ZCZC
BFF-02
BOLIVIA-POLITICS-PROTESTS-POLICE-VOTE
Protesters seize state-run media in Bolivia as tensions soar
LA PAZ, Nov 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Opposition demonstrators in Bolivia
overran two state-run media outlets and forced them off the air Saturday and
some police stopped guarding the square where President Evo Morales’ palace
is located, as tensions remained high after a disputed election.
Demonstrators burst into the offices of Bolivia TV and Radio Patria Nueva
and forced employees to leave, accusing them of serving the interests of
Morales, said the director of the latter of the two, Ivan Maldonado.
“We were evicted by force after receiving constant threats from people
gathered outside,” Maldonado told AFP.
Some 40 employees were seen leaving the building that the two news
organizations share in La Paz, walking hand in hand as a crowd of some 300
demonstrators yelled insults. Afterward, both outlets broadcast only music.
It was the latest thrust of a movement protesting alleged vote-counting
fraud in the election last month that gave Morales a fourth straight term.
Morales denounced the seizure of the media outlets. “They say they defend
democracy, but they behave as if they were in a dictatorship,” he tweeted.
A radio station run by a farmers’ union was also seized by protesters,
Morales said.
He called earlier in the day for urgent, open-ended dialogue with
opposition parties holding seats in the National Assembly, but he pointedly
excluded the powerful regional civic committees opposing him.
An opposition leader, former president Carlos Mesa, immediately rejected
Morales’s gesture, saying, “We have nothing to negotiate with Evo Morales and
his government.”
A police rebellion erupted Friday among an elite tactical operations unit
called UTOP in the central city of Cochabamba. It then spread to units in
Sucre, the constitutional capital, and Santa Cruz, a bastion of opposition
strength in the east.
During the night the rebellion reached other cities but mostly spared La
Paz, the country’s administrative capital, local media reported.
But in a worrying sign for the Morales government, the UTOP officers in La
Paz who for weeks have closely guarded the central Plaza Murillo — where the
presidential palace is located — withdrew to their quarters Saturday in
evident solidarity with the protests, an AFP reporter observed.
The sector remained guarded only by a small number of officers.
Opposition groups have branded the election result a fraud and demanded
Morales’s resignation. Three people have died so far and hundreds injured in
unrest triggered by the protests.
The leftist president, Bolivia’s first from the indigenous population,
assailed the police action. Morales said Friday on Twitter that “our
democracy is at risk from a coup d’etat launched by violent groups
undermining the constitutional order.”
Opposition leaders urged the military to follow in the footsteps of the
rebellious police.
Defense Minister Javier Zavaleta said there was no plan to send troops to
subdue the police.
– A call to ‘defend’ Morales –
The governing Movement for Socialism called on party supporters to come to
La Paz to “defend” the results of the vote that kept Morales in power for an
unprecedented fourth term.
Buses carrying opposition activists to La Paz came under attack Saturday by
Morales supporters in rural Vila Vila, about 100 miles (160 kilometers)
southeast of La Paz, an opposition leader, Rodrigo Echalar, said on
television.
Up to now, the streets of La Paz have mainly been occupied by anti-
government protesters, but on Friday night some of them marched side-by-side
with the policemen who had earlier put down their protests.
An AFP reporter witnessed dozens of police marching alongside opposition
activists in central La Paz, shouting anti-Morales slogans.
– Calls to the troops –
Mesa, who came in second in the October 20 election, joined former
presidents Jaime Paz Zamora and Jorge Quiroga in urging the military not to
put down the protests.
Quiroga reminded the troops that five former military chiefs remain in
prison over the deaths in 2003 of anti-government protesters.
In La Paz, dozens of protesters marched to the Military College to urge the
troops to join the push for Morales’s resignation.
In some neighborhoods, people celebrated the police rebellion as if Bolivia
had won an important soccer match.
Morales has insisted that the October elections were fair and transparent.
The Organization of American States is auditing the results.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0900 hrs