Bolivia: President sees off attempted coup after urging citizens to ...

Bolivia’s president Luis Arce appears to have seen off an attempt to topple his leftwing government after a dramatic afternoon in which heavily armed troops, seemingly commanded by a top army general, stormed the government palace before retreating and seeing their alleged leader detained.

On Wednesday afternoon Mr Arce urged citizens to take to the streets to defend the country’s democracy from an apparent coup attempt, after troops seized control of a central square in La Paz which houses government buildings.

“We need the Bolivian people to mobilise and organise themselves against this coup d’état and in favour of democracy,” Mr Arce said in a video message filmed at the Great House of the People, the official presidential residence in Bolivia’s de facto capital of La Paz.

Flanked by members of his cabinet, Mr Arce declared: “We cannot allow, once again, attempted coups to claim Bolivian lives.”

“Long live the people of Bolivia! Long live democracy!” the ministers shouted, thrusting their left fists into the air. “Long live our president, Luis Arce!”

The comments came after other members of Mr Arce’s administration and Latin American leaders claimed an army-led putsch was under way.

“We denounce to the international community that a coup attempt against our democratically elected government,” the vice-president, David Choquehuanca, tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.

In a video message, the foreign minister, Celinda Sosa Lunda, claimed some army units had launched an attack on “democracy, peace and national security”.

Former president Evo Morales also sounded the alarm as troubling images of the disturbances spread on social media. Mr Morales urged supporters to take to the streets and block roads to oppose the alleged coup attempt, which he blamed on the recently sacked army commander, Gen Juan José Zúñiga, who was reportedly removed from his post on the eve of Wednesday’s turmoil.

Bolivian president Luis Arce. Photograph: Juan Karita/AP

“We will not allow the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate the people,” wrote Mr Morales, who was Bolivia’s first president of Indigenous descent but had to flee the country in 2019 after what supporters call a US-backed coup. Mr Morales returned from exile after Mr Arce’s election the following year.

On the eve of his 2020 inauguration, Mr Arce, who is a UK-educated economist, told the Guardian: “We have reclaimed democracy for Bolivia, and our message is that we will not tolerate any kind of de facto dictatorial regime or coup in Latin America.”

On Wednesday afternoon, that democracy looked in peril as television footage showed masked members of the military police forcing their way into the Palacio Quemado.

The newspaper Los Tiempos quoted the head of Bolivia’s army as saying that Mr Arce remained president “for the time being”, although as the hours passed Mr Arce seemed to reassert control. The president confronted Gen Zúñiga as he entered the palace and was filmed instructing the general to stand his troops down: “I am your captain. Obey my orders.”

By late afternoon Mr Arce had named a new military high command and reports suggested troops and armoured vehicles were withdrawing from Plaza Murillo in La Paz’s historic centre, where the seemingly botched rebellion had played out.

The new army chief, José Wilson Sánchez Velásquez, appeared on state television alongside Mr Arce and ordered the troops who had hit the streets to return to barracks. As he spoke, the president’s supporters chanted: “Democracy! Democracy! Democracy!”

By the evening there were reports that Gen Zúñiga had been detained on suspicion of the crimes of terrorism and armed uprising at the entrance to the general staff headquarters in La Paz. Footage showed him being driven away in a white police pickup truck.

Tensions have been building in Bolivia ahead of general elections in 2025, with leftist Mr Morales planning to run against former ally Mr Arce, creating a major rift in the ruling socialist party and wider political uncertainty.

Gen Zúñiga said recently that Mr Morales should not be able to return as president and threatened to block him if he attempted to do so, which led Mr Arce to remove Gen Zúñiga from his post.

Earlier, Gen 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”.

Soldiers stand guard outside the presidential palace in Plaza Murillo in La Paz, Bolivia. Photograph: Juan Karita/AP

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. – Agencies