US-Backed Paz Sends Army Against Bolivia’s General Strike
On June 20, Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz ordered the army into the streets.
A 90-day state of emergency, signed that day, authorizes soldiers to clear the road blockades that workers, campesino organizations and Indigenous communities have held for nearly seven weeks. The decree claims to “restore order” in a country shut down by a revolt against austerity. That day, military and police units began tearing barricades off the highways around El Alto and La Paz.
The order came less than a day after Paz signed a “pacification” agreement with the leadership of the Central Obrera Boliviana, the country’s main labor confederation.