The social movements demanding the resignation of Bolivia’s president, Rodrigo Paz, claim that the police-military operation deployed by the Government on Saturday left a 24-year-old dead from a gunshot wound. About 3,000 personnel, including gendarmes and members of the armed forces, tried to unblock La Paz, the country’s administrative capital, which has been under siege for three weeks, with its main access routes closed due to protests. The young man’s death certificate, published by local media, indicates that “the causes of death are cervical vertebra fracture and spinal cord section, penetrating cervical trauma by firearm projectile.”
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Aymara and Quechua indigenous people, salaried miners, public teachers, and labor unions protest against the Paz Government and accuse it of having excluded them from its policies. They also point out that containment measures for the severe economic crisis the country is going through have not been made viable. As a method of pressure, they keep La Paz surrounded and the main roads of the country blocked. The Government deployed more than 200 vehicles from the early hours of Saturday to clear the roads so that food and medicine could reach the seat of Government. According to the death certificate, the death occurred during the operation, around 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, when trying to clear the Calamarca area (road to Oruro), about 50 kilometers from La Paz.
The community members claim that the victim died instantly and that his body was later taken to the morgue of the Clínicas hospital, where an autopsy was performed. The body was mourned on Sunday afternoon, right on the road, with the protesters promising revenge and accusing the Government of “bathing in blood.”
The Catholic Church, the Ombudsman’s Office, and the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of the city of El Alto demanded “the urgent clarification” of the incidents recorded on Saturday. In a statement, they demanded “the urgent, independent, and transparent clarification of the events that occurred,” “particularly those linked to injured persons, one deceased, and allegations of human rights violations.”
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However, the presidential spokesperson, José Gálvez, has rejected the accusation and assured that the images of the body being circulated “correspond to an event between January and February 2024, in the town of Palca.” In addition to the usual tear gas, the protesters claim that rubber bullets were used in the repression, information that was also denied by Gálvez: “I must emphatically emphasize that lethal weapons or rubber bullets have never been used.”
What the Government does confirm is the death of four people in recent weeks due to the blockades. The only death corroborated by another institution, the Ombudsman’s Office, is the death of a 12-year-old child who was being transported by ambulance for emergency surgery. The blockades prevented its progress, and when the vehicle sought other alternative routes, the child died on the way.
