Former Bolivian President Evo Morales. Photo: Paula Acunzo/Zuma Press/Europa Press.
Former Bolivian President Evo Morales informed the Bolivian people and the international community about a police and military operation in the Cochabamba Tropics ordered by President Rodrigo Paz to assassinate him. Morales resides in the region, which is also home to the headquarters of the Coordinating Committee of the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics—the country’s main union and coca growers’ organization—where he serves as executive secretary.
The complaint stems from statements made by attorney Nadia Beller, the victim of an attempted femicide on August 17 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, allegedly planned by Paz’s political advisor and owner of the right-wing media outlet La Derecha Diario, Fernando Cerimedo. Beller claimed that Cerimedo leads a parallel police force that operates outside official structures. “He commands and controls that elite group, and it takes orders from no one but him,” stated the lawyer, adding that the unit planned to enter the Cochabamba region within a week to capture Morales. She also reported that Cerimedo had traveled to the United States a week before the attack to purchase aircraft that would allegedly be used to intervene in the region.
“I want to inform the Bolivian people, the international community, and human rights organizations that, based on information from patriotic military and police personnel, we have learned of a new operation that the government intends to carry out in the Cochabamba Tropics on the orders of Rodrigo Paz,” Morales stated on his X account. He added that Defense Minister Ernesto Justiniano spent nearly two weeks in the United States planning the operation with the US government. He also mentioned that Nadia Beller, Cerimedo’s former partner, told the media that Cerimedo was in the US in August, coordinating logistical support for an intervention in the Cochabamba region. “It all adds up,” Morales noted.
Quiero denunciar, ante el pueblo boliviano, la comunidad internacional y organismos de derechos humanos, que por información de militares y policías patriotas tomamos conocimiento de un nuevo operativo que pretenden ejecutar en el tropico de Cochabamba por instrucción de Rodrigo…
— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) August 20, 2026
Morales emphasized that the aim of the operation is not to capture him but to assassinate him using uniformed officers and hitmen to distract public opinion from the serious accusations leveled against the government, such as drug trafficking, corruption, state terrorism, and other crimes. “If anything were to happen, the president and his defense minister would be responsible,” Morales declared.
“We will not be intimidated or give up. We are fighting for Bolivia and for future generations, resisting the return of the neoliberal model that plunders, impoverishes, and hands over our natural resources,” he added.
Earlier, Morales had demanded that the Attorney General’s Office conduct a transparent investigation into Fernando Cerimedo, a former advisor to Argentinian President Javier Milei and current advisor to Rodrigo Paz, following Nadia Beller’s allegation regarding the existence of the elite police group. On that occasion, Morales referred to two previous threats from Cerimedo, particularly the one on X on May 14, where Cerimedo wrote “tick-tock” at the end of a message addressed to Morales, which the former president interpreted as an allusion to his life running out. “Now, we understand why,” he said.
En su momento, denunciamos oportunamente las dos amenazas que hizo Fernando Cerimedo, asesor personal de Rodrigo Paz, en mi contra. Una de las dos amenazas fue el 14 de mayo, cuando en su cuenta de la red “X”, citando una publicación mía, emite un mensaje agresivo donde escribe… pic.twitter.com/LVlFpiTrxO
— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) August 18, 2026
Currently, Cerimedo’s ex-partner, who survived the attack and is hospitalized, accused him of planning the attack and detailed several instances of corruption involving Rodrigo Paz’s administration and family, such as shady deals in fuel purchases, ties to drug trafficking and money laundering, and gold trafficking. Among Beller’s most alarming allegations is Cerimedo’s relationship with Brad Parscale, the digital architect of Trump’s campaigns and founder of the political intelligence platform Campaign Nucleus, whom she also accuses of being a CIA agent.
Reasons behind assassination plots against Evo Morales
Plots to assassinate Evo Morales continue because, despite the political persecution that he has faced since the time of Luis Arce’s administration, he remains the country’s most prominent opposition leader and the main unifying force for social majorities. Rodrigo Paz’s government seems to have realized that the Bolivia it is governing is not the neoliberal-era Bolivia. The “creole” Bolivia that the government seeks to resurrect—the one that excludes indigenous peoples—no longer has a place. Just as that social base was decisive for his electoral victory, it could also be decisive for his defeat.
The constant protests against neoliberal reforms have shown that Bolivia has changed and that the memory of an indigenous person in power can no longer be erased, even if people are assassinated. In Bolivia, the signifier of “country” remains indigenous, and this process of restructuring and consolidation cannot be understood without the figure of Evo Morales, whether as its antithesis or as a reaffirmation of that process.
Above all, the neoliberal elites still refuse to accept that an indigenous person may once again govern the country.
(Diario Red) by Valeria Duarte Galleguillos
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
