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Bolivia’s President declares State of Emergency
Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz has declared a National State of Emergency, to empower the Police reinforced by the Military, to sweep aside road blocks which are choking the supply arteries of food and fuel. Jam
By James Blears
Since the end of April, increasingly disruptive and violent protests against austerity and authority measures designed to curb inflation.
Riot Police with nightsticks have had sticks of dynamite hurled at them. Seventeen deaths, scores injured and hundreds arrested. Miners, farmers, truck drivers, indigenous groups and unions are demanding fuel subsidies, which have been scrapped, to be immediately reinstated.
The capital, La Paz, is paralyzed by the blockades.
In a televised address, President Paz, who was elected last October and started his Administration a month later, breaking the nearly twenty years of the Movement Towards Socialism, insists the intention is to remove the bottlenecks, but not the civil liberties of Bolivians.
The acid test is whether Congress will approve this measure within three days. If it does, the State of Emergency could drag on for as long as ninety days.
President Paz has the vocal backing of the Trump Administration, yet simultaneously, the fury of many powerful homegrown protesters, plus the opposition of former President Evo Morales, himself an indigenous coca cultivator, and an implacable political foe of Washington.
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