Bolivian police and soldiers clashed Saturday with protesters blocking roads into La Paz to press for wage increases and other demands. The security forces fired tear gas in a failed effort to dislodge schoolteachers, transportation workers, Indigenous people and other Bolivians who have taken to the streets for the past two weeks, preventing the delivery of food, medicine and other goods to Bolivia’s seat of government.
News reports said some 3,500 police and soldiers took part in the operation that began in the early hours of the morning. At least 57 people were arrested, the government’s citizens rights ombudsman’s office said. Center-right President Rodrigo Paz’s election win last year ended two decades of socialist rule. He promised to end Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in four decades, marked by an acute shortage of foreign currency and fuel.
Paz scrapped two-decade-old fuel subsidies that had drained the treasury’s international dollar reserves, but so far he has failed to stabilize fuel supplies. Now Paz is under pressure from all sides, with roads into the city blocked for the past two weeks. Prices of some food items have skyrocketed. The government’s highway administration department said roads remained blocked in at least 22 places around the country as of Saturday.
Since May 10, the government started flying in emergency food and medical supplies to bypass the blockades. The Argentine government said on Saturday that it had sent a C-130 military aircraft to aid such efforts. Besides wage increases, protesters want economic stability, an end to the privatization of state-owned companies and the president’s resignation. The operation Saturday was aimed at freeing up a humanitarian corridor so food, medicine and oxygen for hospitals can reach La Paz, said Jose Luis Galvez, a presidential spokesman.
He said that in recent days three people died because they could not be taken to hospitals.”We are more than satisfied” with the operation, he said, adding that numerous shipments managed to get through. Amid the day’s turmoil, the government reached agreements with a group of workers from El Alto and with urban schoolteachers, who promised to end their protests. But the Bolivian Workers’ Centre union (COB), the country’s largest labor union, urged its members to maintain their demands. “Let’s take to the streets to protest because, unfortunately, the central government won’t listen any other way,” said Mario Argollo, the union’s top representative, in a video released by local media.
On Friday, the government reached an agreement with miners who were striking to obtain increased supplies of fuel and explosives to do their work and an expansion of areas in which they can operate. Paz’s office did not give details of the accord.
Sun, 17 May 2026 05:27:29 GMT