if you watch the news coverage of a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Bolivia soldiers filling the capital’s main Square armored vehicles ramming presidential Palace Gates it was all very dramatic you’ll notice a classic hedge that so many of us in the media use armored vehicles and soldiers have withdrawn from outside Bolivia’s presidential Palace following what appears to be a failed coup attempt a military clue appears to be underway after what appeared to be an attempted milit Tre coup what appears to be an attempted coup DET tap yes it appeared to be an attempted military coup we use that kind of language when we can’t fully explain what we’re looking at with our own eyes because a lot of it didn’t make sense for starters it was the shortest coup attempt I’ve ever seen in with a bang out with a whimper after about 4 hours the soldiers withdrew from the main square and why did it end so quickly because the general who appeared to be leading the charge he didn’t appear to have any meaningful political support from anyone the whole thing fizzled fast then there was a claim to reporters that the whole thing had been staged I’ll read straight from the Associated Press before his arrest late Wednesday Zuniga that’s the general involved alleged without providing evidence that the president AR himself had ordered the general to carry out the coup attempt in a ruse to boost the president’s popularity and it goes on to raise the possibility that this was a self coup now of course the speculation is is going to Center on who was behind this was it the president who was staging a coup right a self coup or were there others like I said none of it makes sense except a lot of it did Bolivia is a country in crisis right now its economy is floundering its political institutions are paralyzed and its future is messy so what’s going on with [Music] Bolivia I’ll say right now there aren’t a ton of truly satisfying answers to the question what the heck actually happened here but we can try to piece it together and line up what does make sense with what doesn’t starting with the moment soldiers stormed the Plaza [Music] muo on Wednesday armed soldiers armored vehicles they physically occupy the main square of the capital lapaz they take it over one of the men ultimately held responsible for the coup General Juan Jose Zuniga would tell reporters that he vowed to restore democracy he also tells them he intends to replace cabinet and free political prisoners exactly the kind of thing you you’d expect to hear from someone staging a coupe so when you got called for the liberation of political prisoners there are over 300 political prisoners in Bolivia right and but among the political prisoners that he calls for their Liberation is former uh president anes and a former presidential candidate kamacho both of whom are in maximum security prisons at some point the world Witnesses this escalation an armored vehicle literally driving into a palace gate [Music] What followed was a series of desperate moves unfolding in real time a video message from the president flanked by his most senior officials denouncing the attempt to overthrow him and calling on his supporters to resist in Latin America it’s a very common thing you know you you tell anybody who works for the government to go out and protest in favor of whatever you want the reality is that the government mobilized people right probably well in advance this is not a a spontaneous group of people that showed up at the plaza president Luis AR refuses to relent and while this was all happening he names a whole slate of new military commanders to replace those that he believes are disloyal and they give the order to the soldiers in the Square stand down and they do an attempt to overthrow Bolivia’s democratically elected government has been St but then a Twist just before Security Forces restore order and arrest the general seemingly in charge of this Revolt he claims the whole thing was set up by the president himself the president told me the situation is very screwed up very critical it is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity as in and and this is just me gaming this out let’s pretend you my general you’re staging a who I as president will forcefully stop you in your tracks and the people will celebrate the Army seem to be very United yesterday and the Armed Forces generally and I think that’s very unusual historically in cud in Latin America they’re very messy they they they involved a lot of Divisions within the armed forces the police the Army the Navy Etc um we didn’t see any of that yesterday I think uh there’s a good chance that in fact uh this might have been a staged uh event you might the this guy is nuts he’s crazy right um and that that that can be a great excuse the guy is insane and therefore he launched this Coupe but I think the the more the narrative that’s going to Prevail is The Narrative of a broader conspiracy headed by the opposition with the support of the of the political right if true it is an incredible claim but one that the country’s Justice Minister very swiftly denied he says it’s a lie and that Zuna could face up to 20 years in prison for what he’s done the country’s defense minister also told reporters Zuniga was recently dismissed from his post fired less than a day before he rolled up to the Palace Gates flanked by soldiers and armored personnel carriers storming the presidency it all makes for a very complicated series of events made even more complex by the backdrop all of this was set against in some ways the coup attempt wasn’t so surprising for months the government has been Paralyzed by an internal Feud two factions of the party at war with each other one controlled by the president the other controlled by the former president Evo Morales Bolivia’s Evo Morales has declared victory in the country’s presidential election giving him a third consecutive term he has been a towering figure in Bolivian politics incredibly popular at different stages of his career the country’s first indigenous president but forced to resign amid protest in 2019 after trying to seek a fourth term in power he fled the country but ultimately returned staging a dramatic political comeback and now he holds significant sway within the ruling party his opinions matter and there is a gaping Rift between his vision of the future and that of the current president he’s even threatened to challenge him in elections next year something that could spark a constitutional crisis the political crisis which is uh um largely rooted in the fact that Evo Morales right assumed in 2020 when he invited ARS to be the presidential candidate that AR would simply be a placeholder right and then 5 years later uh when the new round of Elections came 2025 that would step aside but AR um believes that he has the constitutional right to be reelected and the feud has has largely been one in which the both have been fighting over the name of the party the movement toward socialism Bolivia has also gone through incredible economic upheaval natural gas exports have plummeted over the years that’s a critical industry for the country and Bolivia is one of the most resource dependent countri countries in Latin America its foreign currency reserves are also dwindling meaning it’s running out of US Dollars which limits how well it can weather economic shocks Bolivia is going through a a very serious uh political and economic crisis Bolivia now has no export market and Bolivia’s wealth came from exporting natural gas to Argentina and to Brazil so Bolivia is is stuck now not having an export base and a government with a president who claimed credit for that model right who now finds himself unable to respond to that crisis there’s no there’s a deficit of dollars so that’s very difficult for people who want to import things and uh so people are seeing that in the next few years the economic situation is going to get worse in the last 200 or so years since Bolivia declared its independence it has experienced nearly as many coups at some points in its history it’s experienced several in a single calendar year and in this specific way it’s gone through more political turmoil than any other country on Earth but this attempt was different I was extraordinarily surprised by the way in which it was conducted what motivates a guy to to storm the palace but not fire a single shot essentially runs into the palace goes up to the president with machine guns and doesn’t uh doesn’t take power I liveed through military who in in the 1970s and ‘ 80s in Bolivia and those are very very bloody very very chaotic it just stands in such a clear you know sort of Distinction so so different from previous coup attempts or coups that that I I did not think this was a real uh situation what’s more this most recent coup attempt even opposition leaders were quick to condemn it nobody seemed to want any part of it so it ended quickly but whatever explains the events of this week you know was it a terrible miscalculation a spontaneous expression of anger or a staged event meant to bolster an unpopular president We Know This Much Bolivia’s democracy is fragile if you scratch the surface you’re going to see a lot of um intervention by the executive in all these other branches and I think that really undermines democracy and and the Republican constitution of Bolivia not be lasting physical damage to the country’s government the palace Gates can be fixed the square can be cleaned up but Bolivia’s Democratic institutions are weaker now than before and that weakness has been exposed for the world to see in short-lived but spectacular fashion [Music]
In a dramatic series of events, a top Bolivian army general led what the president called a coup attempt — only to later claim the president staged the whole thing. Andrew Chang pieces together what led to the intense political chaos and confusion that unfolded.
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