By Víctor Hugo Morales on June 27, 2024.
Alvaro Garcia Linares
Álvaro García Linera the former vice-president of Bolivia between 2006 and 2019 ruled out that yesterdays event was a “self-coup d’état” devised by President Luis Arce himself. In an interview today, he asks us to take the statements of the general accused for the uprising, Juan José Zúñiga, “as an inventory”.
The former vice-president of Bolivia Álvaro García Linera, has repudiated the coup attempt against the government of Luis Arce and claified that the de facto powers are always latent and “stick their heads out” when progressive projects are weak. García Linera called to reflect on the role of the “de facto powers” that attempt against governments in the region.
“All over the world, in all democracies, there are de facto powers that escape the vote. The business oligarchies, the armed forces and, in the case of America, the North American Embassy”, said García Linera just hours after the coup attempt in Bolivia, where the detained general Juan José Zúñiga tried to force his way into the Palacio del Quemado with tanks, which unleashed the alarms of the Bolivian government and presidents of the whole region, with the exception of the Argentinean, right wing Javier Milei.
The former vice-president said that “those powers that be are always there, on the fringes of democracy”. And that they act “when they see weakness in the governments”. “Yesterday it was the turn of a faction, a very conservative part of the interior of the Armed Forces to act”, he said, and thus ruled out the version of a possible “self-coup”, as suggested by a sector of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), the party of Arce and Evo Morales. This Thursday, Congressman Anyelo Céspedes Miranda told 750 that “everything has been planned” by Arce.
García Linera, far from subscribing to the idea that there was a self-coup d’état, said that it is always about “the latent dangers, which never disappear, but which become more immediate when the progressive governments have difficulties, are weak. And they are more silenced when governments are strong”.
In fact, he maintained that the declarations of former General Zuñiga himself -who put himself at the head of the insurrection and later, when he was arrested, claimed that it was all a plan orchestrated by Arce-“must be taken for what it is considering, he is already a man arrested who has nothing to lose”.
“These are the internal fractures that show us as weak. And internal fights make us forget greater enemies. That like yesterday, they stick out their heads, stick out their ears”, he said with forcefulness in the middle of a tumultuous government of Luis Arce, mediated by a big fight with Evo Morales.
For this reason, he clarified that “progressive forces always have contradictions. But when they become fundamental, we fail to see the real adversary that is crouching”. Finally, he said: “In Bolivia it has been acting since the beginning of the year with the bank run. There are businessmen who do not hand over their export dollars and prefer to leave them in their US accounts. And now this coup d’état attempt”.