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Six dead and 17 injured in
demonstrations
LA
PAZ.— Six people died and 17 were injured in the
town of El Alto, close to the Bolivian capital of La
Paz, when the police and military forces suppressed
demonstrations, according to the ATB television
network reported and the ANSA news agency.
According to the TV station, a priest named Modesto
Chino from the parish of Senkata (within El Alto,
and 15 kilometers from La Paz) reported that three
people died in clashes with the military and police
whilst uniformed officers were protecting five
trucks that had been blocked by demonstrators.
The
source, and also reports from the Permanent Assembly
for Human Rights described how another three people
died in Ballivian Avenue in El Alto, two of them
from bullet wounds to the chest.
The
deployment of riot police with machine guns
supported by armored vehicles and a helicopter,
failed, for the fifth consecutive day, to discourage
mobilizations that have kept El Alto paralyzed.
Demonstrators are demanding the nationalization of
the hydrocarbon industry and the resignation of
President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, explained
Prensa Latina.
State forces managed to get a convoy of 14 fuel
trucks through to La Paz where fuel supplies have
almost dried up.
In
the capital, drivers announced their solidarity with
a three-day strike – starting today – as well as
other measures announced by bakers and butchers that
have heightened current tensions in La Paz, where
the authorities announced that they are closing
schools as a precautionary measure.
Meanwhile, mediation attempts by humanitarian
organizations continue to search for, at the very
least, a truce in order to initiate talks between
the government and social organizations, conditioned
to an official commitment to review legislation on
hydrocarbons in order to nationalize them.
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