Evo Morales accuses Luis Arce of planning a self-coup and lying to the world

Former Bolivian President and leader of the ruling Movement Towards Socialism, Evo Morales, accused Bolivia’s current President Luis Arce of staging a self-coup this week, without offering evidence, when groups of military personnel arrived in La Paz in what the government has described as an attempted coup.

“Lucho did not tell the truth, he deceived us, he lied. Not only to the Bolivian people but to the entire world,” wrote Evo Morales through his official “X” account, formerly Twitter, where he also expressed that “it is regrettable that such a sensitive topic as the denunciation of a coup is used.”

In an online interview on Radio Kawsachun Coca, Evo Morales indicated that he received information from a military source that Wednesday’s operation was planned and said that those details were “convincing him that it is a self-coup.”

“Faced with this reality, I must apologize to the international community for the alarm generated and thank them for their solidarity with our country. It is important that a complete and independent investigation demonstrates the truth of this incident,” Morales added in his Twitter post.

The former president also questioned the fact that Arce, replacing the dismissed Zúniga, appointed General José Sánchez as head of the army, when the latter “participated in the planning of the coup or self-coup.”

At the time of his capture, the former army commander said that Arce himself asked him to “prepare something” to increase his popularity, which was denied by the Bolivian president, who assumed power in 2020 for a five-year period.

Luis Arce answers

Luis Arce told former President Evo Morales on Sunday “make no mistake” about the military uprising that the leader of the ruling party described as a “self-coup” in recent hours.

“Evo Morales, do not be mistaken once again! Clearly what happened on June 26 was a failed military coup in Bolivia,” the Bolivian president wrote on his social networks.

“Do not side with fascism that denies what happened! Those responsible who sought to seize power by force of arms are being prosecuted and will be judged, as was the case with the coup plotters in 2019,” the president added.

Arce’s post is in response to statements made by former President Morales on Sunday morning, when he declared “Lucho Arce deceived the Bolivian people and the entire world with this coup or self-coup,” during his Sunday program on Radio Kawsachún Coca.

President Arce said in an interview with EFE that he was afraid for himself, for his cabinet and for the citizens who came to Plaza Murillo to try to defend the headquarters of the Executive during the “attempted coup d’état” last Wednesday.

“We know that the military is starting to pull the trigger,” he said.

The dismissed former commander Zuñiga arrived on June 26 with tanks and armed men at the headquarters of the Bolivian Executive in the city of La Paz, where he said he wanted to “change the government cabinet” and “restore” democracy. After a few hours of tension, he retreated and was later captured.

TWO MINISTERS CRITICIZE MORALES

The Minister of the Presidency, María Nela Prada, and the Minister of Government (Interior), Eduardo Del Castillo, separately criticized the statements made by former President Morales.

“Today Evo is trying to say that President Arce lied to the country and the international community (…). We cannot be so irresponsible with history and with the life of the Bolivian people just because of ego and ambitions for power,” Prada said in a program on the state channel Bolivia Tv.

“Evo Morales has become a compulsive mythomaniac and believes that the country revolves around him. He does not even have the dignity to worry about what could have really happened within the national territory,” Del Castillo said at a press conference on Sunday.