Former president Evo Morales has called for a popular uprising to defend democracy
Military police and armored vehicles have surrounded the government building in the center of La Paz, allegedly seeking to overthrow the government of Bolivian President Luis Arce.
Arce has addressed the nation, calling what was happening in La Paz an attempted coup d’etat. Former President Evo Morales, who was ousted in a 2019 coup himself, blamed General Juan Jose Zuniga of attempting a coup and called for a general strike to protect the government.
“We call for a National Mobilization to defend Democracy,” Morales said on social media, calling for “an indefinite general strike and blockade of roads.”
The most recent post on Arce’s X (formerly Twitter) account denounced “irregular mobilization of some units of the Bolivian Army,” and said that “democracy must be respected.”
Videos from Plaza Murillo in La Paz showed rows of armed men in uniforms surrounding the government palace and using an armored vehicle to break down the doors. Some of the troops carried riot shields labeled “Military Police.”
President Xiomara Castro of Honduras has called on the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to “condemn the fascism that today attacks democracy in Bolivia” and demand full respect for civilian rule and the constitution.
“The military has once again carried out a criminal coup d’état,” Castro wrote. “We express our unconditional support to the brotherly people of Bolivia, to president [Arce] and [Morales].”
In 2019, the Bolivian opposition launched mass protests claiming that the re-election of Morales had been fraudulent. He sought asylum in Mexico when the police and the military sided with his critics and installed lawmaker Jeanine Anez as “interim president.”
Morales told RT at the time that the US-backed Organization of American States (OAS) played a key role in his ouster and suggested it was motivated by greed for Bolivia’s huge reserves of lithium.
His Movement for Socialism came back to power in 2020, with the election of Arce, and charged Anez with “genocide” and other crimes.
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