This article was originally published by Revolutionary Workers League for the Fourth International in Spanish
After the failure of yesterday’s [June 26, 2024] coup attempt, the scenario remains open and unstable. The state crisis takes a leap, introducing itself into the Armed Forces and further delegitimizing the degraded Bolivian democracy. The Armed Forces became a leading political actor. The workers and the people must advance in their self-organization and mobilization to confront coup attempts “wherever they may come from.”
The military uprising of June 26 reveals the degree of real influence that the armed forces have in national politics. Around 3:00 pm, an irregular mobilization of the armed forces under the leadership of general Juan José Zúñiga entered Plaza Murillo (home to the central buildings of the country’s executive and legislative powers) with combat uniform, rifles, and tanks.
The Military Police ordered the eviction of the personnel of the executive and legislative bodies, deployed chemical agents (tear gas), and proceeded to take control of the Plaza. The former army commander announced the formation of a new cabinet and the release of all ‘political prisoners’, among whom he mentioned Luis Fernando Camacho Vaca (conservative businessman and politician who led the 2019 coup), Jeanine Áñez (the de facto president in 2019-2029, responsible for the Senkata and Sacaba massacres) and the military officers prosecuted for the 2019 coup d’état. Meanwhile, army tanks battered the doors and entered the Palacio Quemado.
(The Palacio Quemado (Burnt Palace) was the presidential palace until 2018 when it was replaced by the Casa Grande del Pueblo (Great House of the People). During the de facto regime of Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) it was temporarily reinstated as presidential palace representing the restoration of the ‘republic’.)
At 5:18 pm, president Luis Arce Catacora from the Casa Grande del Pueblo swore in a new high military command, renewing the leadership of the three forces. The new army commander, José Wilson Sánchez, instructed the demobilization and withdrawal of soldiers, managing to clear Plaza Murillo. The widespread anxiety throughout the country collapsed roads, markets, gas stations, and ATMs, due to fear of shortages due to the coup attempt.
The crisis opened by the provocations of the now former commander general of the Army, Juan José Zúñiga, In the television interview on “No Mentirás” on June 24, he expressed an absolute rejection of a possible candidacy of Evo Morales for the 2025 elections. He threatened to use all the power of the “armed arm of the fatherland” to “enforce the Political Constitution of the State” and arrest Evo Morales.
Until today with the coup attempt (or supposedly self-coup, as some analysts emphasize and which is beginning to become common sense on social networks) the truth is that Bolivian politics has changed in a central aspect of its forms. The role played by the Armed Forces, followed by some police departments, has consolidated its increasingly important role in national politics. It could be suggested that their corporate actions are expressed on the one hand in the demand for freedom from the 2019 coup plotters, who are in prison, and, on the other hand, in the displays of resentment at what they classify as mistreatment of their institution. These are indicators that the Armed Forces will tend to position themselves more and more as an autonomous political actor, between the classes, parties and institutions in the country, with the situation turning increasingly to the right.
The repressive forces in Bolivia, as in the entire Latin American continent, have a disastrous history of submission to imperialist interests. The nature of the repressive apparatus of every State is class-based, that is, in capitalism – the defense of private property over the means of production. Military training in Latin America from the School of the Americas continues to this day, many of the senior officers have studied in the classrooms of what was this school of American military doctrine.
The Bonapartist tendencies gained strength with Evo Morales. As his hegemony decreased he developed stronger authoritarian tendencies. Today with Arce, without possible hegemony, only the increasingly stronger authoritarian tendencies remain, and take on a life of their own.
The danger represented by the role of the armed forces and the police as leading actors in national politics is a consequence of the impunity of the vast majority of coup plotters after the transition agreed between the de facto regime of Áñez and the government of Luis Arce Catacora. The agroindustrial businessmen who openly admitted to having financed the 2019 coup d’état met with the MAS-IPSP government and benefit from the 10-point Pact. (The 10-point Pact is an economic agreement between the government of Arce Catacora and the main business chambers of the country that takes liberalizing measures such as lifting all restrictions on exportations, multi-million dollar tax benefits for exporting capitalists and Central Bank bonds in dollars run by the private sector.)
The policies of Evo Morales and Luis Arce have led to this empowerment of the military apparatus, feeding and strengthening the coup tendencies that are stirring and are very present in the army, where Zúñiga is just the tip of the iceberg. The increasingly strong tendency towards delegitimacy of central institutions such as the Judicial Branch and the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, paralyzed months ago by the government’s action, encourage and strengthen these coup and authoritarian tendencies.
The self-coup hypothesis: Arce and Zúñiga accomplices?
After Luis Arce relieved the Army commander general and replaced him with José Wilson Sánchez, rumors about an alleged operation driven by the president “to regain popularity” gained strength. Zúñiga declared that the tanks and the movement of troops were ordered by President Luis Arce, in an alleged effort to regain popularity. This hypothesis was widely disseminated by sectors of Evo Morales’ fraction of the MAS party as well as by a wide spectrum of the right-wing opposition. This hypothesis cannot be completely ruled out, but suffers from several logical problems, such as the fact that after the coup attempt was concluded, the economic and political situation has deteriorated further. If we consider the self-coup hypothesis, or even worse, the hypothesis of a “staged show”, it would be necessary to explain how the increase in political and institutional instability could improve the precarious macroeconomic balance and reverse the currency shortage, a primary concern of the Arce government.
On the other hand, the assertion that the events that occurred yesterday were fundamentally a circus show put on by the government is dangerous for the working class, as what it seeks is to avoid the organization and mobilization of the working class in the face of such catastrophes. Increasingly strong coup tendencies are fomenting in the army and in various political camps of the ruling party and the opposition. The coup attempt failed by failing to gain support from any social or political sector, which, as Zúñiga himself pointed out, left him alone. The troops of Viacha and the Bolivian Air Force, who were supposed to intervene as soon as the movement began, failed to do so. This accounts for the frictions and various fractures found within the armed forces and cannot lead us to underestimate the danger of armed institutions managing to become a central factor in national politics. In this sense, the failure of the coup attempt leaves yesterday’s events as a reactionary “test balloon”, which the workers and the people should not underestimate.
How is the 2024 military uprising different from the 2019 coup?
The 2019 coup d’état was the product of articulated planning between fractions of the national business community, embassies (those of the US, United Kingdom and Brazil participated directly), paramilitary groups, Bolivian police, armed forces and the church. The social base, fundamentally the urban middle class, was articulated from a cluster of sectoral conflicts, some legitimate, others not so much. This social base was strengthened by the authoritarian and undemocratic measures of the government of Evo Morales after the new Constitution was approved. The most brutal aspect of Evo Morales’ authoritarianism that allowed the right-wing opposition to take over a democratic banner was to ignore the results of the referendum of February 21, 2016, which rejected a new Morales candidacy. The overruling of the referendum result was carried out through a treacherous ruling by the Constitutional Court that declared it was Morales’ human right to be re-elected. The preparatory phase of the 2019 coup d’état is framed in the ‘soft coup’ strategy proposed by Gene Sharp, but its final execution and subsequent massacres of Sacaba and Senkata consolidated the coup with military power. The supposed reports of ‘electoral fraud’ from the OAS, as the articulating axis of the opposition to the MAS-IPSP, sought to legitimize the breakdown of the constitutional order.
The coup attempt or military uprising of June 2024, on the other hand, does not have public support from any political sector – in fact, spokesmen of the extreme right such as Luis Fernando Camacho Vaca, currently imprisoned in Chonchocoro, Jorge ‘Tuto’ Quiroga and Carlos Mesa rejected the coup d’état and called for the “defense of democracy and the rule of law.” Evo Morales, who warned about the possibility of a self-coup during the previous days, finally called to mobilize and confront the coup attempt. All governments in the region, except Milei, who remained prudently silent, rejected the coup attempt. The top diplomatic representative of the European Union in Bolivia, Borrell Fontelles, condemned “any attempt to break the constitutional order in Bolivia” while the US embassy limited itself to issuing a security alert due to the large military presence in Plaza Murillo.
The background of the precarious economic balances and the disputes in the MAS
Like the days of the 2019 coup, political events coincide with jumps in the stock market. The shares of TESLA, owned by magnate Elon Musk, reached their highest value in the last three months on the afternoon of June 26th. The shares of the Albemarle company, another player in the international lithium market, also rose. The movements of lithium companies in the international financial market are not fortuitous coincidences, they are related to political events in the country with the largest reserve of this energy element, which put Bolivia at the center of regional geopolitical disputes. The recurrent announcements by the government to import diesel from the Russian Federation, after Arce’s trip to Moscow, have been questioned by the US government, which is concerned by the Bolivian government trying to overcome the effects of the international economic crisis by relying on the rising Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis. The precarious economic balances are increasingly deteriorating due to the import of subsidized fuels that accelerate the need for currency that until now the government can only cover by aggravating external debt.
However, even obtaining external financing has become a real challenge for the Arce government, which has lost control of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly as a result of increasingly violent disputes with Evo Morales. The emergence of “Evism” (the Morales fraction of the MAS party) as an additional opposition to the government has had the immediate effect of leaving the government in a minority in parliament. The pro-Morales faction of MAS alongside the right-wing opposition control more than 2/3 of the chambers and can impose their conditions on the government in exchange for the approval of international loans. The disputes within the MAS party are transferred to the interior of the government and the State, accelerating the political crisis and leaving an open scenario for the future.
Confront coup tendencies with mobilization and self-organization of workers, peasants and all oppressed peoples
Regardless of how yesterday’s events are interpreted, whether it was an attempted coup, whether it was an attempted self-coup, or whether it was a “show” put on by the government, the determining fact is that the armed forces have a leading role in national politics and the increasingly bold outbreaks of pro-coup tendencies that seek to gain hegemony within military institutions.
Therefore, for us now the key is to fight against policies and ideas that demobilize, such as the “it was all a show” hypothesis, fight against the policy of class collaboration and white-washing of the Armed Forces and the police. We must organise to build connections and coordination between unions, neighborhood organizations, social, indigenous and peasant movements, the women’s movement and LGBTQI+ population. We must promote worker, peasant and popular assemblies to discuss how to confront the pro-coup momentum that is beginning to emerge throughout different political camps and see the way in which we workers emerge into national politics, as the military has just done. The urgent need for an independent, socialist and revolutionary political organization of the workers has become the most urgent need of the country. If this does not arise, the destiny of Bolivia will depend on governments that rely on the Armed Forces of Bolivia, and in the foreign powers plundering natural resources, and strengthening the exploitation of workers, peasants and poor people.
Let’s build a way out from below, from the politically-independent self-organization of the workers and popular sectors of the countryside and the city. Only our independent mobilization can stop the coups “no matter where it comes from”, opening the way for the worker, peasant and popular counteroffensive, that must lead us to a government of the workers and the people who fight for the construction of socialism from below.
We invite you to discuss these ideas with the LOR-CI.
Originally published in Spanish in https://laizquierdadiario.com.bo/
