Bolivian puppet regime and US Pentagon target leftist strike leaders

Bolivia — Government targeting leftist leaders

Strikes and police crackdowns across Bolivia have led to at least 90, perhaps over 120, arrests on leftists.

The Bolivian justice department and policing Commander General have issued arrest warrants for the ongoing general strike‘s leadership. This is aimed explicitly at the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB)-led strikes.

COB strike leaders — David Quispe Machaca, Juan Hector Huacani Guachalla, Justino Apaza Callisaya, Winston Jemio Quispe Gutierrez and Nilton Condori Alanoc — are being charged with:

• “Terrorism;”
• “Financing terrorism;”
• “Instigation of delinquency;”
• “Delinquent association;”
• “Activities against the security of transport routes;” and
• “Activities against the security of public services.”

The government has presented no clear evidence for “terroristic” activities or the financing of them. Meanwhile, “delinquency” can be stretched to cover basically anything. As regards transport routes and public services, the Bolivian people frequently disrupt roads for political action (I experienced these firsthand in July 2025, with zero arrests). Attempts to criminalise this activity now indicate fragility in Paz’s regime.

These targeted attacks come as the indigenous movement, still led from formal political exile by Evo Morales, made the Paz administration an ultimatum of 90 days. They demand a new general election after Paz secured only two governorships out of nine in April’s regional elections — despite his election less than a year ago.

Bolivia’s government has ordered the arrest of all the main leaders of the indigenous movements and mineworkers unions.

They’re being charged for Terrorism for having organised the general strike against hunger. Strike continues regardless, now in day 7. pic.twitter.com/5ISk3KPb68

— Ollie Vargas (@Ollie_Vargas_) May 19, 2026

US imperial involvement

Ex-president of Bolivia and longstanding indigenous socialist leader Evo Morales claimed on 15 May that the US military sought to “detain or kill” him in a military operation. Regional independent journalist Ollie Vargas confirmed the operation with leaked documents detailing over 2,300 troops and DEA (US) involvement. (See the Canary‘s full explainer.)

US Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau pinned the popular uprising on the “support of organized crime and drug traffickers,” without any supporting evidence. It’s a common tactic of US imperialists to equate coca farmers with narcotics producers, where coca has an ancient connection to indigenous Andean peoples.

Let there be no mistake: those who lost overwhelmingly at the ballot box in Bolivia last year are trying to overthrow President @Rodrigo_PazP by organizing RIOTS and BLOCKADES with the support of organized crime and drug traffickers. I spoke with my friend President Paz this…

— Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) May 19, 2026

Now US hemispheric hawk, Landau’s boss, Marco Rubio himself has joined in the fray. Absurdly, Marco ‘Narco’ Rubio — whose brother-in-law is a convicted cocaine trafficker — declared on X that the US:

will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.

This comes after Trump’s presidential pardons of high-profile convicted drug traffickers, like Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández. This suggests clear bias in how the US selectively deploys narcotics laws. Deepening US collaboration with the Ecuadorian presidential Noboa oligarch family, credibly accused of drug trafficking, demonstrate how selectively the US weaponises these sentiments.

The US has a long and dark history of doing exactly that, from Panama to Colombia to, most recently, Honduras. The latest is with the direct aid of Benjamin Netanyahu (see: ‘Hondurasgate‘). In every instance the US has happily backed or overlooked drug lords and despots wherever they were an alternative to leftists.

Regional solidarity and hostility

Colombian socialist President Gustavo Petro repeatedly voiced support for the Bolivian workers’ struggles. He denounced weaponised US equation of indigenous coca farming with narcotics production. Petro adds:

An attack on a legitimate former president and indigenous leader like Evo Morales will only fill all of Latin America with blood.

As the flag of the early US proclaims, it is by respecting diversity and dialogue that democracy and liberty will grow in the Americas.

Evo Morales thanked Petro for his messages of solidarity, alongside Honduran socialist ex-president Manuel Zelaya. The latter also voiced support for the Bolivian workers’ struggles.

National governments across the Americas are making clear their entire submission to the imperial control of the US Pentagon complex. They’ve all banded themselves neatly together under the (seemingly Marvel-inspired) name ‘Shield of the Americas‘.

Astonishingly, the US-led ‘Shield’ — note which countries it includes — denounced actions they see as:

subverting the constitutional order and destabilizing the democratically elected government of Bolivia.

…Because the US would never do that to a sovereign Latin American government, right? (See: Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela today; Chile, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc. yesterday.)

People rightly mocked Paz‘s Bolivian Foreign Ministry for merely translating and sharing US government statements without any amendments. It’s hard to crystallise subservience to empire much clearer.

There could be no greater confirmation that Paz’s government is captured. Paz, and so Bolivia’s unmatched access to lithium reserves, are entirely bent to US and foreign capitalist interests.

Featured image taken from X via the Canary