US denounces attempted ‘coup’ in Bolivia after left-wing strikers paralyze country

The United States decried the growing unrest in Bolivia as an attempted “coup,” after left-wing strikers and militias allied with former left-wing President Evo Morales paralyzed the country.

A crisis in Bolivia has grown to critical proportions over the past week, just six months into the right-of-center Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz’s term, who took over from decades of socialist rule. Paz’s termination of a popular but fiscally unsustainable fuel subsidy and other austerity measures triggered strikes earlier this month, which escalated into a coordinated effort from the Bolivian Workers’ Central, peasant unions, and miners to paralyze the country.

The left-wing activists are spurned by Morales, the longtime socialist president who is hiding out in the Bolivian wilderness to evade child sexual abuse and human trafficking charges. The charges are widely viewed as credible, but Morales claims political persecution.

The socialist coalition has blockaded key roads in and around La Paz, refusing even