Bolivia’s President Denies Accusations of Self-Coup

Bolivian President Luis Arce on Thursday angrily called accusations that he was behind an attempted coup against his government “lies,” saying the general who apparently led it acted on his own and vowing that he would face justice.

Arce’s comments, his first to the press since Wednesday’s failed apparent coup, came after the general involved, Juan Joss Zuniga, alleged without providing evidence that the president had ordered him to carry out the mutiny in a ruse to boost his flagging popularity.

That fueled speculation about what really happened, even after the government announced the arrest of 17 people, most of them military officers. Opposition senators and government critics joined the chorus of doubters, calling the mutiny a “self-coup.”