Far-left socialist Evo Morales, who served as president of Bolivia for nearly 14 years before resigning in disgrace in November, called the Chinese coronavirus pandemic a “biological war” on Monday and implied the United States had unleashed the pathogen to kill seniors and other “burdens” on society.

Morales made the outrageous remarks in an interview with an Argentine radio station. Morales is currently in Argentina under “political asylum” status after fleeing Bolivia to Mexico and flying south. As president, Morales destroyed Bolivia’s diplomatic relations with the United States, expelling the American ambassador, and developed close ties to totalitarian regimes like China, Russia, and Venezuela.

Morales called the pandemic the “third world war” and proclaimed China, the country where the virus originated, the winner.

“I think it is a biological and economy war among powers,” Morales told Argentina’s Radio con Vos, according to the online outlet Infobae. “Now we can see that the United States is not a world power like we thought. The United States has to ask Russia, China for help … I think that China won the Third World War without firing a shot. Everyone going to China now to buy accessories, goods, biosecurity equipment.”

Morales claimed that the virus was a creation of “multinational [corporations]” looking to establish a “new world order” and seeking to kill unhealthy or older people.

“For capitalism and for the states, [seniors] are a burden, as is how to reduce that population that is unnecessary to them, who are disabled … and above all, poor families who through malnutrition are attacked easily by this pandemic,” Morales posited.

When pressured to name the multinational corporations supposedly behind the pandemic, Morales said, “that has to be investigated.”

Morales joins a host of rogue state leaders who have echoed the Chinese government claim that the Chinese coronavirus was developed by the United States. Multiple Iranian officials have blamed both America and the “Zionists,” meaning the government of Israel, for deliberately unleashing the virus on adversarial states, without offering an explanation for how tens of thousands of people have become infected within America’s borders. Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has shared on social media an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claiming that American scientists used HIV to engineer a coronavirus, a scientific impossibility. Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, accused America of infecting the world as early as February.

China’s Foreign Ministry has accused the U.S. military of creating the virus. The Global Times, a state propaganda arm, accused a specific U.S. Army facility in Maryland of being the origin of the pathogen. China has not offered any explanation for why the first known cases of Chinese coronavirus are all documented in Wuhan, China, for months before the virus surfaced anywhere else.

Legitimate scientific consensus has formed around the theory that the virus originated in Wuhan, in the heart of the country. The Chinese government itself claimed initially that the origin of the virus was exotic animal meat sold at a “wet market,” where anyone can sell any wild animals for consumption, in Wuhan. It has since changed its stance to the Maryland conspiracy theory.

Morales ceased to be president after resigning in November. He was not constitutionally allowed to run in the country’s October 20 election, but forced his rubber-stamp Supreme Court to declare that running for president was a “human right” that the government could not deny him. He won the election under dubious circumstances. The Organization of American States (OAS) published a report in November finding widespread evidence of fraud in the election, resulting in an inexplicably high number of votes for Morales.

Morales responded to the investigation by resigning and fleeing to Mexico. From Mexico, he declared his voluntary resignation a “coup” and began organizing violent riots to pressure the interim Bolivian government to allow him to walk back his resignation.

The conservative interim Bolivian government — conservative Senator Jeanine Áñez became president after everyone in the line of succession ahead of her fled the country with Morales — published audio in November it claimed to be of a phone call between Morales and a union leader in which Morales’ alleged voice asks the leader to organize blockades to starve urban populations.

“Brother, don’t let food into the cities, we will really blockade,” Morales can be heard saying. “When they expelled me from Congress in 2002, they did a blockade. And now, they kick me out of Bolivia; there is a blockade. We will win.”

The Bolivian government has since filed charges against Morales for crimes against humanity, including but far from limited to the food blockade.

Alfonso Dorado, the attorney representing Bolivia, said at the time that he had compiled a case against Morales that included evidence of “selective assassinations with snipers, ambushes, rape and sexual assault, abduction of hostages, physical and psychological torture, state-sponsored terrorism, and blocking access to basic items of consumption like water to certain cities.”

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