Sawt Falasteen - Bolivia declares state of emergency and begins removing protester roadblocks

For more than six weeks, an array of anti-government unions, Indigenous groups and coca farmers have marched through cities and blocked main roads across the country with rubble, logs and debris.

Major cities have seen acute shortages of fuel, food and medicine; the economy has lost billions of dollars; and the protests have threatened to topple Bolivia's first non-socialist government in two decades.

Moving to end the crisis, President Rodrigo Paz on Saturday appeared in a late-night televised address to warn protesters they would face "the full force of the law."

He declared a 90-day state of emergency, which curbs the right to protest and allows the military to be deployed domestically.

Hours after his address, AFP reporters in the city of El Alto saw squads of armed police moving in a convoy as bulldozers moved in to clear roadblocks.

Some residents clapped as they passed.

In nearby La Paz, a handful of military police and navy personnel guarded the presidential palace and police tactical units were stationed on main squares.

"Bolivians cannot continue to be held hostage by blockades that prevent them from working, studying, receiving medical care, getting supplies and bringing food to their homes," Paz said in a social media post.

"This state of emergency is not intended to take away normalcy, but to restore it."

The protesters want Paz, the country's first rightist president in two decades, to abandon liberal economic reforms and step down.

The 58-year-old had signaled he was ready to negotiate and, earlier this week, agreed to a deal with one of the country's major unions to end the crisis.

In exchange for a promise not to privatize state companies and to hold further talks, the Bolivian Workers' Central union agreed to end their protests.

But some Indigenous groups have vowed to fight on, and more than 40 major roadblocks remain.

"We want him gone. We don't want him to be the one governing," Lidia Callisaya, a 42-year-old Aymara leader, told AFP recently.

- Standoff -

Paz has accused "narcoterrorists" -- and in particular former president Evo Morales -- of being behind the protests.

Morales, a leftist firebrand, Indigenous leader and former coca farmer, was president from 2006 to 2019.

He is currently in hiding while facing charges of alleged trafficking of a minor, which he denies.

His stronghold is the Chapare region in central Bolivia, which is now a potential flashpoint.

He is protected by thousands of Indigenous supporters who have so far prevented police from arresting him.

Morales recently told AFP from hiding that Bolivians were rebelling against a conservative government that is "utterly submissive" to the United States.

O.Salim--SF-PST