Bolivia's ex-president blames govt as shots fired at him

Former Bolivian president Evo Morales said gunmen tried to kill him Sunday in a hail of bullets, an attack he blamed on the current president.

Morales said his driver was wounded as assailants with their faces covered shot at him while he was en route to a radio station for an interview in the city of Cochabamba.

"The car in which I arrived has 14 bullet holes," said Morales, adding: "This was planned. The idea was to kill Evo."

The radio station that hosted the interview, Kawsachun Coca, released a video that it said was of the bullet-ridden pickup truck that Morales had been in.

The windshield had three bullet holes and the driver had blood on his head.

Morales blamed President Luis Arce, a former ally and cabinet minister of his with whom he has fallen out.

"Lucho has destroyed Bolivia and now he wants to eliminate our process by killing Evo," Morales, using the president's nickname, said of his own attempt to regain the presidency.

Morales added, "Fortunately, my life was spared."

Later he filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, formally accusing "government agents" of trying to assassinate him, Morales said on X.

Arce responded, also on X, that he had ordered "an immediate and thorough investigation to clarify the facts" surrounding what he called "the alleged attack" on Morales.

"Any violent practice in politics must be condemned and clarified," Arce added.

The deputy minister of security, Roberto Rios, suggested earlier that the attack might have been staged by the Morales camp -- what he called "a self-attack."

It happened outside a military barracks in Cochabamba as men dressed in black opened fire with rifles at Morales' truck, his MAS party said in a statement.

Morales, a former coca grower who is now 65, served as president from 2006 until 2019 and was highly popular in the Andean country until he tried to bypass the constitution to seek a fourth term.

He was forced to resign after losing the support of the military following an election marked by allegations of fraud, and fled to Mexico