Bolivia is in flames. Terrorism has seized control of La Paz — the capital — and is spreading to other urban areas. Roadblocks, violence against the police, and the illegal occupation of public spaces have become the norm. The key players — as has been common throughout Bolivia’s recent history — are the major trade unions. Leading the current wave of unrest are the miners.

Just a few months ago, the administration of Rodrigo Paz assumed the presidency of Bolivia. Upon taking office in November 2025, he brought an end to nearly two decades of hegemony by the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) — a party led by the coca-growers’ union leader Evo Morales, who had served multiple terms in the Palacio Quemado (Burnt Palace).

Indeed, the unrest in La Paz erupted just hours after the Bolivian judiciary declared Morales a fugitive. Although he faces grave charges — including child trafficking, a matter extensively documented by both the national and international press — he refused to appear in court earlier this month.

Today, he remains holed up in the Cochabamba Tropics, a rural region where he relies on coca-growing laborers to serve as his Praetorian Guard, shielding him from the police forces attempting to apprehend him. To add a further layer of drama to the situation, Morales is revered as a hero in this region, where his guards pose with sharpened stakes and makeshift tin shields in front of palisade fortifications that resemble something out of a medieval caricature.

Faced with the possibility of a full-scale rebellion, the region remains on high alert.

Organizations such as the Ibero-American Congress for Life and Family (CIVF) have circulated a statement warning of “various strategies aimed at destabilizing the newly elected government of Bolivia.” In the text — addressed to conservative politicians and activists across the Ibero-sphere, and to which I gained access for this article — the CIVF calls for the defense of the Paz administration, which it characterizes as a “democratic change, endorsed by the popular vote, standing in contrast to the disaster of the pro-socialist governments led by the MAS.”

The situation on the ground is described as a blockade of the access routes to the capital, “strangling it and fostering an atmosphere of social and political tension aimed at undermining the government,” all under the guise of demands for wage increases and the cancellation of measures involving the privatization of assets or services within the South American nation.

According to the CIVF, the financial ruin in which Bolivia finds itself following the MAS era — a crisis that has plunged the country into an economic depression — necessitates extraordinary measures. The organization further notes that “the issue of drug trafficking — acting as a destabilizing factor of grave proportions — cannot be excluded from this analysis.”

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau highlighted this very aspect during his remarks at the Conference of the Americas forum: “This is a coup financed by that perverse alliance between politics and organized crime that exists throughout the region.”

He went on to categorically label the unrest as “an ongoing coup d’état.”

A spokesperson for the Bolivian government also emphasized that criminal groups are behind the protests. “These dark forces seek to destabilize our democracy,” he stated, asserting that the plot was “conceived, financed, and orchestrated” in the Cochabamba region — a political and trade-union stronghold for Morales, and an area where the cultivation of the coca leaf (the raw material for cocaine) constitutes a major economic activity.

“Bolivia will not remain held hostage by politicians from the Chapare region who, in league with drug traffickers, seek to seize power by force,” he added.

The protests are now spilling beyond Bolivia’s borders — at least in the diplomatic sphere. Diplomatic relations between Colombia and Bolivia have reached a new flashpoint: the Colombian Ambassador to La Paz, Elizabeth García, was expelled after it was deemed that President Gustavo Petro had unduly interfered in Bolivia’s internal affairs.

Fernando Aramayo, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister, confirmed the decision, citing “the Colombian leader’s repeated public statements regarding the political situation.” The official also took issue with the support that, according to him, Petro has extended to political factions that the Bolivian government deems destabilizing — such as Evo Morales, the country’s former president.

Petro, for his part, expelled the Bolivian ambassador in an act of “reciprocity.”

Fortunately for democratic forces in the West, the Monroe Doctrine remains alive and well. Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed that the United States stands behind the legitimate government of Paz, declaring: “We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.”