The 34 days of social protest and marches, more than 80 road blockades nationwide, and five deaths have left Bolivia in a state of paralysis. The capital city of La Paz and the adjacent El Alto remain cut off and can only access food, medicine, fuel, and other necessities if delivered by air. Shortages of food and fuel, whose prices have risen dramatically, are acute. Led by the Bolivian Trade Union Federation (COB) and indigenous groups close to former President Evo Morales, protesters charge that President Paz Pereira’s neoliberal economic policies are devastating the poor and vulnerable and violate their human rights, and demand his resignation.
Frustration is growing around the country as economic dislocation deepens, with losses estimated to be in the range of $1.6 billion. Because of the road blockades, farmers and exporters are having difficulty moving their goods. The inability to get medical supplies into city hospitals and ambulances prevented from getting through road blockades is intensifying the humanitarian crisis.
Paz himself vacillates between issuing calls for national dialogue and threatening to impose a state of exception to curb the protests. Despite his tense relationship with his Vice President, Edmand Lara, who has publicly opposed some of Paz’s policies, the two are now coordinating on inviting protest leaders to a national dialogue. But tensions remain high. In a June 3 speech, reported by Los Tiempos, Paz announced that he had introduced a bill at the Legislative Assembly to “regulate” the terms of any state of exception in order to ensure that the deployment of police and military forces under martial law would be for strictly “humanitarian” purposes.
This is not exactly believable under current conditions. Bolivia faces “the battle of all battles,” Paz said in the same speech, to free the country from corruption, drug trafficking, contraband, and terrorism. The fact that arrest warrants for 25 COB trade union leaders charge them with terrorism has enraged the COB leadership. The President also claimed that the mobilization against him is being run from the “Chapare” region, headquarters of former President Evo Morales and his coca-grower base, whom Paz accused of destabilizing his government.
This is the context in which three cabinet ministers have resigned, the Labor Minister two weeks ago, and Defense and Education on June 3. Bolivian sources tell EIRNS there is dissension in the cabinet over how to respond to the crisis. In other parts of the country, there are calls for Paz to act more forcefully to end the blockades and to arrest Evo Morales. Paz has announced that he intends to expand his cabinet to include representatives of the forces that are protesting against him.
