Bolivia Under Blockade as Protesters Choke Access to Cities
Six million people have been marooned by 70 roadblocks set up to protest the government’s response to the coronavirus and the postponement of the country’s general election.
TARIJA, Bolivia — Antigovernment protesters in Bolivia blockaded some of the country’s main roads this past week to challenge the delay of general elections and rebuke the government’s poor response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The protesters — who support Bolivia’s former president, Evo Morales — say they have set up 70 roadblocks, marooning about six million residents of three highland regions, including Bolivia’s most important metropolis, La Paz. Already, the blockade has raised fears of food and gasoline shortages, pushing throngs of La Paz residents into the streets to line up outside food markets and gasoline stations.
Bolivia’s unrest could be a harbinger of what’s to come elsewhere in Latin America, where citizens are losing faith in their countries’ ability to contain the pandemic, and to mitigate the economic crisis brought on by measures to combat the virus.
The pandemic has killed more than 210,000 people in Latin America and plunged its economy into the deepest recession in at least a century, according to the United Nations. Bolivia is suffering one of the biggest outbreaks in the region, when adjusted for population; the virus has killed 3,000, sickened top government officials and overwhelmed hospitals.
The government on Thursday said it would break up the blockades by force if it can’t reach an agreement with the protest organizers. The threat revived fears of a return to last year’s political violence, when two dozen of Mr. Morales’s supporters died during clashes with Bolivian security forces.
Protest organizers said they were allowing medical workers, medical suppliers and fuel to pass through the blockades. But government health officials said the blockades have reduced the supply of oxygen and other materials for coronavirus treatment, causing deaths.
Although there are no official figures, doctors from local hospitals said at least eight patients have died in the cities of Oruro and El Alto, outside La Paz, because of oxygen shortages this week.
The protesters “don’t let ambulances pass, they pelt them with stones, threaten to burn them,” said Dr. Antonio Viruez, the head of the emergency department at El Alto’s Northern Hospital, the city’s largest. “The situation is critical, because the inputs are not arriving.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/w...-blockade.html