Bolivian soldiers withdraw and general is arrested after apparent coup attempt

A high-ranking general and allied military personnel attempted to storm the presidential palace in Bolivia on Wednesday, but then quickly withdrew in an apparently failed coup attempt.

Hours later, the general was arrested live on television.

A video from Bolivian television showed security forces in riot gear occupying the main square of the administrative capital, La Paz, a camouflaged military vehicle ramming a palace gate and soldiers attempting to enter the building.

Then General Juan José Zuñiga disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, and his supporters in the armed forces withdrew. They were replaced by police officers who supported the country’s democratically elected president, Luis Arce.

Mr Arce entered the square after calling on Bolivians to “organise and mobilise against the coup and for democracy”.

“Long live the Bolivian people!” he shouted in a televised address. “Long live democracy!”

In total, the attempted break-in into the palace lasted only three hours in the afternoon. Over time, it became clear that General Zuñiga’s plan had little support.

Shortly before his arrest, General Zuñiga claimed, without providing any evidence, that Mr Arce had asked him to carry out the coup attempt.

“The president told me,” Zuñiga said in front of television cameras, “the situation is really complicated, this week will be critical – so I have to prepare something that will increase my popularity.”

Moments later, police drove the general away in a white truck.

Subsequently, Eduardo del Castillo, a key minister in Arce’s government, responded to the accusation by saying that General Zuñiga and an alleged co-conspirator, Vice Admiral Juan Arnez, commander of the Navy, had “lost all credibility.”

“They tried to gain the support of the population and the Bolivian people,” he said. “But the people of Bolivia don’t want any more coup adventures.”

Mr del Castillo added that nine people were injured by firearms in the chaos.

The Bolivian Attorney General’s office announced Wednesday evening that it had opened an investigation against General Zuñiga “and all other participants” in the day’s events, adding that it would seek “the maximum penalty” for those responsible.

Local news agencies had previously reported that General Zuñiga was dismissed from his post this week, a move some in the country suspecting was related to comments he made about former President Evo Morales, a mentor of Mr Arce.

The coup attempt came at a tense moment for Bolivia, a landlocked country of 12 million people in South America. Mr. Arce, a leftist and the handpicked successor to Mr. Morales – the country’s first indigenous president and a towering figure in Bolivian politics – is battling with Mr. Morales for control of their party and who their candidate will be in a 2025 election.

Bolivia’s economy is in trouble and Mr Arce is accused of measures that his critics say are undemocratic, including the jailing of opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho and former President Jeanine Áñez.

During the attempt to take the palace, General Zuñiga briefly entered the building, according to local reporters, before leaving and giving a speech surrounded by masked members of the security forces. He criticized Mr Arce’s government and said the military was trying to “establish a true democracy, not one for a few.”

He also called for the release of several detained politicians and military personnel, including Ms Áñez and Mr Camacho.

“Enough of the rule of a few,” said the general. “Look where that has brought us! Our children have no future, our people have no future, and the army has the courage to fight for the future of our children.”

Shortly afterwards, Mr Arce confirmed that he would replace General Zuñiga, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, as well as the Commanders-in-Chief of the Air Force and the Navy.

In a televised statement, the new commanding general, José Wilson Sánchez Velásquez, called on General Zuñiga “not to shed the blood of our soldiers.”

The military’s first foray into the palace was immediately criticized by some politicians in the region, including Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “Coups have never worked,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has long expressed his admiration for Arce and Morales, also condemned the coup attempt and described Arce as Bolivia’s “authentic democratic authority”.

Under the López Obrador government, Mexico first offered Morales a landing place and asylum after he resigned in 2019 amid violent protests following a disputed election.

Bolivia is a deeply divided country that has seen 190 coups in its 200-year history. And much of the discontent among military personnel, analysts say, stems from a sense that they are ultimately defending the established order, only to face political or prison punishment for clinging to that order once a new government comes to power.

But Carlos Saavedra, a Bolivian political analyst, said he saw little support in the country for the short-lived incursion, calling it an “adventure of a small group of soldiers.”

“There is no mobilization in any other department in the country,” he said. “It seems as if Zuñiga’s inner group wanted to cling to the army general’s command.”

Emiliano Rodriguez Mega contributed to the reporting.