Bolivian army chiefs arrested after coup attempt

LA PAZ: Two Bolivian army leaders have been arrested after soldiers and tanks took up position in front of government buildings on Wednesday in what President Luis Arce called an attempted coup.

The troops and tanks entered Plaza Murillo, a historic square where the presidency and Congress are situated, in the afternoon, prompting global condemnation of an attack on democracy.

One of the tanks tried to break down a metal door of the presidential palace.

Surrounded by soldiers and eight tanks, the now-dismissed army chief General Juan Jose Zuniga said the “armed forces intend to restructure democracy, to make it a true democracy and not one run by the same few people for 30, 40 years.”

AFP reporters saw soldiers and tanks pulling back from the square shortly after. The uprising lasted about five hours.

Zuniga was captured and forced into a police car as he addressed reporters outside a military barracks later on Wednesday, footage on state television showed.

“General, you are under arrest,” Deputy Interior Minister Jhonny Aguilera told Zuniga.

A second senior officer Juan Arnez Salvador, who was head of the Bolivian navy, was also arrested Wednesday night.

Salvador´s arrest was announced by Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo, who said that Zuniga and the navy chief are “two military coup leaders who tried to destroy democracy and the institutionality of our country and failed”.