Overview
- Police blocked access to Plaza Murillo as miners and allied unions tried to enter, with protesters detonating dynamite and officers deploying tear gas and pepper spray.
- The Central Obrera Boliviana leads a general strike that continues through the New Year period, and hunger strikes were installed at the COB, the miners’ federation and the urban teachers’ headquarters.
- Decree 5503 lifted long-standing fuel subsidies, raising gasoline prices about 86% and diesel about 162% from subsidized levels maintained for more than two decades.
- The package also includes a 20% minimum wage increase, expanded social bonuses and an expedited process for resource contracts, measures that union leaders condemn as a giveaway of strategic assets.
- The government says ending the subsidy restores fuel supply and saves roughly $10 million per day, while transport, merchant and cooperative-miner groups have paused protests after reaching separate agreements, and campesino organizations plan to join mobilizations in January.