Bolivia
Swift Popular Action and Firm Government Stand Defeat Attempted Military Coup
Bolivians take to the streets to defend their elected government
from coup attempt, June 26, 2024
On June 26, a coup attempt against the constitutional government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia was carried out by a section of the country's military. It was foiled by the people who took swift action to defend their rights and their democratically elected government, resulting in the coup plotters backing down.
On
the afternoon of June 26, General Juan José
Zúñiga, who the day before had been relieved of his
duties as head of the Army by President Luis Arce for making
pronouncements of a political nature inconsistent with his military
role, forced his way into the government palace where President Arce
and his cabinet were meeting at the time. Using one of the armoured
vehicles he had summoned to occupy and block access to Murillo Square
facing the palace to ram down the door, he declared that his intent was
to "take over the Executive and Legislative branches" and "restore
democracy" in the country. He also made known earlier that he would
free all “political prisoners” starting with the coup
president Jeanine Anez and her violent co-conspirator Luis Fernando
Camacho, both serving prison sentences for their roles in the 2019 coup
d’etat.
Zúñiga and the now also
former heads of the Navy and Air Force, who appeared together at the
entrance of the building wearing bullet-proof vests, were confronted
head on by President Arce and his cabinet. An angry Arce asserted his
authority as Captain General of the Armed Forces and ordered the
insubordinate general to stand down and immediately withdraw the tanks
and heavily armed troops from Murillo Square where they were attacking
the youth and other organized social forces with tear gas to prevent
them from reaching the government palace -- which he would not do.
When it was apparent that support the conspirators thought or hoped they had from other sections of the military had not materialized, and that workers and other sections of the organized people were mobilizing all over the country against them, the ringleader Zúñiga turned around and walked away. Within the hour a new commander of the Army had been sworn in and ordered the troops back to their barracks.
By the time three hours had elapsed since the coup forces made their move, Arce and his cabinet were on the balcony of the presidential palace greeting and thanking the thousands of people filling the square and streets outside where they had congregated to celebrate the defeat of the short-lived coup attempt. So far 24 people, including the former commanders of the army, navy and air force, have been detained and are expected to be tried for armed uprising against the security and sovereignty of the State, terrorism, attacks against the security of the president and other State dignitaries, destruction or deterioration of State property and national wealth, and misuse of public property and services. Bolivia's ambassador to the Organization of American States reported that around 200 military officers took part in the failed uprising.
Mass rally July 12, 2024
Canada's Response
Unlike the leaders of many countries of the Americas who issued statements condemning the coup attempt as soon as they heard about it, Canada's prime minister and foreign minister remained silent. It was left to the Canadian ambassador to the OAS to include a few sentences in his intervention at the organization's General Assembly taking place in Paraguay when the attempted coup took place. He said that June 26 represented "a watershed moment for democracy" in Bolivia and that Canada "welcomed the upholding of the constitutional order of Bolivia and remained steadfast in its support for the democratically elected government and people of Bolivia."
The national news network, CBC, however did not hesitate to put forward what it called an "analysis" of the situation barely one day after the events of June 26, headlined as "Staged Coup? Why the Bolivia coup attempt may not be what it seems." The 11-minute video narrated by journalist Andrew Chang was run hourly on the June 27 edition of the National News. Like the pro-imperialist media in the U.S. and elsewhere CBC seeks to raise doubts by amplifying the disgraced general's pathetic "explanation" for his treasonous talk and actions as he was about to be arrested: that everything was staged at the request of President Arce as a means to shore up his popularity; in other words, the failed coup was not an attempt by a section of the military to seize power, it was a self-coup organized by the president.
The CBC's disinforming "analysis" completely ignores who has been behind virtually every coup or attempted coup, whether military or electoral, all over Latin America and the Caribbean since the end of World War II. That includes the last one in Bolivia which Canada helped the U.S. and its instrument the OAS instigate in 2019, to overthrow the elected president of the day, Evo Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism -- Instrument for the Sovereignty of the People (MAS-IPSP) government. That coup was reversed a year later, but not without causing great harm to the Bolivian people, who turned out in record numbers in 2020 to elect the current president Luis Arce, also of the MAS-IPSP, by an overwhelming majority and give the party a majority of the seats in both houses of the legislature. That victory is what the people defended by immediately going into action to block the new coup attempt by remnants of the last one who thought nothing had changed since 2019.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 41 - July 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54416.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca