
The social conflict in Bolivia has split the country once again. The road blockade led by Indigenous peasants, which has besieged La Paz for more than a month, has brought expressions of racism to the surface in the capital. Worn down by the lack of gasoline and food and by soaring prices, some residents lash out at the protesters —and the hostility runs in both directions.
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Bolivia's political crisis threatens to spill over into confrontations between urban and rural populations, after nearly a month of road blockades that have disrupted supplies of food, medicine and fuel —especially in the Andean region— and left at least nine people dead. Analysts Pedro Portugal and Gabriela Canedo warned of the danger in remarks to the news agency EFE, pointing to clashes fueled by an ethnic and cultural fracture and by the alleged inaction of Rodrigo Paz's government, whose resignation the mobilized sectors are demanding.

La Paz has spent a month under blockade. The main roads into Bolivia's administrative capital have been cut for four weeks, and shortages of food and fuel worsen by the day. Frustration is mounting among residents: some demand the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz for failing to keep his campaign promises, while others call for a firm hand and the deployment of the army to lift the siege. Most agree that the president, who took office less than seven months ago, should have acted sooner, when the protests began.

The governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru on Thursday signed in Santiago a joint cooperation agreement against transnational organized crime, in a meeting convened by the Chilean government of President José Antonio Kast and attended by five foreign ministers, four security ministers, and one interior minister. The so-called Santiago Regional Compact articulates five areas of cooperation and will be presented before the 56th General Assembly of the Organization of American States to extend the initiative to the rest of the continent.

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday promulgated Law 1731, a measure that removes existing restrictions on the intervention of the Armed Forces in the country's internal conflicts. The signing of the document, which took place past midnight, comes after nearly a month of road blockades led by sectors demanding his resignation, and raises pressure on the president to authorize the deployment of the military on the streets and roads of Bolivia.

The government of Peru on Sunday delivered to Bolivia a donation of four tons of food intended for families affected by the road blockades that highland peasant sectors have maintained for 19 days, in an initiative that adds Lima to the growing regional humanitarian airlift organized around the government of President Rodrigo Paz. The aid arrived aboard a Peruvian military aircraft and was received by Bolivian Deputy Minister of Consular Management Héctor Huanca and the Peruvian Ambassador in La Paz, Carlos Chávez-Taffur, at El Alto international airport.

El expresidente boliviano Evo Morales (2006-2019) elevó este domingo la presión sobre el Gobierno de Rodrigo Paz al exigir la convocatoria de elecciones generales en un plazo de 90 días para que no haya muertos, para que no haya heridos, en una nueva escalada del pulso político que mantiene paralizadas a las ciudades de La Paz y El Alto desde hace tres semanas. El líder cocalero, prófugo de la justicia boliviana por un caso de presunta trata agravada de menores, advirtió que cualquier decisión del Ejecutivo de militarizar el país para desbloquear las rutas constituiría una alternativa suicida.

The political and social crisis that has been shaking Bolivia for 15 days escalated on Wednesday into a regional diplomatic confrontation, with the government of Rodrigo Paz expelling the Colombian ambassador to La Paz, Elizabeth García, denouncing before the Organization of American States an attempt at institutional destabilization, and receiving public backing from the United States and from several governments in the region. The decision was taken after Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the protests as a popular insurrection and said that in Bolivia there is a people in the streets being killed, statements considered interfering by La Paz.

The center of La Paz turned on Monday into the stage of a more than three-hour pitched battle in which thousands of salaried miners and peasants clashed with police forces trying to prevent their entry to Plaza Murillo, the seat of Bolivia's executive and legislative branches. The protesters threw dynamite charges at the police, who responded with tear gas. The cordons were not overrun, and the Army, deployed around the square as the last line of defense, did not intervene directly. The mobilization is the largest challenge President Rodrigo Paz has faced since taking office six months ago.

The Bolivian government on Monday denounced the presence of “armed groups” in the march of peasant farmers and supporters of former president Evo Morales that descended on the city of La Paz, the seat of the executive and legislative branches, after a six-day walk from the highlands, demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz. Deputy Interior Minister Hernán Paredes estimated at “somewhat more than ten thousand people” the column of protesters that entered the capital from the neighboring city of El Alto, in what authorities described as an attempt by the former leader to destabilize the executive six months into his term.