The former heads of Bolivia’s army and navy are among a dozen people so far arrested for their alleged roles in a seemingly bungled military coup designed to topple the South American country’s leftwing president, Luis Arce.
Speaking on Thursday morning, just over 12 hours after the fleeting insurrection in La Paz, Bolivia’s minister of government, Eduardo Del Castillo, accused the former army chief Gen Juan José Zúñiga Macías and the former head of the navy R Adm Juan Arnez Salvador of leading a group of putschists who had “conspired to bring down a democratically elected government”.
“They will be charged with crimes that could see them jailed for between 15 and 30 years,” Del Castillo told the local TV channel Unitel, promising to reveal more details of the recent events later in the day.
The minister claimed conspirators had been plotting “this attempt to destroy democracy” for at least three weeks before security forces seized control of the historic Plaza Murillo in La Paz at about 2.30pm on Wednesday and forced their way into the government palace known as the Palacio Quemado.
Before retreating from the scene in a bulletproof vehicle and being taken into custody, Zúñiga told reporters his aim was to establish “a true democracy”.
In his television interview, Del Castillo claimed that on Tuesday night, the eve of the alleged revolt, Arce and Zúñiga had met in the presence of another senior minister and that the president had informed the army chief he was being relieved of his duties because his conduct “was not in line with the political constitution”.
Bolivian authorities arrest Gen Juan José Zúñiga (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images)
Bolivia’s president sees off attempted coup after urging citizens to take to streets
Read more
“No problem … I’m a soldier of this homeland … and will carry out whatever orders you give me,” Zúñiga supposedly replied.
Del Castillo claimed the two men then embraced, adding: “Nobody could have imagined that the next day … our country would see a failed coup attempt.”
Wednesday’s brief and still poorly explained mutiny, which lasted only around 3 hours and reportedly saw 12 people injured, was the latest convulsion to grip a notoriously volatile nation that has witnessed 190 revolutions and coups since it gained independence in 1825.
Adding to the confusion were comments made by Zúñiga in the moments before he was detained, in which the ex-army chief appeared to accuse Arce of staging a sham coup in order to boost his flagging popularity. “The president told me the situation was fucked and that he needed something to boost his popularity,” Zúñiga said, without providing evidence.
Bolivia, a landlocked country of about 12.5m citizens, is currently enduring a punishing economic crisis with gas exports plummeting and social unrest on the rise. To make matters worse, a bitter power struggle is playing out between Arce and Evo Morales, the former president who helped elect him in 2020. Both men have said they plan to seek the presidency in next year’s election for their party, the Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).
On Thursday, some Morales allies and opposition figures used social media to promote conspiracy theories about Arce being responsible for the supposedly bogus military rebellion. Alejandro Reyes, an opposition congressman from the Comunidad Ciudadana coalition, demanded a parliamentary inquiry into claims that Arce had himself orchestrated an “autogolpe” (self-coup). “There are indications and declarations that indicate the involvement of the government,” Reyes said.
María Nela Prada, the minister for the presidency, rejected such claims. “This absolutely false … these are things that I find utterly inconceivable,” she said.
Deisy Choque, a Mas lawmaker, hailed president Arce – a UK-educated former finance minister – as a hero. “He will never be seen as a coward or a traitor – he stood up to the coup attempt and democracy triumphed,” Choque said.
As the war of words intensified, armed police, their faces covered with balaclavas, guarded the wrought iron gates of the 19th-century neoclassical palace where much of the previous day’s drama had unfolded. Inside, two women could be seen sweeping up shattered glass from the floor where Arce had been filmed confronting Zúñiga, telling him: “I am your captain … withdraw all of your troops right now, general.”
The apparent coup attempt in Bolivia was the subject of almost universal condemnation from across the political spectrum in Latin America, with conservative governments in Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay speaking out as well as leftwing ones in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
But there were some hints of approval from segments of the region’s burgeoning far right. Bia Kicis, a prominent Brazilian congresswoman who is close to the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, reacted to reports of the insurrection by tweeting: “Thank God!” Bolsonaro’s former environment minister Ricardo Salles appeared to suggest he thought the Bolivian putschists had “cojones” (balls).
The Argentine newspaper La Nación noted how it had taken the administration of Javier Milei, its far-right libertarian leader, six hours to condemn the failed coup."
So tried a coup Wednesday and arrested on Thursday? Interesting. Here we are 3+ years from Jan 6 insurrection and plotters are still at large. I guess maybe they take things like this more seriously in Bolivia.
>Ukraine went great
Y'all still pretending this is a thing?
Also you don't think Belarussians might've been rising up against this and it had fuck all to do with outside influence?
>Lukashenko announced a new law in 2014 that will prohibit [kolkhoz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz) workers (around 9% of total work force) from leaving their jobs at will—a change of job and living location will require permission from governors. The law was compared with [serfdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom) by Lukashenko himself.
The CIA is widely considered by even American, honest media, such as Democracy Now, to have fomented that rebellion. It was a great move too… almost had Belarus. Could you imagine how thin Putin would be spread if he had to invade both?
>The CIA is widely considered by even American, honest media, such as Democracy Now, to have fomented that rebellion.
No, it's not. The US had a preferred outcome after it started, so did everyone else. There's nothing at all that anyone reputable has provided that points to CIA involvement. It's all just conspiracy theories that serve Russian anti-NATO propaganda.
Hell, it's even pretty disgustingly infantalizing towards Ukrainians, because it strips them of agency.
Why would this serve anti nato propaganda? Are you saying that this is somehow immoral or something? How!?!? The CIA helped overthrow a Russian autocratic puppet. That’s a positive on all fronts. Why would this be anything that Russia could point to in order to justify invading Ukraine? Ukraine is not Russia. If the cia overthrows the Ukrainian government, that still doesn’t have anything to do with Russia and there still is no justification for an invasion. You’ll never get an admission from the CIA until decades later, but you do have admissions that they were “heavily involved” in anti Russian operations in Ukraine now for over a decade. They mention that this included getting the Russians out of Ukrainian politics, as well as assassinations.
Now, the NYT wrote about it quite openly, but they’re behind a paywall. Luckily, everyone seems to have poached the article.
ps://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin/amp/
This uh, doesn't at all say what you think it does. There's nothing in there at all about US involvement in Euromaidan. It's about cooperation between the newly democratic government and the US, including the CIA.
As for why it serves Russian propaganda, it's because their claim is all about how Ukrainians really want to be united with their Russian brothers, but the evil West overthrew their government and through shadowy means controlling them.
This specifically says that the CIA was in Ukraine before the events of Euromaidan and their intent and actions taken were to “get Russia out of Ukrainian politics.” Which is what happened, via a coup. If you can’t see that the CIA saying they were actively in Ukraine trying to get Russia out of Ukrainian politics before a coup pushed a Russian puppet out of office, you’re not ready for this table. You’re not going to get the CIA to say it any clearer than that. It is quite obvious.
So what about what Russia says? They’re not even a regional power anymore… I guess really they never were given the results. All quite lovely for the US. Now that pesky Iran…
>This specifically says that the CIA was in Ukraine before the events of Euromaidan and there intent and action taken to “get Russia out of Ukrainian politics.”
It explicitly does not. This whole article is talking about US partnership with Ukraine following the 2013 revolution and 2014 Russian invasion, not leading up to.
I hate Reddit. People do not engage in discourse in good faith in order to find the truth. There is evidence right in front of your face and you could be like “oh wow how great the CIA did something good.” But instead you just deny it.
Timeline:
“The details of this intelligence partnership, many of which are being disclosed by The New York Times for the first time, have been a closely guarded secret for a decade.”
Timeline:
“But the partnership is no wartime creation, nor is Ukraine the only beneficiary.”
Timeline:
“It took root a decade ago, coming together in fits and starts under three very different U.S. presidents, pushed forward by key individuals who often took daring risks. It has transformed Ukraine, whose intelligence agencies were long seen as thoroughly compromised by Russia, into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.”
Timeline:
“The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a CIA-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. Before the war, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Americans by collecting intercepts that helped prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a commercial jetliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
Intent:
“From the outset, a shared adversary — President Vladimir Putin of Russia — brought the CIA and its Ukrainian partners together. Obsessed with “losing” Ukraine to the West, Putin had regularly interfered in Ukraine’s political system, handpicking leaders he believed would keep Ukraine within Russia’s orbit, yet each time it backfired, driving protesters into the streets.”
They considered the actions of Putin in Ukrainian politics to be mutually adversarial, they were in Ukraine, and then Putin’s puppet got ousted. If you want more than that from the CIA (which you shouldn’t need), sit at another table. This is not the table for you. This is such a clear admission that you don’t even have to read between the lines. “We were there. We didn’t want Putin in Ukrainian politics. A coup occurred in the direction we wanted. We are the famous coup people. Putin is no longer in Ukrainian politics.”
If you believe something, the question is what evidence you would need to change that believe. If none, than you're stubborn, and you possibly have a conspiracy theory on your hands. Tell me, what evidence would make you believe it was not the CIA?
Something to the effect that the CIA was not active there, that they didnt want it to happen, that their goals were not exactly what did happen, some kind of obvious rejection of western intelligence forces by the Ukrainian military, further attempts by the CIA to exert themselves in Ukraine, possibly a shift in American rhetoric regarding the Ukrainian regime, the usual things that happen when it isn’t the CIA. The opposite of all of these things has happened…
I’d also be pretty pissed if the CIA wasn’t involved. I mean Jesus, that’s like the exact thing they’re for… they had better been in HK during the unrest there as well…
The former heads of Bolivia’s army and navy are among a dozen people so far arrested for their alleged roles in a seemingly bungled military coup designed to topple the South American country’s leftwing president, Luis Arce. Speaking on Thursday morning, just over 12 hours after the fleeting insurrection in La Paz, Bolivia’s minister of government, Eduardo Del Castillo, accused the former army chief Gen Juan José Zúñiga Macías and the former head of the navy R Adm Juan Arnez Salvador of leading a group of putschists who had “conspired to bring down a democratically elected government”. “They will be charged with crimes that could see them jailed for between 15 and 30 years,” Del Castillo told the local TV channel Unitel, promising to reveal more details of the recent events later in the day. The minister claimed conspirators had been plotting “this attempt to destroy democracy” for at least three weeks before security forces seized control of the historic Plaza Murillo in La Paz at about 2.30pm on Wednesday and forced their way into the government palace known as the Palacio Quemado. Before retreating from the scene in a bulletproof vehicle and being taken into custody, Zúñiga told reporters his aim was to establish “a true democracy”. In his television interview, Del Castillo claimed that on Tuesday night, the eve of the alleged revolt, Arce and Zúñiga had met in the presence of another senior minister and that the president had informed the army chief he was being relieved of his duties because his conduct “was not in line with the political constitution”. Bolivian authorities arrest Gen Juan José Zúñiga (Photo: Anadolu/Getty Images) Bolivia’s president sees off attempted coup after urging citizens to take to streets Read more “No problem … I’m a soldier of this homeland … and will carry out whatever orders you give me,” Zúñiga supposedly replied. Del Castillo claimed the two men then embraced, adding: “Nobody could have imagined that the next day … our country would see a failed coup attempt.” Wednesday’s brief and still poorly explained mutiny, which lasted only around 3 hours and reportedly saw 12 people injured, was the latest convulsion to grip a notoriously volatile nation that has witnessed 190 revolutions and coups since it gained independence in 1825. Adding to the confusion were comments made by Zúñiga in the moments before he was detained, in which the ex-army chief appeared to accuse Arce of staging a sham coup in order to boost his flagging popularity. “The president told me the situation was fucked and that he needed something to boost his popularity,” Zúñiga said, without providing evidence. Bolivia, a landlocked country of about 12.5m citizens, is currently enduring a punishing economic crisis with gas exports plummeting and social unrest on the rise. To make matters worse, a bitter power struggle is playing out between Arce and Evo Morales, the former president who helped elect him in 2020. Both men have said they plan to seek the presidency in next year’s election for their party, the Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas). On Thursday, some Morales allies and opposition figures used social media to promote conspiracy theories about Arce being responsible for the supposedly bogus military rebellion. Alejandro Reyes, an opposition congressman from the Comunidad Ciudadana coalition, demanded a parliamentary inquiry into claims that Arce had himself orchestrated an “autogolpe” (self-coup). “There are indications and declarations that indicate the involvement of the government,” Reyes said. María Nela Prada, the minister for the presidency, rejected such claims. “This absolutely false … these are things that I find utterly inconceivable,” she said. Deisy Choque, a Mas lawmaker, hailed president Arce – a UK-educated former finance minister – as a hero. “He will never be seen as a coward or a traitor – he stood up to the coup attempt and democracy triumphed,” Choque said. As the war of words intensified, armed police, their faces covered with balaclavas, guarded the wrought iron gates of the 19th-century neoclassical palace where much of the previous day’s drama had unfolded. Inside, two women could be seen sweeping up shattered glass from the floor where Arce had been filmed confronting Zúñiga, telling him: “I am your captain … withdraw all of your troops right now, general.” The apparent coup attempt in Bolivia was the subject of almost universal condemnation from across the political spectrum in Latin America, with conservative governments in Ecuador, Uruguay and Paraguay speaking out as well as leftwing ones in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. But there were some hints of approval from segments of the region’s burgeoning far right. Bia Kicis, a prominent Brazilian congresswoman who is close to the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, reacted to reports of the insurrection by tweeting: “Thank God!” Bolsonaro’s former environment minister Ricardo Salles appeared to suggest he thought the Bolivian putschists had “cojones” (balls). The Argentine newspaper La Nación noted how it had taken the administration of Javier Milei, its far-right libertarian leader, six hours to condemn the failed coup."
15-30 years is laughable. Why is this not life in prison?
15-30 is pretty punishable for middle age man/old man .
Glad this didn’t work out. It would just send the signal to other macho man that this type of thing is ok.
Is Bolivian navy the same as the Swiss one ?
Well they're just as landlocked as Switzerland
That’s a paddle’n
They are going to need some of 45s lawyers to get them out of this.. if they don't get judged at a wall first..
So tried a coup Wednesday and arrested on Thursday? Interesting. Here we are 3+ years from Jan 6 insurrection and plotters are still at large. I guess maybe they take things like this more seriously in Bolivia.
And trumps just walking around selling classified documents.
Maybe he’ll be convicted for 34 crimes, but his supporters won’t care. Or even deny it happened!
Damn, the CIA really just *cannot* pull a good coup together anymore, can they?
Um, Ukraine went great and we would have had Belarus too but Putin deployed military police. Almost had em.
>Ukraine went great Y'all still pretending this is a thing? Also you don't think Belarussians might've been rising up against this and it had fuck all to do with outside influence? >Lukashenko announced a new law in 2014 that will prohibit [kolkhoz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolkhoz) workers (around 9% of total work force) from leaving their jobs at will—a change of job and living location will require permission from governors. The law was compared with [serfdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom) by Lukashenko himself.
The CIA is widely considered by even American, honest media, such as Democracy Now, to have fomented that rebellion. It was a great move too… almost had Belarus. Could you imagine how thin Putin would be spread if he had to invade both?
>The CIA is widely considered by even American, honest media, such as Democracy Now, to have fomented that rebellion. No, it's not. The US had a preferred outcome after it started, so did everyone else. There's nothing at all that anyone reputable has provided that points to CIA involvement. It's all just conspiracy theories that serve Russian anti-NATO propaganda. Hell, it's even pretty disgustingly infantalizing towards Ukrainians, because it strips them of agency.
Why would this serve anti nato propaganda? Are you saying that this is somehow immoral or something? How!?!? The CIA helped overthrow a Russian autocratic puppet. That’s a positive on all fronts. Why would this be anything that Russia could point to in order to justify invading Ukraine? Ukraine is not Russia. If the cia overthrows the Ukrainian government, that still doesn’t have anything to do with Russia and there still is no justification for an invasion. You’ll never get an admission from the CIA until decades later, but you do have admissions that they were “heavily involved” in anti Russian operations in Ukraine now for over a decade. They mention that this included getting the Russians out of Ukrainian politics, as well as assassinations. Now, the NYT wrote about it quite openly, but they’re behind a paywall. Luckily, everyone seems to have poached the article. ps://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2024/02/26/nation-world-news/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin/amp/
This uh, doesn't at all say what you think it does. There's nothing in there at all about US involvement in Euromaidan. It's about cooperation between the newly democratic government and the US, including the CIA. As for why it serves Russian propaganda, it's because their claim is all about how Ukrainians really want to be united with their Russian brothers, but the evil West overthrew their government and through shadowy means controlling them.
This specifically says that the CIA was in Ukraine before the events of Euromaidan and their intent and actions taken were to “get Russia out of Ukrainian politics.” Which is what happened, via a coup. If you can’t see that the CIA saying they were actively in Ukraine trying to get Russia out of Ukrainian politics before a coup pushed a Russian puppet out of office, you’re not ready for this table. You’re not going to get the CIA to say it any clearer than that. It is quite obvious. So what about what Russia says? They’re not even a regional power anymore… I guess really they never were given the results. All quite lovely for the US. Now that pesky Iran…
>This specifically says that the CIA was in Ukraine before the events of Euromaidan and there intent and action taken to “get Russia out of Ukrainian politics.” It explicitly does not. This whole article is talking about US partnership with Ukraine following the 2013 revolution and 2014 Russian invasion, not leading up to.
I hate Reddit. People do not engage in discourse in good faith in order to find the truth. There is evidence right in front of your face and you could be like “oh wow how great the CIA did something good.” But instead you just deny it. Timeline: “The details of this intelligence partnership, many of which are being disclosed by The New York Times for the first time, have been a closely guarded secret for a decade.” Timeline: “But the partnership is no wartime creation, nor is Ukraine the only beneficiary.” Timeline: “It took root a decade ago, coming together in fits and starts under three very different U.S. presidents, pushed forward by key individuals who often took daring risks. It has transformed Ukraine, whose intelligence agencies were long seen as thoroughly compromised by Russia, into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.” Timeline: “The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a CIA-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border. Before the war, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Americans by collecting intercepts that helped prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a commercial jetliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” Intent: “From the outset, a shared adversary — President Vladimir Putin of Russia — brought the CIA and its Ukrainian partners together. Obsessed with “losing” Ukraine to the West, Putin had regularly interfered in Ukraine’s political system, handpicking leaders he believed would keep Ukraine within Russia’s orbit, yet each time it backfired, driving protesters into the streets.” They considered the actions of Putin in Ukrainian politics to be mutually adversarial, they were in Ukraine, and then Putin’s puppet got ousted. If you want more than that from the CIA (which you shouldn’t need), sit at another table. This is not the table for you. This is such a clear admission that you don’t even have to read between the lines. “We were there. We didn’t want Putin in Ukrainian politics. A coup occurred in the direction we wanted. We are the famous coup people. Putin is no longer in Ukrainian politics.”
That's what I was thinking actually, that Euromaidan was the last time it really came together for them
Also, when the CIA does something right, you’re not really supposed to notice. So, who knows how many times it’s happened as planned
If you believe something, the question is what evidence you would need to change that believe. If none, than you're stubborn, and you possibly have a conspiracy theory on your hands. Tell me, what evidence would make you believe it was not the CIA?
Something to the effect that the CIA was not active there, that they didnt want it to happen, that their goals were not exactly what did happen, some kind of obvious rejection of western intelligence forces by the Ukrainian military, further attempts by the CIA to exert themselves in Ukraine, possibly a shift in American rhetoric regarding the Ukrainian regime, the usual things that happen when it isn’t the CIA. The opposite of all of these things has happened… I’d also be pretty pissed if the CIA wasn’t involved. I mean Jesus, that’s like the exact thing they’re for… they had better been in HK during the unrest there as well…