WORLD : Bolivia Imposes State of Siege

The Bolivian government imposed a state of siege today and said it had arrested 500 teachers and workers staging a hunger strike for higher wages.

But the country’s main labor body, the Bolivian Workers Centre, said at least 3,000 people were taken into custody when police raided union offices around the country shortly before dawn.

Reports from three small Amazon towns said about 200 hunger strikers had arrived to spend an unspecified period in internal exile.

Labor leaders, who also went into hiding after the declaration of the state of siege, accused the government of using “savage and brutal methods.” It vowed to continue the struggle to win the $100 bonus the teachers, among the country’s most poorly paid workers, are demanding. The country’s 80,000 state schoolteachers earn about $45 a month.