Cochabamba, Bolivia, Oct 25 (EFE).- Bolivian police clashed Friday with followers of former president Evo Morales (2006-2019), who have been blocking roads for 12 days, mainly in the center of the country, amid an internal struggle within the ruling party.
The latest report from Bolivia’s state road agency said that, even after the clashes, 20 blockades remained in place, most of them in the department of Cochabamba, in the center of the country where the roads connecting the west and east of Bolivia converge.
According to Gary Rodríguez, the director of the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade, a private think tank, the blockades have caused more than 500 million dollars in economic damage.
“Every blockade, for whatever reason and whoever the blockader is, blocks the development of our country,” Rodríguez said at a press conference on Friday.
The police operations began early on Friday morning on the road linking Cochabamba with the western cities of La Paz and Oruro, where a convoy escorted heavy machinery to remove debris and barricades used by protesters to block the flow of vehicles.
But in the town of Paratoni, 40 kilometers from Cochabamba, groups loyal to Morales gathered early in the morning to defend the blockade “with their own lives,” according to supporters of the former president.
Police officers used tear gas to disperse the blockaders, who took refuge in the hills, and heavy machinery removed rocks, piles of dirt and debris from the road.
The demonstrators responded by throwing rocks and explosives from the hills where they were sheltering. The confrontation lasted at least an hour, and there were reports of injuries and arrests.
Political power struggle
Supporters of Evo Morales began the road blockades to demand that the government of Luis Arce drop a human trafficking and statutory rape case against Morales, saying the investigation is a form of political persecution to prevent him from running for a fourth presidential term in 2025.
Bolivian prosecutors are investigating Morales for possible crimes of “human trafficking” and ” statutory rape” of a 15-year-old girl with whom he allegedly had a child in 2016 when he was 57 years old and president.
The ruling Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, MAS) political party is currently split into two factions: the “Renovation Bloc,” which supports the current president and seeks to renew the party’s leadership, and the “Radicals,” who seek the former president’s re-election even after Bolivia’s Constitutional Court ruled that Morales could not run again because “indefinite re-election is not a human right.”
Pro-government senator Leonardo Loza, of the pro-Morales faction, argued that the blockade, which began on Oct. 14, had been “totally peaceful” and accused the Arce of “infiltrating” them to create the illusion that there were armed people at the protest, which he said was not true.
On Friday, merchants, miners, and business owners, among other sectors, asked the government to take measures to guarantee free transit, and some called for the army to be used to clear the roads.
On Thursday night, the government announced that constant flights, or “air bridges,” would be used to transport 118 tons of chicken and 44 tons of beef from the east to the west of the country to alleviate food shortages in the twin cities of La Paz and El Alto.
The road blockade has led to the suspension of interdepartmental land travel, while fuel supplies have also been irregular, as tanker trucks have had to take alternative routes to reach gasoline, diesel and gas distribution facilities.
The blockades have exacerbated an economic crisis marked by rising food prices, a shortage of dollars and irregular fuel supplies, which the demonstrators cite as one of the reasons for their protest.
“This state of conflict (with blockades) is preventing us from facing and trying to stop an ongoing economic crisis,” Rodríguez warned. EFE
grb-ja-ics/mcd
