Armoured vehicles ram Bolivia’s presidential palace in attempted coup
Armoured vehicles rammed into the doors of the presidential palace in Bolivia’s capital Wednesday as President Luis Arce said the country was facing an attempted coup by the military.
“Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt,” he said in a video in the palace, surrounded by cabinet ministers. “We need the Bolivian people to organize.”
Arce swore in new military leaders amid the attempted coup. That includes the position of the general commander of the army, Juan José Zúñiga, who appears to be leading the rebellion.
New army chief José Wilson Sánchez is ordering all mobilized troops to return to their barracks. “No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets,” he said.
‘I will not allow this insubordination’: president
Previously, Arce confronted Zúñiga in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television: “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.
But prior to entering the government building, Zúñiga told reporters in the square that there will be a “new cabinet of ministers.”
Members of Bolivia’s armed forces entered one of the main squares in La Paz on Wednesday, as the country’s president condemned the movements. Some in the capital held signs saying, ‘Democracy must be respected.’
“Surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer,” he told a local TV station.
“Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army,” he said in full uniform, flanked by soldiers, insisting the action being taken was supported by the public.
Arce called for “democracy to be respected” in a message on his X account.
“We cannot allow, once again, coup attempts to take the lives of Bolivians,” he said from inside the palace, surrounded by government officials, in a video message sent to news outlets.
Tensions over the economy
Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.
Bolivia’s financial quagmire stems, at least in part, from an unprecedented rift at the highest levels of the governing party.
Arce and his one-time ally, leftist icon and former president Evo Morales, are battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism (MAS) ahead of elections in 2025.
The political fight has paralyzed the government’s efforts to deal with the deepening economic despair, and analysts had warned that the social unrest could explode in the historically turbulent nation of 12 million people.
Cracks in the governing party opened in 2019, when Morales, then Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, ran for an unconstitutional third term. He won a contested vote plagued by allegations of fraud, setting off mass protests that caused 36 deaths and prompted Morales to resign and flee the country.
After an interim government took control in what MAS called a coup, Morales’s chosen successor, Arce, won the election on a campaign promise to restore prosperity to Bolivia, once Latin America’s mainstay source of natural gas.
Morales rallies supporters to oppose coup
Arce had been Morales’s finance minister who oversaw years of strong growth and low inflation. But assuming the presidency in 2020, he encountered a bleak economic reckoning from the coronavirus pandemic. Diminished gas production sealed the end of Bolivia’s budget-busting economic model.
Still hugely popular among Bolivia’s Indigenous communities, coca growers and union workers, Morales saw an opportunity. After returning from exile, the charismatic populist announced plans last year to run in the 2025 vote — setting himself on a collision course with Arce, who is expected to seek re-election.
Morales, to his credit, announced a national mobilization of his supporters in the wake of the apparent coup attempt.
“We will not allow the armed forces to violate democracy and intimidate people,” he said.
Published at Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:12:52 +0000
Biden pardons U.S. veterans convicted of having consensual gay sex
U.S. President Joe Biden has pardoned potentially thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex, saying Wednesday that he is “righting an historic wrong” to clear the way for them to regain lost benefits.
Biden’s action grants a pardon to service members who were convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125, which criminalized sodomy. The law, which had been on the books since 1951, was rewritten in 2013 to prohibit only forcible acts.
Those covered by the pardon will be able to apply to receive proof that their conviction has been erased, petition to have their discharges from the military upgraded and move to recover lost pay and benefits.
“Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves,” Biden said in a statement.
“We have a sacred obligation to all of our service members — including our brave LGBTQI+ service members: to properly prepare and equip them when they are sent into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they return home. Today we are making progress in that pursuit.”
The president’s use of his pardon powers is occurring during Pride Month, and his action comes just days before he is set to hold a high-profile fundraiser with LGBTQ+ donors in New York on Friday. Biden is trying to rally support within the Democratic-leaning community ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
Modern Military, the nation’s largest organization of LGBTQ+ service members and their families, said the decision was “historic step towards justice and equality,” and called on the miliary to approve the pardons quickly.
Biden’s proclamation is “a significant move in recognizing and righting the wrongs inflicted upon LGBTQ+ service members who faced discrimination and unjust convictions under policies such as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,'” the organization said in a statement after the pardon announcement.
“These brave individuals stood on the front lines of freedom, risking their lives to defend our country, only to be met with injustice at home.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement that the actions were a step in the “march toward greater equality” and “correct a historic wrong for LGBTQ+ Americans who served bravely in our armed forces to keep our country safe.”
Administration officials declined to say why Biden did not act on the pardons sooner.
This is Biden’s third categorical pardon — using his clemency powers to cover a broad group of people convicted of particular crimes — after moves in 2022 and 2023 to pardon those convicted federally for possessing marijuana.
The White House estimates that several thousand service members will be covered — the majority convicted before the military instituted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1993 that eased the way for LGBTQ+ troops to serve if they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. That policy was repealed in 2011, when Congress allowed for their open service in the military.
Service members convicted of nonconsensual acts are not covered by Biden’s pardon action. And those convicted under other articles of the military justice code, which may have been used as pretext to punish or force-out LGBTQ+ troops, would need to request clemency through the normal Department of Justice pardon process.
Biden had previously ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to move to provide benefits to service members who were other than honourably discharged because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.
Published at Wed, 26 Jun 2024 20:59:58 +0000