On June 5, the 13 member nations of the right-wing Shield of the Americas coalition, founded on March 7 of this year, also known as the Counter-Cartel Coalition, or A3C, issued a bellicose warning that the mass protests, road blockades and sometimes-violent social conflict that have wracked Bolivia for more than a month are an attempt “to overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected government of President Rodriguez Paz” carried out by “illegitimate” forces. The joint statement vows to stand with Paz’s democratic government and claims that funding of these protests is being done “with dirty money from drug trafficking and transnational crime.” The latter is a reference to the increasingly frequent accusation that former President Evo Morales has organized the protests in collusion with drug trafficking interests to bring down the Paz government.
On June 5, War Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the War Department and the A3C reject all attempts to overthrow the Rodrigo Paz government, Fox News reported him saying. He bellowed, “the United States is watching. Bolivia must not allow itself to fall prey to the old status quo of narco-terrorist dominance in the region. We will continue to support our A3C partners like Bolivia to ensure that narco-terrorists are deterred from profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.”
