As Protests Over Economy Grow, Bolivia Takes Emergency Measures

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The president declared a state of emergency Saturday, sending police armed with tear gas and rubber bullets into the streets of Cochabamba, the country’s third-largest city, to try to quell demonstrators who hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails back at them.

The government’s move came after a week of protests about increasing water rates, unemployment and other economic difficulties plaguing this nation in the heart of South America. Thousands of people were involved in the protests, which began in Cochabamba but quickly spread elsewhere.

Three protesters were reported killed in separate clashes with police, and Government Minister Walter Guiteras Dennis said scores of protest leaders were detained and confined to San Joaquin, a remote town near the border with Brazil, about 325 miles northeast of the capital, La Paz.

The body of one of the victims, reportedly shot and killed by police, was carried through the streets of Cochabamba, about 150 miles southeast of La Paz, where thousands of protesters hailed him as a martyr.

Police in Cochabamba seized radio stations to prevent independent reporting on the situation. President Hugo Banzer claimed that the protests were threatening democracy. Food shortages were being felt in La Paz and other cities, and officers in four La Paz police units refused to leave their barracks because of a wage dispute.

“We find ourselves with a country with access roads to the cities blocked, with food shortages, passengers stranded and chaos beginning to take hold in other cities,” Information Minister Ronald McLean said.

A state of siege allows the government to arrest and confine protest leaders without warrants, impose restrictions on travel and political activity, and establish a curfew.