Government officials said that security forces foiled an assassination plot against Bolivian President Evo Morales on April 16, Reuters reported that day.
Three people alleged to be part of the plot were killed in a half-hour shootout at a hotel in Santa Cruz after authorities attempted to arrest the would-be assassins. Two others have been arrested.
Morales was not in Santa Cruz at the time and authorities said they had been following those involved in the plot. Morales stated the plot involved foreign mercenaries.
Reuters reported that Bolivian Vice-President Alvaro Garcia told reporters the men were carrying guns and grenades, and attacked police as they approached them.
Santa Cruz, in Bolivia's east, is a stronghold of opposition to the left-wing Morales, who is Bolivia's first president from the nation's indigenous majority. The Morales government has overhwhelming support in the impoverished and predominantly indigenous west, while the white elite's base is in the land- and resource-rich east.
Last September, the right-wing opposition organised a coup plot against the Morales government, centreing on the actions of fascist gangs in Santa Cruz and other eastern cities. The plot was defeated in large part by the mobilisation of largely indigenous social movements .