LA PAZ - The Bolivian government struck a deal with protesting miners on Friday, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz.
However, other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of government.
On Thursday, police prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots, an AFP journalist observed.
Protests against the policies of center-right President Rodrigo Paz, in power since November, have convulsed the Andean nation since early May, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said.
Miners demonstrating on Thursday demanded that Paz resign, arguing that he has not addressed their demands, which include the provision of fuel and work equipment.
Early Friday morning, the government said it had reached a deal with the protesters following "almost 12 hours of talks," Economy Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza told reporters.
He said the negotiated agreement would be announced in due course, without providing further details.
"We mainly had nine points, all of which have been addressed successfully," Oscar Chavarria, president of Potosi's Federation of Mining Cooperatives, confirmed.
In a joint statement issued on Friday, the governments of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Panama, and Honduras expressed their concern about the situation in Bolivia.
"We reject any action aimed at destabilizing the democratic order," the group said. "We urge all political and social actors to channel their differences by prioritizing dialogue, respect for institutions, and the preservation of social peace."
Paz won elections last year that marked a shift to the right after two decades of socialist rule.
He promised to end Bolivia's worst economic crisis in four decades, marked by an acute shortage of foreign currency and fuel.
Paz scrapped the two-decade-old fuel subsidies that had drained the treasury's international dollar reserves, but so far has failed to stabilize fuel supplies.
Now he is under pressure from all sides.
Schoolteachers, transportation workers, Indigenous people, and other Bolivians have taken to the streets, calling for wage increases, economic stability, and an end to the privatization of state-owned companies.
The Bolivian Highway Administration warned that roadblocks on routes leading into La Paz were preventing food supplies from entering the capital.
The government has been getting food into the city via air transport since Saturday -- a common response to protest blockades in Bolivia.
Argentina provided two aircraft to get food around the blockades and into the city, Jose Luis Galvez, a spokesperson for the Bolivian presidency, said Friday.
The prices of meat, chicken, and some vegetables skyrocketed in some supermarkets this past week, after year-over-year inflation hit 14 percent in April.
- Article by AFP