Bolivia Jails 850 Unionists, Declares Siege
More than 850 union members were arrested and nearly 150 of them were flown to the remote Amazon region for internal exile after the government imposed a state of siege to stamp out a wave of labor unrest.
The country’s main trade union organization, the Bolivian Workers Centre, later called a nationwide 24-hour strike to demand the release of those arrested.
Interior Ministry spokesman Raul Loayza told a news conference that 684 men and 174 women were being held after dawn raids by police on union offices around the country.
It said 146 of those detained were flown to towns in the remote Bolivian Amazon region to serve unspecified terms of internal exile.
The government said it acted to halt a swelling campaign of hunger strikes by union leaders in support of the country’s 80,000 state teachers who are demanding a special wage bonus of $100.
Labor leaders vowed to continue the struggle to win the bonus for the teachers, whose monthly wage of around $45 a month puts them among the country’s worst paid. The government had offered to pay the bonus next year.
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