Gazeta Lodz - Bolivia unrest continues despite government deal with miners

Protests against the policies of center-right President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early May, and roadblocks were choking routes into the capital on Friday, the national road authority said.

Argentina was providing its neighbor with planes to get food into the city, a presidential spokesperson said.

A demonstration of miners on Thursday demanded that Paz resign, arguing that he has not addressed their demands, which include the provision of fuel and work equipment.

Police used tear gas to block protesters from entering the capital's main square, where government buildings are located, while miners hurled stones and explosives with slingshots, an AFP reporter saw.

Early Friday morning, the government reached a deal with the protesters following "almost 12 hours of talks," Economy Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza told reporters.

He said the negotiated agreement would be announced in due course, without providing further details.

"We mainly had nine points, all of which have been addressed successfully," Oscar Chavarria, president of Potosi's Federation of Mining Cooperatives, confirmed.

Paz won elections last year that marked a shift to the right after 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 the two-decade-old fuel subsidies that had drained the Treasury's international dollar reserves, but so far has failed to stabilize fuel supplies.

Now he is under pressure from all sides.

Schoolteachers, transportation workers, Indigenous people and other Bolivians have taken to the streets, calling for wage increases, economic stability and an end to the privatization of state-owned companies.

The Bolivian Highway Administration warned that roadblocks on routes leading into La Paz were preventing food supplies from entering the capital.

The government has been getting food into the city via air since Saturday -- a common response to protest blockades in Bolivia.

Argentina had provided two aircraft to assist with food provision, spokesperson for the Bolivian presidency Jose Luis Galvez said Friday.

Prices of food products including meat, chicken and some vegetables skyrocketed in some supermarkets this past week, after year-on-year inflation hit 14 percent in April.

P.Majewski--GL