The United States, along with the other countries that make up the Shield of the Americas, condemned the “ongoing efforts” in Bolivia to “overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected” government of President Rodrigo Paz on Friday.

“The member countries of Shield of the Americas denounce ongoing efforts to overthrow the legitimately and overwhelmingly elected government of President Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia,” the statement read. “We stand with Paz’s democratic government as it fights back against attempts to drag Bolivia backwards through cynical efforts to prevent the delivery of food, medicine and other vital supplies to the Bolivian people through fake road blockades.”

The statement added that “Mob rule cannot replace the decision that a majority of Bolivians made at the ballot box to turn the page on two decades of corrupt governments.”

It also said that anyone who is funding protests with “dirty money” from drug trafficking and transnational crime “should be held accountable. Those who have legitimate grievances should take advantage of the government’s willingness to dialogue, and denounce those who would abuse their causes to regain power.”

PETE HEGSETH WARNS NARCO-TERRORISTS AS U.S. BACKS BOLIVIA’S GOVERNMENT AMID COUP WARNINGS

The State Department made the joint statement along with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The statement comes as Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, has been rocked by weeks of social unrest as mass protests have blocked streets in major cities amid economic inflation and rising fuel prices.

Bolivian Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas resigned Tuesday.

Upon taking office, Paz supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He further scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained that the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.

PETE HEGSETH MAKES HOMELAND SECURITY TOP MISSION IN FIRST INTERVIEW AS SECRETARY OF WAR

The Trump administration has said drug traffickers are responsible for inciting the mass unrest.

Meanwhile, former President Evo Morales of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, the country’s first Indigenous president who ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. “Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or … an election in the next 90 days,” he wrote on X.

For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia’s central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

On Thursday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X, that the War Department and the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), a recently established multinational military and political alliance, reject all attempts to overthrow the government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira six months into his term.

“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,” Hegseth wrote. “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.”

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Published on
05/06/2026 – 20:24 GMT+2

A court in Mali has handed a 20-year jail term to an official at the French embassy accused of being a spy and “undermining state security,” judicial sources told the AFP news agency on Friday.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

The sentence is a new blow to relations between the west African nation, ruled by a military junta since a 2021 coup, and former colonial ruler France.

Detained since his arrest in August 2025, the Frenchman was also hit on Thursday with a €5,400 fine and a 20-year ban on entering Mali, three separate court sources confirmed.

At the time of his arrest, Malian authorities accused the official, identified as Yann V., of working for the French intelligence services and railed against “foreign states” trying to destabilise the insurgency-plagued country.

He was detained on 13 August in the company of several Malian officers, who were allegedly plotting a coup to overthrow the military junta.

France again insisted that the charges against the official, who was working at the French embassy in the capital Bamako, were without merit.

“Our agent is the subject of legal proceedings involving baseless accusations,” the French foreign ministry said on Friday.

“Our official was carrying out a security cooperation mission and under no circumstances has France participated, directly or indirectly, in the destabilisation of Mali.”

Mali has been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group, as well as local criminal gangs.

Under junta chief Assimi Goita, the country has turned its back on the West, especially France, in favour of closer ties with Russia.

Mali, alongside its neighbours Niger and Burkina Faso, is ruled by military leaders who took power by force in recent years, pledging to provide more security to citizens.

But the security situation in the Sahel region has worsened since the juntas took power, analysts say, with a record number of attacks and a record number of civilians killed both by Islamic militants and government forces.

Additional sources • AP, AFP