Police arrest senior army officers after attempted coup in Bolivia

Published on: 06/27/2024 – 11:14Amended: 06/27/2024 – 11:20 a.m.

3 minutes

Two Bolivian army leaders were arrested Wednesday after soldiers and tanks took up positions outside government buildings in what President Luis Arce called an attempted coup.

Troops and tanks entered Plaza Murillo, a historic square where the presidency and Congress are located, in the afternoon, sparking global condemnation of an attack on democracy.

One of the tanks tried to break through a metal gate of the presidential palace.

Surrounded by soldiers and eight tanks, the now-dismissed army chief of staff, General Juan José Zuniga, declared that “the armed forces intend to restructure democracy, to make it a true democracy and not a democracy that has been run by the same few people for 30, 40 years.”

Shortly after, AFP journalists saw soldiers and tanks withdrawing from the square. The uprising lasted approximately five hours.

Zuniga was captured and forced into a police car as he spoke to reporters outside a military barracks later Wednesday, footage broadcast by state television showed.

“General, you are under arrest,” Deputy Interior Minister Jhonny Aguilera told Zuniga.

A second senior army officer, Juan Arnez Salvador, who was head of Bolivia's navy, was also arrested Wednesday evening.

Salvador's arrest was announced by Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo, who said Zuniga and Arnez are “two military putschists who tried to destroy democracy and the institutions of our country and who failed.” .

Speaking from a balcony of the government palace, Arce told hundreds of supporters that “No one can take away the democracy we have won.”

He had urged “the Bolivian people to organize and mobilize against the coup d'état in favor of democracy”, in a previous televised message addressed to the country alongside his ministers inside the presidential palace.

He dismissed Zuniga and Salvador and swore in a new group of military leaders.

Before he was arrested, Zuniga told reporters that the president had asked him to organize an uprising, in order to trigger a crackdown that would make him appear strong and boost his flagging popularity ratings.

At a meeting Sunday, the general said, Zuniga asked Arce “so are we bringing out armored vehicles?” He said the president responded, “Get them out.”

Arce's instructions were to “stage something to increase his popularity,” Zuniga said.

Former President Evo Morales wrote on the social network

Zuniga's antidemocratic remarks

Bolivia is deeply polarized after years of political instability and the ruling party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), is torn by internal conflict between Arce's supporters and his former mentor Morales.

Morales, who was Bolivia's first indigenous president, was extremely popular until he tried to circumvent the constitution and run for a fourth term in 2019.

The leftist and former coca union leader won that vote but was forced to resign following deadly protests over alleged electoral fraud and fled the country.

He returned after Arce won the presidency in October 2020.

Since then, a power struggle has developed between the two men, and Morales has increasingly criticized the government and accused it of corruption, tolerance of drug trafficking and political sidelining.

Six months ago, the Constitutional Court disqualified Morales from the 2025 elections, but he is still seeking nomination as the MAS candidate.

Arce has not yet indicated whether he will run for re-election.

Zuniga appeared on television Monday and said he would arrest Morales if he insisted on running for office again in 2025.

“Legally he is disqualified, this man can no longer be president of this country,” he said.

Since that interview, rumors have circulated that Zuniga was about to be fired.

Calls for calm

The US administration of Joe Biden said it was closely monitoring events in Bolivia and “calling for calm”, according to a National Security Council spokesperson.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned” by events in Bolivia and called on all actors, including the military, to “protect the constitutional order and preserve a climate of peace “, declared its spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric in a press release.

Condemnation of the troop movements also poured in from across Latin America, with the leaders of Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela calling for respect for democracy.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wrote on X: “I am a lover of democracy and I want it to prevail throughout Latin America. We condemn any form of coup d'état in Bolivia.”

The Organization of American States (OAS) said the international community “will not tolerate any form of violation of the legitimate constitutional order in Bolivia.”

(AFP)