Bolivian president declares state of emergency and deploys military to quell anti-government protests

Security forces patrol a road in La Paz, Bolivia, on Saturday after the government declared a state of emergency and deployed bulldozers to clear blockades. Photograph: Abad Miranda/Jna Press/Nexpher/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Security forces patrol a road in La Paz, Bolivia, on Saturday after the government declared a state of emergency and deployed bulldozers to clear blockades. Photograph: Abad Miranda/Jna Press/Nexpher/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock Bolivian president declares state of emergency and deploys military to quell anti-government protests Bulldozers sent in to clear roadblocks that have stifled the country as farmers and Indigenous groups protest against conservative president Bolivia’s president declared a state of emergency on Saturday and deployed soldiers and bulldozers to raze anti-government roadblocks that have paralysed the country. For more than six weeks, unions, Indigenous groups and coca farmers have marched through cities and blocked roads across the country with rubble, logs and debris in protest against the conservative government. Major cities have suffered acute shortages of fuel, food and medicine, the economy has lost billions of dollars, and the protests have threatened to topple Bolivia’s first non-socialist government in two decades. Why farmers see Colombia’s knife-edge election as a battle for the Amazon’s future Read more The president, Rodrigo Paz, appeared in a predawn televised address on Saturday to warn protesters they would face “the full force of the law” as he moved to end the crisis. He declared a 90-day state of emergency, which curbs the right to protest and allows the military to be deployed domestically. Hours after his address, AFP reporters in the city of El Alto saw squads of soldiers and armed police moving in a convoy as bulldozers moved in to clear roadblocks. View image in fullscreen A bulldozer breaks down a barricade at a blockade zone in the city of El Alto on Saturday. Photograph: Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images Some residents clapped as they passed. One man handed a bag of bread to a police officer riding in the back of a pickup truck. “I’m very happy,” Carla Butron, a 39-year-old shopkeeper, told AFP. “Everything has been difficult here in El Alto during these 50-some days – work, free movement.” In nearby La Paz, military police and navy personnel guarded the presidential palace and police tactical units were stationed on main squares. “Bolivians cannot continue to be held hostage by blockades that prevent them from working, studying, receiving medical care, getting supplies and bringing food to their homes,” Paz said in a social media post. “This state of emergency is not intended to take away normalcy, but to restore it.” View image in fullscreen A man is arrested at a blockade zone in Cruce Ventilla in El Alto on Saturday. Photograph: Aizar Raldes/AFP/Getty Images The protesters want Paz to abandon liberal economic reforms and step down, less than a year