LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — A plan to stage a coup against Bolivia’s president was not what Gen. Tomás Peña y Lillo was expecting when he entered the military headquarters in La Paz last Wednesday.
The leader of Bolivia’s retired service members said he was surprised to get a call that morning from army chief Gen. Juan José Zúñiga with a request to report for talks about how to advocate for imprisoned soldiers.
It was a coveted meeting, so he rushed over to find Zúñiga surrounded by officers asking for their help in “defending democracy.” Peña y Lillo claims he demurred, but tanks were already rumbling out of the barracks toward the presidential palace.
“It’s a tragicomedy,” Peña y Lillo, now a fugitive wanted for his participation in the alleged coup attempt, told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location.
Like many Bolivians, he said he struggled to piece the story together, recalling how “there had been a lot of talk in the military that (Bolivian President Luis) Arce would hand the government over to Zúñiga” as protests roiled the country over shortages of dollars and fuel.
The retired general’s comments mark another surreal turn in the nation’s efforts to establish the facts of what happened on June 26, when military forces stormed downtown La Paz, stunning the country and spinning off waves of rumors from the mundane to the absurd.
A week after the purported rebellion roiled the South American country that has seen no fewer than 190 coups since its independence in 1825, Bolivians who thought they’d seen it all say they’ve never been more confused.
“This is so strange, so unbelievable,” said Marcia Tiñini, a 58-year-old teacher in La Paz. “First I believed the government and felt solidarity, but now I don’t know what to say.”
Expected to hear about how Elon, China, or Russia may have been involved to get cheap lithium…
But apparently it’s that this was a setup to generate support for the current admin. And yeah, shit kind of seems like that:
“If it was a coup, the presidency would have purged the armed forces,” said Col. Jorge Santiesteban, a Bolivian security expert. “The president rewarded the commander-in-chief who didn’t do anything about a major insurrection committed by his subordinate.”
It was also odd that the rebellion was led by Zúñiga, a loyalist who owes his position and high rank to President Arce.
Photos of Arce and Zúñiga shooting hoops together just days before June 26 splattered across social media. As rumors swirled about their close friendship, senior Cabinet member María Nela Prada went on Bolivian TV, unprompted, to say the two are not brothers-in-law.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The retired general’s comments mark another surreal turn in the nation’s efforts to establish the facts of what happened on June 26, when military forces stormed downtown La Paz, stunning the country and spinning off waves of rumors from the mundane to the absurd.
Before being hauled off to jail, Zúñiga claimed his mutiny was a hoax concocted by President Arce to deflect attention from a spiraling economy and a bitter political battle with his former mentor, ex-President Evo Morales.
It struck them as suspicious that the chief of the armed forces, Gonzalo Vigabriel Sánchez, was nowhere to be seen as chaos consumed the capital, emerging only after Zúñiga’s sacking to attend a hasty swearing-in ceremony of new appointees where President Arce asked him to remain in his post.
Fueling the skepticism is a deep distrust in Bolivian authorities, in part stemming from unresolved tensions over former President Morales’ 2019 ouster under military pressure that unleashed lethal crackdowns on protests by security forces.
The former commander of the Bolivian Air Force, Gen. Marcelo Zegarra, told prosecutors that Zúñiga enjoyed support from three diplomatic missions in La Paz — the U.S, the European Union and, interestingly, Libya.
In La Paz Tuesday, crowds converged over a hulking 380-kilogram (838-pound) mass of sliced pork and pickled carrots stuffed into a gigantic bun — Bolivia’s bid to clinch the world record for the biggest “sandwich de chola” ever made.
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