Bolivia riot police clash with anti-government protests
Bolivian riot police on Monday clashed with throngs of demonstrators demanding the resignation of embattled President Rodrigo Paz, AFP observed. Bolivia riot police clash with anti-government protests The center-right leader took office less than six months ago following two decades of socialist rule, promising to end the South American country’s worst economic crisis in four decades. He scrapped two-decade-old fuel subsidies that had drained the treasury’s international dollar reserves, but so far he has failed to stabilize fuel supplies. Thousands of farmers, miners, teachers, workers from other sectors and Indigenous communities have led weeks-long protests that have blocked routes into La Paz and caused supplies to run low and the majority of shops in the capital to shutter. The demonstrators are calling for wage increases, economic stability and an end to the privatization of state-owned companies. The country’s largest trade union, the Bolivian Workers’ Center , has also joined calls for Paz to step down. “We want him to resign because he’s incompetent. Bolivia is going through a moment of chaos,” 60-year-old farmer Ivan Alarcon, …
