Bolivia Paralyzed by Peasant Highway Blockades as Rift Between President Luis Arce and Evo Morales Escalates into National Crisis

LA PAZ — Ground transportation and commercial commerce across central Bolivia ground to a complete standstill on Monday as thousands of indigenous peasant unionists, coca growers, and rural transport federations loyal to former President Evo Morales fortified permanent highway blockades across the central department of Cochabamba, cutting off the vital transit corridor linking the administrative capital of La Paz with the economic powerhouse of Santa Cruz.

The escalating civil confrontation marks a dramatic intensification of the bitter political and legal rupture within the governing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, pitting loyalists of President Luis Arce against militants defending Morales, who faces an arrest warrant and criminal investigation over statutory abuse allegations that he vehemently rejects as judicial persecution orchestrated to derail his 2025 presidential candidacy.

State-owned petroleum agency YPFB confirmed that more than 500 heavy fuel tanker trucks carrying imported diesel and gasoline remain trapped behind earth mounds, felled trees, and burning barricades, triggering panic buying and multi-day vehicle lines at urban service stations in La Paz, El Alto, and Cochabamba. Urban transport operators, interprovincial bus unions, and neighborhood grocery syndicates staged spontaneous demonstrations, warning that perishable foodstuffs from agricultural valleys are rotting in transit.

President Arce delivered a televised national message from the Quemado Palace on Monday afternoon, condemning the blockades as "unjustifiable economic strangulation" designed to destabilize the democratic order. Arce pleaded with protest leaders to lift the roadblocks, noting that the blockade costs the struggling national economy over 120 million dollars per day and compounds an acute foreign exchange shortage that has already constrained essential medical and fuel imports.

Human rights monitors and the Roman Catholic Episcopal Conference offered to mediate dialogue tables, urging both political factions to prioritize social peace and basic civilian transit rights over internal partisan maneuvering. However, picket captains in Parotani and Chimoré affirmed that blockades will expand to the western border crossings of Desaguadero and Tambo Quemado unless the government halts legal proceedings against Morales and addresses soaring food inflation.

National police units equipped with tear gas canisters were dispatched to secure key bridges and highway choke points, while civic and human rights organizations called for maximum restraint to avoid violent confrontations in rural farming townships across the Andean nation.