Buenos Aires Herald 
Argentina’s Security Ministry has accused Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales of sexual abuse and human trafficking during his political asylum in Argentina between 2019 and 2020.
“On top of the charges for sexual abuse against minors in Bolivia, now there’s something even more abhorrent,” Security Minister Patricia Bullrich wrote on X on Saturday. “The socialist ex-president of Bolivia is being accused of having lived with four teenagers during the political asylum Kirchnerism granted him,” she said.
Bullrich said that an individual had reported Morales to the Security Ministry two weeks ago for human trafficking and sexual abuse. The ministry immediately decided to take the case to court, but did not announce the proceedings because of Bolivia’s turbulent political situation. She said during a radio interview that the ministry had gone public with the procedure because other reports had been made subsequently.
Morales is also facing accusations of statutory rape in Bolivia. His supporters have been blocking roads for three weeks in protest at a growing economic crisis in Bolivia and at the accusations, which they see as politically motivated. It comes amid a heated political dispute with Bolivian President Luis Arce.
Human rights organizations have warned of violence against protesters and police officers alike as police unblock the roads. On October 27, Morales reported that he had survived an assassination attempt after shots were fired at his vehicle, claims that the government disputed.
“The coordination between Luis Arce and the Zionist government of Javier Milei is evident,” Morales wrote on X on Sunday. He said that the accusations against him were a “lawfare Operation Condor.” Lawfare refers to the alleged misuse of the judiciary to persecute political opponents. Operation Condor was a system in which South American dictatorships worked together to hunt down political dissidents across borders in the 1970s.
“They are not satisfied with trying to eliminate me politically, mediatically or judicially,” Morales wrote. “Now they are trying to do it with lies and bullets. The people can see this.”
Regarding the statutory rape accusations in Bolivia, Morales’ lawyer Cecilia Urquieta Pardo says that they are politically motivated. Prosecutors charged him three days after he organized a large march calling for Arce to fire several ministers and resign. She added that no victim had come forward to report the case.
“We are in a no man’s land where ministers call and pressure judges, who are publicly admitting they are being intimidated by officials from the Ministry of Government,” Urquieta told the Herald.
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Bullrich did not name the person who had reported the accusations against Morales to the ministry. However, the far-right Bolivian politician Branko Marinkovic claimed on X that he had presented the case, alleging that it involves “statutory rape and trafficking of minors.”
Argentina’s Security Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
“Since Evo lives in complete impunity in Bolivia, the Argentine judiciary will have to try him,” said Marinkovic, who was minister of Development Planning and Economy during Jeanine Áñez’s interim presidency in 2020.
Morales was Bolivia’s first Indigenous president. A former coca leaf growers’ union leader, he led a left-wing government that was recognized for fighting inequality and racism against Bolivia’s large Indigenous population.
After almost 14 years as president, he fled to Argentina via Mexico after controversial accusations of a stolen election in 2019 sparked nationwide protests, ending in a coup against him. He returned to Bolivia in 2020, after Arce was elected. He still had refugee status in Argentina until President Javier Milei terminated it last month.
The other report against Morales that Bullrich referred to was recently filed by Fundación Apolo, an anti-corruption NGO led by liberal Buenos Aires lawmaker Yamil Santoro. This was first reported on Friday by Clarín newspaper. Online, Santoro thanked Bullrich for “backing” the organization’s report.
The accusation filed by Fundación Apolo refers to the same situation reported by Bullrich. The foundation claims that Morales lived with four underage girls in Argentina and sexually abused them. Santoro alleges that the girls’ families delivered them to Morales in exchange for political favors.
The accusation says that the minors had been “transferred from Bolivia, allegedly in vulnerable conditions, to carry out domestic and personal tasks,” according to Clarín.
Bolivian former community leader Angélica Ponce had already publicly accused Morales of living with four girls while he was in political asylum in Argentina.
These reports come as Morales is being accused of having a relationship with a 15-year-old girl in Bolivia, allegedly in exchange for political favors for her parents. The main evidence in the case is a birth certificate showing the name Juan Evo Morales Ayma as the father of a child, whose mother gave birth at the age of 15. For this, he is being accused of statutory rape, human trafficking, and exploitation.
Rumors about Morales’s involvement with minors have existed for years, but they have never led to a trial against him.