Bolivia’s New Leader Meets With Activists

Bolivia’s caretaker president met Sunday with Indian and labor activists and appealed for calm as they promised more crippling protests if he did not meet their demands.

Interim President Eduardo Rodriguez spent nearly two hours with the activists whose nearly monthlong blockade cut off the main food and gasoline supply route from the suburb of El Alto to La Paz, the capital. They demanded that he nationalize the country’s oil and gas industries and hold early elections.

“We must reestablish the peace,” Rodriguez told strike leaders.

Rodriguez took office Thursday after weeks of street marches led to the ouster of President Carlos Mesa’s U.S.-backed government.

Abel Mamani, one of the protest leaders, praised Rodriguez for holding the meeting but said his group was going ahead with plans for a large march Tuesday, although it would not be accompanied by street blockades.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez blamed free market policies promoted by the United States for Bolivia’s crisis.

Chavez said President Bush’s proposed free trade agreement for the hemisphere was “the medicine of death” and would only lead to greater poverty in the region.