Miners in Bolivia’s capital set off small dynamite charges and attempted to force their way into the government palace on Thursday, escalating a second week of nationwide protests against the administration of President Rodrigo Paz, according to the Associated Press. Riot police responded with tear gas as thousands of miners who had gathered downtown to demand labor reforms and fuel turned their demonstration toward calls for the president’s resignation.
The clashes came hours after rural schoolteachers marched through La Paz to demand higher wages, adding a second front of labor pressure to demonstrations that have paralyzed the capital with blockades and street occupations in recent days.
The unrest initially erupted as farmers demanded the repeal of a law that permitted land mortgaging — a measure critics argued would expose small agricultural landholders to foreclosure and dispossession. Paz signed a decree Wednesday night annulling that law, and he publicly called for an end to the protests, according to the AP report. But the concession failed to halt the demonstrations, which have since expanded in both geography and constituency.
The use of small dynamite charges by miners — a tactic the AP described as increasingly common during the second week of unrest — marked an escalation in the intensity of the protests. The sound of explosions in the capital’s center, combined with police tear gas, sent demonstrators and bystanders scrambling, though the AP’s initial dispatch did not report injuries or arrests.
Paz was sworn in as president late last year, bringing to a close nearly two decades of one-party rule in the Andean nation. The current wave of unrest represents the most sustained challenge to his government’s stability since he assumed office. His administration has not yet commented publicly on the miners’ specific demands or on the calls for his resignation that were heard in Thursday’s crowd.
The AP’s report did not include comment from Paz administration officials, union leadership, or the national police, and details on the number of demonstrators and any injuries remained limited in the initial dispatch.