{"id":654809,"date":"2026-05-20T17:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/654809\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T17:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:31:16","slug":"bolivia-rocked-by-protests-as-us-warns-of-coup-detat-bolivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/654809\/","title":{"rendered":"Bolivia rocked by protests as US warns of \u2018coup d\u2019\u00e9tat\u2019 | Bolivia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Protests blocking roads across Bolivia and turning the centre of the capital, La Paz, into a battleground between demonstrators and police have entered a second week.<\/p>\n

It is the most turbulent moment of the centre-right president Rodrigo Paz Pereira\u2019s mere six months in office since he ended nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).<\/p>\n

One of the former senator\u2019s first moves was to restore relations with the United States, which now describes the uprisings as \u201can ongoing coup d\u2019\u00e9tat\u201d against Paz Pereira.<\/p>\n

Alongside the domestic unrest, Bolivia\u2019s president has triggered a diplomatic crisis after ordering the immediate expulsion of Colombia\u2019s ambassador in La Paz on Wednesday, in retaliation for remarks by Colombia\u2019s leftwing president, Gustavo Petro.<\/p>\n

Last Sunday, Petro reposted<\/a> a video claiming that Paz Pereira was a \u201cpuppet of the US\u201d and commented that Bolivia was experiencing a \u201cpopular insurrection\u201d that was \u201cthe response to geopolitical arrogance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Announcing ambassador Elizabeth Garc\u00eda\u2019s expulsion on Wednesday, Bolivia\u2019s foreign ministry said the decision was intended to \u201cpreserve the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs\u201d. Moments later, Petro told a Colombian radio station that Bolivia<\/a> was \u201csliding into extremism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters and police clash in La Paz as Bolivia\u2019s anti-government unrest escalates \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The protests have so far caused four deaths \u2013 one demonstrator reportedly killed in clashes and three others reportedly because roadblocks prevented them from receiving proper medical treatment \u2013 as well as dozens of injuries and more than 40 road blockades across the country on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, claimed that the protests were \u201can ongoing coup d\u2019\u00e9tat\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Washington, Landau said: \u201cLet us not make any mistake about that; it is a coup financed by this perverse alliance between politics and organised crime across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolivia is going through its worst economic crisis in four decades, with shortages of dollars and fuel and rising inflation dating back at least to the final years of the previous president Luis Arce\u2019s term under Mas.<\/p>\n

Paz Pereira, the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora, who governed from 1989 to 1993, took office promising an \u201ceconomic shock therapy\u201d, but conditions have not improved and some of his measures have proved deeply unpopular.<\/p>\n

One of his first decisions was to end a two-decade-long fuel subsidy, promising that a free market would bring higher-quality fuel into the country. Instead, shortages continued and, shortly afterwards, the \u201cdirty fuel\u201d crisis erupted, after part of the supply was found to have been adulterated. The president said he had been the victim of an alleged \u201csabotage\u201d by former officials supposedly linked to Mas.<\/p>\n

The historic leader of Mas, the former president Evo Morales<\/a>, also remains an uncomfortable shadow over the current administration. The country\u2019s first Indigenous president has been entrenched since late 2024 in the coca-growing region of Chapare, where hundreds of farmers prevent police or the military from enforcing an arrest warrant against him for allegedly fathering a child with a 15-year-old girl in 2006.<\/p>\n

Morales is currently being tried in another province on human-trafficking charges, linked to alleged political favours granted to the girl\u2019s parents. He failed to appear in court and the judge issued a new arrest warrant.<\/p>\n

The presidential spokesperson, Jos\u00e9 Luis G\u00e1lvez, said Morales was fuelling the unrest in order to \u201cevade the trial\u201d.<\/p>\n

Morales denies this and said the uprisings were \u201cagainst the implementation of the neoliberal model\u201d, adding that \u201cit is just and necessary for the thousands of victims of \u2018dirty fuel\u2019 to begin a civil action\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Protests blocking roads across Bolivia and turning the centre of the capital, La Paz, into a battleground between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-654809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}