to eat was also aimed at putting pressure on authorities to release the 66 detainees. “These are humble people who have been portrayed as terrorists.”

It was the latest twist in Bolivia’s long-running political crisis, which worsened last week when Gunmen ambushed Morales’ convoy what the former president said was a government-sponsored assassination attempt. Arce government officials denied this, saying police opened fire because Morales’ van sped through a checkpoint.

“They used every tactic possible – politically, legally, morally and now – to physically end my life,” Morales said.

After this, protests in defense of Morales only intensified. On Friday, Arce’s government accused his demonstrators of seizing military barracks in Chapare, a flashpoint in conflict since the US-backed drug war in the 1990s. Authorities said protesters seized weapons and took about 200 soldiers hostage on Friday.

Morales and his supporters rejected reports of a brutal hostage situation, with the leader’s Kausachun Coca radio station broadcasting footage showing protesting union members and soldiers calmly negotiating while chewing coca leaves.

“Please, this is not a takeover of military barracks,” Morales said. “They will remain on duty until their economic and political demands are met.”

Minister Del Castillo said on Sunday that the government is, in principle, open to negotiations with Morales. But he said authorities didn’t believe his motives.

“Morales doesn’t care about the country, he cares about himself. He’s looking for new confrontations,” Del Castillo said. “Morales has a whole scenario for destabilizing the government.”

The surge in tensions comes amid a bitter split in the top ranks of Bolivia’s long-dominant Movement Towards Socialism party, which intensified last month when authorities announced their intention to arrest Morales on charges that he fathered a daughter of 15 years. . -old lady in 2016, when he was 56 years old and president.

Morales and his supporters denounced the case as a political witch hunt aimed at blocking his candidacy in the 2025 elections.

Arce insists that the current constitution, which allows only two consecutive terms, would in any case prohibit Morales, who was in power from 2006 to 2019, from running next year.

“This is a betrayal of the people, the party activists and the revolution,” Morales said of Arce’s efforts to undermine him.

In neighboring Argentina, the government of far-right President Miley announced Saturday that it had filed a complaint accusing Morales of child abuse committed during the former president’s months-long political exile in Argentina from 2019 to 2020.

At the time, allegations of election fraud sparked widespread protests that forced Morales to resign under military pressure and flee to Mexico before seeking refuge in Argentina – a dismissal that Morales and his supporters view as a coup.

Now, years later, Morales, who continues to show intense support from the indigenous population, has seized on growing dissatisfaction with his chosen successor.

“It’s not that I, Evo, want to be president, the people asked me to come back,” Morales said. “During my reign there was stability. When there is economic and political stability, there is happiness.”

Many in the country are unhappy with Arce over the collapse of Bolivia’s once-growing economy, built on cheap dollars and fuel. They fondly remember Morales’s reign, credited with lifting millions out of poverty and sharply narrowing Bolivia’s wealth gap during the country’s natural gas boom.

“Now, with more experience, we are ready to save Bolivia,” Morales said, promising he would revive the faltering economy by getting Bolivia to join and work more closely with BRICS, a group of emerging economies seeking to challenge Western dominance of the world order. China.

The former president, now 65, is unsure how long his hunger strike will last. But he said he was ready for hardship.

“I exercise a lot,” Morales said. “Today I woke up at 4 am and did 1015 squats.”

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press journalist Carlos Guerrero in Lauca C, Bolivia, contributed to this report.