Military Flees Bolivia Government Palace After Coup Attempt Fails, General Taken Into Custody

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Armored vehicles rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, but President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down.

The soldiers pulled back behind a line of military vehicles, as hundreds of Arce’s supporters rushed the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags and cheering.

Arce, surrounded by ministers, waved at the crowd as they sang the national anthem. “Thank you to the Bolivian people,” he said. “Let democracy live on.”

Hours later, the Bolivian general who appeared to be behind the rebellion, Juan José Zúñiga, was arrested after the attorney general opened an investigation. It wasn’t immediately clear what the charges were against him.

However, shortly before his arrest Zúñiga claimed Arce asked him to storm the palace in a political move. “The president told me: ‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity’,” Zúñiga told reporters.

Zúñiga sajd he asked Arce if he should “take out the armored vehicles?” and Arce replied, “Take them out.”

Wednesday’s rebellion followed months of tensions, with economic hardship and protests growing ever stronger as two political titans — Arce and his one-time ally, leftist former President Evo Morales — battled for control of the ruling party.

Still, the apparent attempt to depose the sitting president appeared to lack any meaningful support, and even Arce’s rivals closed ranks to defend democracy and repudiate the uprising.

The spectacle outraged regional leaders and shocked Bolivians, no stranger to political unrest; in 2019 Morales was ousted as president following an earlier