6 ms·

Coup Attempt in Bolivia

121 points by henriquenunez 2y ago

jviotti 2y ago
I was in Bolivia during the event. It was not a real "coup" and it was in general a pretty uneventful military vs government dispute. Locals were a bit upset that the media did so much fuss about something that was not a big deal.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lkbm 2y ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko might be a better source. It's not paywalled, for one.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  I find the BBC is too willing to run with anything when it comes to breaking news. Longer lead time pieces using BBC reporters with better edited content they do great on, but they have proven over and over they will relay anything when it comes to breaking news, and that they do especially poor when using freelance reporters for breaking news. Ido Vock, who has the BBC byline, is a freelance journalist not a BBC reporter. https://muckrack.com/ido-vock https://muckrack.com/ido-vock Marcelo Rochabrun from the Bloomberg piece is Bloomberg's Lima Bureau Chief. https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWGVgQgsdOs/marcelo-rochabrun https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWGVgQgsdOs/marcelo-rochab...
dudus 2y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of the population support the coup. South America has a history of military dictatorship but after the pendulum swings enough to the other side people seem to lose their memory a bit.
- silvestreh 2y ago
  Most of them funded by the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
  - localfirst 2y ago
    Democratic governments and political parties, unions, student organizations, journalists, artists, teachers, intellectuals, opponents to the military juntas and left-wing sympathizers (including socialists, peronists, anarchists and communists) Crazy they just green lighted the whole segment of the population who were fighting for their own destiny.
  - Aerbil313 2y ago
    Democracy doesn't work in a US-dominant world. My country is nowhere near Africa yet there have been 7 coup attemps, 4 successful, most backed by US in her 100 year history[2]. The last one didn't succeed and the US is currently protecting the leader of the attempt, refusing to give him us back. Arab leaders are likewise domestically widely regarded as sockpuppets of the USA. On the rare occasion a democratic election happens, the president suddenly dies, gets assasinated, or a coup d'état happens and gets hanged. Off the top of my head see [2] for an example. This is not to say democracy would work in a Russia- or China- dominant world. It seems democracy only works for the nations who can sufficiently defend against infiltration by the NSA/foreign intelligence agency of the dominant power. And I don't think that's easy, or feasible at all. You can't expect an African nation of 10M population who gained independence 2 decades ago to have the skilled people to be able to conduct this sort of intelligence operations. And of course, the US is the peacekeeper of the world, only bringing democracy and welfare to the poor nations held back by their authoritarian leaders and backward ideologies and religions. Long live Imperium Americana! 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...
    - localfirst 2y ago
rwmj 2y ago
Sounds like the plotters didn't secure the TV station first.
- dralley 2y ago
  Rookie mistake.
AlbertCory 2y ago
https://archive.ph/EK05C https://archive.ph/EK05C
kragen 2y ago
it sounds like the kirchners' allies in bolivia are going through the kind of crisis we were headed for here in argentina before they lost power here in the election in november. not that we aren't still in a crisis, but we have two things going for us: 1. recognizing the wrongheadedness of the kirchners' policies, we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag, and his advocacy of freedom seems to be strictly limited to freedom of enterprise (not, for example, freedom of abortion, freedom to protest, or freedom to use public transit anonymously) 2. we aren't a petro-state
- pessimizer 2y ago
  Peronism is weird and incomparable with other non-right wing movements. Argentina's modern history is largely defined by left-wing Peronists vs. right-wing Peronists. Hence, you can't evaluate other countries governments based on whether they're aligned with the Kirchners or not, it says almost nothing other than they're not on the extreme right. You have to judge them on their own terms.
  - kragen 2y ago
    the policies that led to the bolivian crisis were the same policies the kirchnerists were applying in argentina; it was an ideological alliance, not one of convenience
- deciplex 2y ago
  > we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag many such cases!
  - kragen 2y ago
    no, nothing like this has ever happened before in recorded history. probably that's fortunate i mean people have elected all kinds of madmen as heads of state, so that's not the unprecedented part. but i don't think any country has ever elected a minarchist as a head of state. two weeks ago he gave a speech at a cato forum here describing the state he now heads as by nature a violent and criminal organization. he may be right about that, but generally believing such things makes you unelectable we are in uncharted waters. this is going to be exciting!
karma_daemon 2y ago
From the article "Bolivia is among the world’s most politically turbulent nations, having had nearly 200 coups and revolutions since it won independence from Spain two centuries ago. Morales was ousted by the army as recently as 2019 after a disputed election."
- hulitu 2y ago
  And how many of them were with the support of CIA ?
vintermann 2y ago
Apparently a general, Juan José Zúñiga was removed as commander of the Bolivian army yesterday, and he responded with this. Makes it a bit understandable why they would want to get rid of him.
- dluan 2y ago
  but steve gets celebrated when he did it
openasocket 2y ago
I’ve been trying to get a sense of how much of the military is actually behind this. Current reporting seems a bit confused. For example, I’ve seen multiple articles say that “2 tanks” are outside the government palace, but I’ve yet to see any photos or videos demonstrating that. All I’ve seen so far are a handful of images like in the article showing uniformed troops, and one video showing an armored vehicle ramming a building (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko.amp ). Best I can tell that is a Tiger armored vehicle. I’m wondering if this is a case of reporters calling any military vehicle a “tank” or if there are actual tanks (which for Bolivia would mean the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK-105_Kürassier https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK-105_Kürassier or possibly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE-9_Cascavel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE-9_Cascavel depending on you definition of “tank”). At some point hopefully someone with knowledge of Bolivian Army insignia will chime in and identify which units are participating in this coup.
- throw-the-towel 2y ago
  Yeah, Bolivian sources also used the word "tanque" for vehicles that clearly were not tanks.
teleforce 2y ago
[flagged]
- strstr 2y ago
  What does this have to do with the article?
  - tmpz22 2y ago
    US involvement in South America is arguably the leading cause of the current instabilities in the region. It is not the sole factor but in order to understand the geopolitics of the region must be taken into account. Knowledge of these US involvements are often not well known in my experience. Consider for example the role of American legislation and consumption in the drug trade and the resulting immigration and criminal crises throughout the continents.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      Bolivia has been independent since 1825 and has since then experienced over 190 coups. Nobody can whitewash US involvement in South and Central America in the 20th century, but the US is not the sole cause of Bolivian instability. Perhaps it makes more sense to blame colonialism, which set up the unstable rural/urban indigenous/white duality that has made the place so fragile.
      - bbreier 2y ago
        And how long has it been since the last US backed coup in Bolivia?
        tptacek 2y ago
        I have no idea. I made a specific argument and was explicit about not immunizing the US for its absolutely wretched involvement with South and Central American politics.
hcarvalhoalves 2y ago
Follow the money. https://x.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752 https://x.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752
- xtracto 2y ago
  Interested tidbit of historical information.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  NB: the lazy pattern of linking to a brief microblog post rather than giving the payload text is one of my long-standing pet peeves. Particularly as such sites have a longstanding tendency to die (e.g., Google+, Ello, Imzy, Posterous, Blogger, ...) And for those unable or unwilling to view The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, the payload is: Elon Musk: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it." Bolivia just stopped him from mining in their country. I'd say they dealt with it pretty well. Archive link: <https://archive.is/JjyYL https://archive.is/JjyYL>
wbeckler 2y ago
It looks like it already failed: https://www.reddit.com/r/BalticSSRs/comments/1dpbto6/bolivia_update_the_fascist_mutiny_in_bolivia_is/?share_id=sj5YTBWjUrG6J4eA_0a_t&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/BalticSSRs/comments/1dpbto6/bolivia... https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1806090907084865627 https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1806090907084865627
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

121 points by henriquenunez 2y ago

I was in Bolivia during the event. It was not a real "coup" and it was in general a pretty uneventful military vs government dispute. Locals were a bit upset that the media did so much fuss about something that was not a big deal.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lkbm 2y ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko might be a better source. It's not paywalled, for one.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
I find the BBC is too willing to run with anything when it comes to breaking news. Longer lead time pieces using BBC reporters with better edited content they do great on, but they have proven over and over they will relay anything when it comes to breaking news, and that they do especially poor when using freelance reporters for breaking news. Ido Vock, who has the BBC byline, is a freelance journalist not a BBC reporter. https://muckrack.com/ido-vock https://muckrack.com/ido-vock Marcelo Rochabrun from the Bloomberg piece is Bloomberg's Lima Bureau Chief. https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWGVgQgsdOs/marcelo-rochabrun https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AWGVgQgsdOs/marcelo-rochab...

dudus 2y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of the population support the coup. South America has a history of military dictatorship but after the pendulum swings enough to the other side people seem to lose their memory a bit.

silvestreh 2y ago
Most of them funded by the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
- localfirst 2y ago
  Democratic governments and political parties, unions, student organizations, journalists, artists, teachers, intellectuals, opponents to the military juntas and left-wing sympathizers (including socialists, peronists, anarchists and communists) Crazy they just green lighted the whole segment of the population who were fighting for their own destiny.
- Aerbil313 2y ago
  Democracy doesn't work in a US-dominant world. My country is nowhere near Africa yet there have been 7 coup attemps, 4 successful, most backed by US in her 100 year history[2]. The last one didn't succeed and the US is currently protecting the leader of the attempt, refusing to give him us back. Arab leaders are likewise domestically widely regarded as sockpuppets of the USA. On the rare occasion a democratic election happens, the president suddenly dies, gets assasinated, or a coup d'état happens and gets hanged. Off the top of my head see [2] for an example. This is not to say democracy would work in a Russia- or China- dominant world. It seems democracy only works for the nations who can sufficiently defend against infiltration by the NSA/foreign intelligence agency of the dominant power. And I don't think that's easy, or feasible at all. You can't expect an African nation of 10M population who gained independence 2 decades ago to have the skilled people to be able to conduct this sort of intelligence operations. And of course, the US is the peacekeeper of the world, only bringing democracy and welfare to the poor nations held back by their authoritarian leaders and backward ideologies and religions. Long live Imperium Americana! 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...
  - localfirst 2y ago

rwmj 2y ago

Sounds like the plotters didn't secure the TV station first.

dralley 2y ago
Rookie mistake.

AlbertCory 2y ago

https://archive.ph/EK05C https://archive.ph/EK05C

kragen 2y ago

it sounds like the kirchners' allies in bolivia are going through the kind of crisis we were headed for here in argentina before they lost power here in the election in november. not that we aren't still in a crisis, but we have two things going for us: 1. recognizing the wrongheadedness of the kirchners' policies, we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag, and his advocacy of freedom seems to be strictly limited to freedom of enterprise (not, for example, freedom of abortion, freedom to protest, or freedom to use public transit anonymously) 2. we aren't a petro-state

pessimizer 2y ago
Peronism is weird and incomparable with other non-right wing movements. Argentina's modern history is largely defined by left-wing Peronists vs. right-wing Peronists. Hence, you can't evaluate other countries governments based on whether they're aligned with the Kirchners or not, it says almost nothing other than they're not on the extreme right. You have to judge them on their own terms.
- kragen 2y ago
  the policies that led to the bolivian crisis were the same policies the kirchnerists were applying in argentina; it was an ideological alliance, not one of convenience
deciplex 2y ago
> we elected an opposition leader who favors capitalism. unfortunately, he's a total nutbag many such cases!
- kragen 2y ago
  no, nothing like this has ever happened before in recorded history. probably that's fortunate i mean people have elected all kinds of madmen as heads of state, so that's not the unprecedented part. but i don't think any country has ever elected a minarchist as a head of state. two weeks ago he gave a speech at a cato forum here describing the state he now heads as by nature a violent and criminal organization. he may be right about that, but generally believing such things makes you unelectable we are in uncharted waters. this is going to be exciting!

karma_daemon 2y ago

From the article "Bolivia is among the world’s most politically turbulent nations, having had nearly 200 coups and revolutions since it won independence from Spain two centuries ago. Morales was ousted by the army as recently as 2019 after a disputed election."

hulitu 2y ago
And how many of them were with the support of CIA ?

vintermann 2y ago

Apparently a general, Juan José Zúñiga was removed as commander of the Bolivian army yesterday, and he responded with this. Makes it a bit understandable why they would want to get rid of him.

dluan 2y ago
but steve gets celebrated when he did it

openasocket 2y ago

I’ve been trying to get a sense of how much of the military is actually behind this. Current reporting seems a bit confused. For example, I’ve seen multiple articles say that “2 tanks” are outside the government palace, but I’ve yet to see any photos or videos demonstrating that. All I’ve seen so far are a handful of images like in the article showing uniformed troops, and one video showing an armored vehicle ramming a building (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c288eewr1wko.amp ). Best I can tell that is a Tiger armored vehicle. I’m wondering if this is a case of reporters calling any military vehicle a “tank” or if there are actual tanks (which for Bolivia would mean the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK-105_Kürassier https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SK-105_Kürassier or possibly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE-9_Cascavel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EE-9_Cascavel depending on you definition of “tank”). At some point hopefully someone with knowledge of Bolivian Army insignia will chime in and identify which units are participating in this coup.

throw-the-towel 2y ago
Yeah, Bolivian sources also used the word "tanque" for vehicles that clearly were not tanks.

teleforce 2y ago

[flagged]

strstr 2y ago
What does this have to do with the article?
- tmpz22 2y ago
  US involvement in South America is arguably the leading cause of the current instabilities in the region. It is not the sole factor but in order to understand the geopolitics of the region must be taken into account. Knowledge of these US involvements are often not well known in my experience. Consider for example the role of American legislation and consumption in the drug trade and the resulting immigration and criminal crises throughout the continents.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Bolivia has been independent since 1825 and has since then experienced over 190 coups. Nobody can whitewash US involvement in South and Central America in the 20th century, but the US is not the sole cause of Bolivian instability. Perhaps it makes more sense to blame colonialism, which set up the unstable rural/urban indigenous/white duality that has made the place so fragile.
    - bbreier 2y ago
      And how long has it been since the last US backed coup in Bolivia?
      - tptacek 2y ago
        I have no idea. I made a specific argument and was explicit about not immunizing the US for its absolutely wretched involvement with South and Central American politics.

hcarvalhoalves 2y ago

Follow the money. https://x.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752 https://x.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752

xtracto 2y ago
Interested tidbit of historical information.
dredmorbius 2y ago
NB: the lazy pattern of linking to a brief microblog post rather than giving the payload text is one of my long-standing pet peeves. Particularly as such sites have a longstanding tendency to die (e.g., Google+, Ello, Imzy, Posterous, Blogger, ...) And for those unable or unwilling to view The Site Formerly Known as Twitter, the payload is: Elon Musk: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it." Bolivia just stopped him from mining in their country. I'd say they dealt with it pretty well. Archive link: <https://archive.is/JjyYL https://archive.is/JjyYL>

wbeckler 2y ago

It looks like it already failed: https://www.reddit.com/r/BalticSSRs/comments/1dpbto6/bolivia_update_the_fascist_mutiny_in_bolivia_is/?share_id=sj5YTBWjUrG6J4eA_0a_t&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/BalticSSRs/comments/1dpbto6/bolivia... https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1806090907084865627 https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1806090907084865627

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

[deleted]