LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia's hugely popular and controversial former leftist president, Evo Morales, on Monday called on supporters to take to the streets in protest against his bitter political rival, current President Luis Arce, who hours earlier accused Morales on national TV of trying to overthrow him.
Morales’ appeal to Bolivia’s farmers, miners and peasants followed President Arce's unprecedented televised speech late Sunday lambasting his former mentor. Accusing Morales of trying to sabotage his administration and undermine democracy, Arce escalated a high-stakes power struggle that has pushed Bolivia to the brink.
“Enough, Evo!” Arce exclaimed on state TV. “Until now, I have tolerated your attacks and slander in silence. But putting the lives of people at risk is something I cannot tolerate.”
Arce, who has faced a series of mounting crises with his ruling party riven by disagreements, alleged that Morales’ attempts to mobilize support and run against Arce in next year's presidential election was “putting democracy at risk."
"You are threatening the entire country," Arce said, claiming that Morales sought to return to power by “means fair or foul."
His dramatic speech in the Andean nation of 12 million dredged up the chaos and bloodshed of 2019, when Morales ran for an unconstitutional third term and won. After accusations of fraud sparked mass protests, Morales resigned under pressure from the army, in what his supporters call a coup. At least 36 people were killed in the ensuing crackdown by security forces.
Morales, who served as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, has vowed to unleash unrest if he is stopped from running in the August 2025 elections.
Ever since the constitutional court last year barred the charismatic leader from the race, coca cultivators, Indigenous tribes and workers — whom Morales represented during his presidency from 2006 to 2019 — have come to his defense with street protests, marches and road blockades.
Speaking to reporters, Morales encouraged the international community to follow his so-called “March to Save Bolivia" on Tuesday from the southeast village of Caracollo to Bolivia's administrative capital of La Paz. He described the march — 85 kilometers (53 miles) by foot along a highway — as a natural expression of protest against the failure of Arce’s government to fix the worsening economic crisis.
Firing back at Arce on Monday, Morales insisted that he had no selfish ulterior motives.
“The march is the response of a people fed up with their unthinking government, which has maintained absolute silence in the face of the crisis, corruption and the destruction of stability,” Morales wrote on social media platform X. “President Arce is not only desperate, but also confused.”
Over the past year, the Arce-Morales rift has polarized Bolivia, tainting the country's politics and creating a sense of turmoil that soldiers sought to seize upon in June in an alleged coup attempt.
Anti-government protesters on Monday flocked to the main road leading to Bolivia’s tourist hotspot of Lake Titicaca, convening and calling on Arce to resign under the watchful gaze of riot police. Some demonstrators piled dirt at the entrances of other roads in the La Paz area, impeding traffic.
“It’s an incompetent government that we have, and it won’t solve the economic crisis,” said Pablo Merma, a peasant leader of the so-called Red Ponchos, radical Indigenous activists from the high plains who rallied Monday against the president. “We are not afraid of you, Arce.”
Another protest leader, Ponciano Santos, warned Arce that the social movement would hold him responsible for whatever happened on Tuesday.
"If you tear gas us, if you interfere with our march, the government will fall,” Santos told reporters.
Although Arce was Morales’ former economy minister and his candidate in Bolivia’s 2020 elections, the erstwhile allies began vying for power after Morales’ return from exile and political comeback the same year.
Bolivia’s political stagnation and economic quagmire — with fuel scarce and the central bank dangerously short on foreign currency reserves — has caused some Bolivians once outraged over Morales’ strongman tendencies to grow nostalgic for the ex-leader’s transformation of the economy and remarkable reduction of poverty.
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Rocks block a highway towards Lake Titicaca in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The rocks were placed by people protesting for the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Rocks block a highway towards Lake Titicaca in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The roadblock was placed by protesters demanding the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Police keep protesters from blocking more lanes as they protest for the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy in Corapata, on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Police patrol at a roadblock in Vilaque on the outskirts of El Alto, Bolivia, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. The roadblock was placed by protesters demanding the resignation of Bolivian President Luis Arce for his management of the economy. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The National Institutes of Health decided to relocate nearly two dozen retired research chimpanzees from a facility in New Mexico to a sanctuary in Louisiana, a move celebrated Friday by animal advocates who have been fighting for years to get the animals moved.
NIH representatives confirmed in an email that the transfer of the 23 chimps from the Alamogordo Primate Facility at Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico will happen in the coming months.
Staffing issues, namely the planned retirement of the chimps' caretakers, prompted the decision to move the chimps, the agency stated. The animals have not been used as test subjects since 2015, when the NIH retired chimpanzees — humans’ closest relatives — from invasive research.
More than 200 were previously moved to the federally supported sanctuary, but the NIH said it was decided in 2019 that some were too frail to be relocated due to their health conditions. They remained at the base under the care of contracted veterinarians and caregivers.
The contractor informed the NIH that a significant number of staff were expected to retire by July 2025.
“Recruitment and training of new staff has proven difficult due to the specialized nature of the work and APF’s remote location," the NIH statement said. "Given this uncertainty, NIH has determined that the best course of action for the welfare of all these chimpanzees is to relocate them to the federal sanctuary at Chimp Haven.”
Agency spokesperson Amanda Fine said relocating chimpanzees is a complex, time-consuming process and that Chimp Haven will work with the NIH and the facility in Alamogordo to ensure the health and safety of each animal during the move.
The Humane Society of the United States is among the groups that have been sending letters to and petitioning the NIH over the years to relocate the last of the Alamogordo chimps.
The Humane Society of the United States, Animal Protection New Mexico, Humane Society Legislative Fund and others sued the NIH in 2021. A federal judge issued a ruling the next year, finding that the NIH could not legally refuse sanctuary retirement for the chimpanzees because of their chronic health conditions.
“We believe that the extraordinary amount of pressure that has been put on NIH to move them to Chimp Haven -- including the engagement of thousands of our supporters who demanded that the chimps be moved and our winning lawsuit — played a major role in the decision to finally move them to sanctuary,” the group said.
The chimps — which range in age from 34 to 62 years old — could have years ahead of them to enjoy life at the sanctuary, advocates said. The sanctuary has cared for hundreds of chimps since the first two animals arrived there in 2005. That includes 214 that were sent there from NIH-supported facilities following the agency's 2015 decision.
Chimp Haven President and CEO Rana Smith said Friday that the sanctuary is close to capacity and will have to build additional living spaces to accommodate the chimps.
The expansion is expected to cost at least $4 million, which will have to be raised from private supporters.
“There are many details to be determined in the weeks to come, but for now, we celebrate this wonderful news for the APF chimps,” Smith said.
New Mexico was once home to a large colony of captive-bred chimpanzees, with the animals first brought to the state for space travel testing. Later, the colony was acquired by the Coulston Foundation, and expanded for use with drug testing and infectious disease research.
Animal Protection New Mexico has pressed for the chimpanzees’ freedom since the mid-1990s.
“These deserving chimpanzees have endured so much for so long, and their arrival in sanctuary will represent the federal government’s honoring of its obligation and commitment to their retirement,” said Elisabeth Jennings, the group's executive director.
In this image taken from a video provided by the National Institutes of Health, a retired research chimpanzee is given a snack on Oct. 2019, at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in southern N.M. (National Institutes of Health via AP)
This Aug. 29, 2024 image provided by Chimp Haven, shows chimpanzees TJ and Nicole hanging out at a sanctuary near Keithville, La. The two were among a group of chimps previously relocated from the Alamogordo Private Facility at Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico. (Chimp Haven via AP)
In this image taken from a video provided by the National Institutes of Health, a retired research chimpanzee sits in an enclosure, Oct. 2019, at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in southern N.M. (National Institutes of Health via AP)
In this image taken from a video provided by the National Institutes of Health, a retired research chimpanzee hangs in an enclosure, Oct. 2019, at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in southern N.M. (National Institutes of Health via AP)
In this image taken from a video provided by the National Institutes of Health, a retired research chimpanzee eats, Oct. 2019, at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in southern N.M. (National Institutes of Health via AP)
FILE - The administrative building of the National Institutes of Health is shown in Bethesda, Md., Aug. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)