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.

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