Former President Evo Morales chews coca leaves during a hunger strike in Lauca N, Chapare region, Bolivia, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, amid an ongoing political conflict with the government of President Luis Arce. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

LAUCA Ñ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia's transformative and divisive former President Evo Morales said Sunday that he would press on with a hunger strike until the government of his protégé-turned-rival agreed to a political dialogue. His act of dissent aims to defuse street protests that have paralyzed the nation in recent weeks over what Morales' supporters condemn as his political persecution.

Morales, a larger-than-life figure still towering over Bolivian politics five years after his fraught ouster, spoke on his third day without food from the misty tropics of Chapare, Bolivia’s rural coca-growing region that serves as his stronghold.

“My fight is to improve the situation in the country and to start a dialogue without conditions on two fronts, one economic and one political,” Morales told The Associated Press from the office of the coca growers’ federation that he long has led.

The ex-president said he began his hunger strike Friday in hopes of "international organizations or friendly governments" facilitating talks with his political nemesis, President Luis Arce.

Tensions have surged over the past three weeks since pro-Morales supporters set up crippling roadblocks aimed at rebuking Arce — Morales' former economy minister with whom he’s now vying to lead Bolivia’s governing socialist party into next year’s elections.

Protesters have choked off major highways in defiance of an attempt by Arce's government to revive a 2016 statutory rape case against Morales, an ethnic Aymara who was the first member of an Indigenous community to become the president of Latin America’s only Indigenous-majority nation.

Morales has denied any wrongdoing. “My crime is being Indigenous,” he said on Sunday.

The AP reached Morales after an arduous 11-hour journey by car, motorcycle and foot over hills and through the highlands, circumventing road blockades, crisscrossing routes littered with debris and toppled trees and squeaking through over a dozen security checkpoints, in some cases manned by profiteers.

Roadblocks are a common protest tactic in Bolivia, where the mountainous terrain means a few strategically positioned checkpoints can can isolate major cities and bring the whole nation to a halt.

That's exactly what happened earlier this month, marooning hundreds of thousands of residents in the highlands, raising fears of food and gasoline shortages and hiking up the prices of basic goods in major cities, including La Paz, the capital.

“I see people rising up even more,” said Eusebio Urbano, a farmer protesting in support of Morales at one of the road blockades Sunday. “I don’t know what this government thinks. ... They don’t try to solve anything. We have to keep pushing until it leaves.”

Under public pressure to quell the unrest, Arce's government sent some 3,000 police officers armed with tear gas and backed by helicopters to break up the blockades by force.

Eduardo Del Castillo, a senior Cabinet minister, said security forces had arrested dozens of protesters in clearing the main road linking Cochabamba, Bolivia’s third-biggest city, with La Paz. Authorities transferred over 50 of the demonstrators to pre-trial detention in the capital on charges related to violating public order, he said.

“What happened was very inhumane,” Morales said of the crackdown, adding that his refusal to eat was also aimed at pressuring authorities to release the 66 detainees. “These are humble people who were presented as terrorists.”

It was the latest turn in Bolivia’s long-running political crisis, which escalated last week when gunmen ambushed Morales’ convoy in what the former president claimed was a government-led assassination attempt. Officials in Arce’s government denied this, alleging that police opened fire because Morales’ van had barreled through a security checkpoint.

“They’ve been using any tactic they can, politically, legally, morally and now, physically, to end my life,” Morales said.

From there, protests in defense of Morales only intensified. On Friday, Arce’s government accused his demonstrators of occupying military barracks in Chapare, a flashpoint for conflict since the U.S.-backed war on drugs in the 1990s. Authorities said that Morales' more radical loyalists seized weapons and held some 200 soldiers hostage Friday.

Morales and his supporters rejected reports of a violent hostage situation, with the leader's Kausachun Coca radio station airing footage that showed protesting union members and soldiers negotiating calmly while munching on coca leaves.

“Please, it’s no a take-over of military barracks,” Morales said. “They are holding vigils until their economic and political demands are met.”

Del Castillo, the minister, said Sunday that the government is, in principle, open to negotiating a resolution to the political crisis with Morales. But he said authorities didn’t trust Morales' motives.

“Morales doesn’t care about the country, he cares about himself,” Del Castillo said. “He's looking for new confrontations."

The crisis stems from a bitter rift at the highest rungs of Bolivia’s long-dominant Movement Toward Socialism party, which deepened last month when authorities announced their intention to arrest Morales on charges that he fathered a daughter with a 15-year-old girl in 2016 when he was 56 years old and president.

Morales and his supporters have decried the case as a political witch hunt aimed at blocking his candidacy in the 2025 election.

Arce insists that the current constitution — which permits just two consecutive terms — forbids Morales, who held power from 2006-2019, from running next year, anyway. It was Morales' quest for a fourth term that led to his ouster, which he and his supporters view as a coup.

“It is a betrayal of the people, of the party activists, of the revolution,” Morales said of Arce's efforts to undercut him.

In neighboring Argentina, the government of far-right President Javier Milei on Saturday announced it had lodged a complaint accusing Morales of child abuse committed during the former president’s monthslong political exile in Argentina, from 2019 to 2020.

At that time, Morales' contested re-election sparked mass protests that prompted him to resign under pressure from the military and flee to Mexico before seeking asylum in Argentina.

Now, years later, the charismatic populist — who continues to evince intense support from the Indigenous population — has seized upon growing public discontent with his chosen successor.

“It’s not that I, Evo, want to be president. The people have asked me to return,” Morales said. “During my administration there was stability. When there is economic and political stability, there is happiness.”

Many in the country have soured on Arce over the collapse of Bolivia’s once-prosperous economy built on cheap dollars and fuel. They look back fondly on the tenure of Morales, credited with lifting millions out of poverty and drastically narrowing Bolivia's wealth divide during the nation's natural gas boom.

“Now with more experience, we are ready to save Bolivia,” Morales said. Aware that the economic model that led to Bolivia's remarkable growth had quite literally run out of gas, Morales said he would reverse the nation's economic downturn by having Bolivia join BRICS, a group of emerging economies seeking to counter Western dominance of the world order, and collaborating more closely with China.

The former president, now 65, isn't sure how long his hunger strike will last. But he said he's prepared for the deprivation.

“I do a lot of sports,” Morales said. “Today I woke up at 4 a.m. and did 1,015 sit-ups.”

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

News from © The Associated Press, 2024