President Arce Replaces Bolivian Military Leadership, Calls for Role in Democracy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivian President Luis Arce has appointed General Jaime Zabala as commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces and has also replaced the military commanders appointed by his predecessor, Jeanine Áñez. The new president considers the former commanders as responsible for the ouster of Evo Morales and, in the case of some of them, perpetrators of repressive actions that have caused over 30 deaths and hundreds of injured.

Arce asked the new military leadership to return to the Armed Forces its institutionality and “its place in society” since in the past they were used “wrongfully” and, therefore, their current challenge is to restore the people’s “confidence that they will respect democratic processes”.

The Bolivian Armed Forces, then led by General Williams Kalimán, played an important role in the overthrow of then-President Evo Morales on November 10th, 2019. Before his removal from power, they publicly “suggested” that he resign.

And, as Morales later claimed, they acted behind his back against the social groups that supported him and on behalf of the demonstrators who had been protesting for 21 days, demanding the annulment of the elections he had fraudulently won. Furthermore, days before, when the president asked them what they could do to tackle the protests, the commanders answered that there was nothing they could do, because “they had no bullets”.

Shortly after the change of government and Áñez’s coming to power, the “Sacaba, Senkata and El Pedregal massacres” occurred, which is how the acts of repression of protests against the interim government are named. Arce’s party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS), wants to prosecute Áñez, her Cabinet and some military and police chiefs, whose names have not been ascertained so far because they are protected under military secrecy. This case will be one of the most significant points of controversy between the Arce government and the military institutions.

Special treatment

At his inauguration, General Zabala quoted a sentence pronounced by Arce in his swearing-in speech as president and asked that “the bad be corrected and the good be deepened”; in this case, in the relationship between the MAS Governments and the Armed Forces. In the past, the military received special treatment from Evo Morales, who increased investment in combat equipment, handed over the management of civil aviation to retired military personnel, and appointed many former commanders as ambassadors of the country.

However, there was also friction between the military and the indigenous leader, because of the policies he implemented to discipline officers in “anti-imperialist” issues and for the cult he professed to Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, the Argentine guerrilla fighter who fought and died in 1967 in Bolivia. In one of his last official acts, Áñez’s Minister of Defense Fernando López, organized a rally of “grievance” to former Bolivian fighters in Ñancahuazú, the place where Che was defeated and killed.

López also dismantled the “anti-imperialist military school” founded by Morales and turned it into a center for military engineering studies, which he called specifically “Heroes of Ñancahuazú”. The Armed Forces stopped using the “Always Until Victory,” which Morales forced them to chant when he was their captain-general.

Except for these points of conflict, the relationship of the leftist leader with the Armed Forces was good, particularly with the Air Force, for which the ex-president bought several airplanes and helicopters. General Zabala belongs to this military branch.

No militia

The new commander-in-chief stated that the Armed Forces are the “only and indivisible” Bolivian institution in charge of security and defense. He thus based the military’s viewpoint against the voices that, within MAS, have proposed the establishment of voluntary “militias” to prevent a repeat of what happened in 2019.

The idea was initially raised by Evo Morales himself, but he retreated after his words sparked scandal. However, the issue has not ceased to be discussed in public, causing apprehension among the uniformed forces and repudiation by the political opposition.

Zabala also called for an end to “hatred among Bolivians” and for them to work together to tackle the pandemic, the economic recession, and the political crisis that are simultaneously afflicting the country.

The Arce government is also trying to rebuild its influence over the police, said to have contributed even more directly than the Armed Forces to Morales’ removal from power.

Bolivia’s new Interior Minister Carlos Eduardo Del Castillo declared that “never again” and in no government should there be a police riot like the one that hastened the fall of MAS in 2019. He also vowed to work on restoring the professionalism of the institution in charge of public order.

Source: El País