Troops, armoured vehicles pull back from Bolivia government palace following coup attempt
TROOPS AND ARMOURED vehicles have started pulling back from Bolivia’s presidential palace after an attempted coup in the country’s capital.
Tanks and a number of men in military uniform had earlier gathered in front of the government palace in La Paz, with armoured vehicles ramming into the doors of the building.
Bolivian President Luis Arce urged people to mobilise, saying: “The country is facing an attempted coup d’etat. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organise.”
Arce confronted the general commander of the Army – Juan Jose Zuniga, who appeared to be leading the rebellion – in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television.
“I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.
Supporters of Bolivian President Arce seek cover from tear gas near the government palace during an attempted coup.
Before entering the government building, Zuniga told journalists in the plaza: “Surely soon there will be a new Cabinet of ministers; our country, our state cannot go on like this.”
Zuniga said that “for now” he recognises Arce as commander in chief.
Zuniga did not explicitly say he is leading a coup, but in the palace, with bangs echoing behind him, he said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners”.
In a message on X earlier this evening, Arce called for “democracy to be respected”.
“We cannot allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians,” he said from inside the palace, surrounded by government officials, in a video message sent to news outlets.
An hour later, Arce announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters.
Army Cmdr. Gen. Juan Jose Zuniga sits inside an armored vehicle at Plaza Murillo in La Paz.
Video showed troops setting up blockades outside the government palace.
He said the troops who rose against him were “staining the uniform” of the military and vowed that democracy would be respected.
“I order all that are mobilised to return to their units, said the newly named army chief Jose Wilson Sanchez. “No-one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets.”
Soon after troops and armoured vehicles start pulling back from Bolivia’s presidential palace.
The US administration of Joe Biden said it was “closely monitoring” the situation in the country and called for calm.
In a statement tonight, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said: “Ireland expresses solidarity with the Government and people of Bolivia, and reiterates unequivocal support for democracy and the rule of law.”
EU top diplomat Josep Borrell has said the European Union “condemns any attempt to undermine the constitutional order in Bolivia and overthrow democratically elected governments, and expresses its solidarity with the Bolivian government and people”.
The leadership of Bolivia’s largest labour union condemned the action and declared an indefinite strike of social and labour organisations in La Paz in defence of the government.
Former Bolivian president Evo Morales denounced the movement of the military in the Murillo square outside the palace, calling it a coup “in the making”.
The general commander of the Army, Juan Jose Zuniga, present in the same square, confirmed the movement of uniformed officers and said: “We are upset by the affront, enough is enough.”
María Nela Prada, minister of the presidency and a top Bolivian officials, said military and tanks were taking over the plaza, calling it an “attempted coup d’etat”.
“The people are on alert to defend democracy,” she said to local television station Red Uno.
The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including the Organisation of American States; Gabriel Boric, the president of neighbouring Chile; Honduras’s leader, and former Bolivian leaders.
Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.
The country also has seen a high-profile rift at the highest levels of the governing party. Arce and his one-time ally, leftist icon and former President Morales, have been battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.
With reporting by Press Association