Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Oil Nationalization Key Demand of Massive Demonstration in Bolivia

La Paz, Jun 6 (Prensa Latina) The largest demonstration in two decades in Bolivia called Monday for the nationalization of oil.


The demonstration totally filled the central plazas San Francisco and the Heroes, overflowing into adjacent streets, and according to veteran reporters, had a magnitude comparable with the welcome for president Hernán Siles Zuazo, with the recovery of constitutionality in 1982.



The protest contradicted official and conservative statements on the sole involvement of radical minorities, including neighbours and unionists from El Alto Municipality, along with locals, peasants, miners, teachers, and the middle and high classes.



The speakers agreed to go ahead with the protests until their demands, the nationalization of oil and the holding early general and legislative elections, are met.



Popular leader Abel Mamani said the people want concrete action, like the nationalization of oil, and conditioned his involvement on open talks with the Church in El Alto, and announced another huge march towards La Paz.



After the concentration, groups of demonstrators resumed the siege of the Plaza Murillo, where the police repressed them with tear gas.



A television broadcast planned for noon by President Carlos Mesa was canceled in the middle of the disturbances, in which demonstrators broke store windows and car windscreens.



Government Conflict Prevention director, Gergorio Lanza, said the capital can only stand the effects of the crisis for another three days: the city is afflicted by fuel and food shortages and road blocks have finally isolated La Paz, and affect another 60 percent of the country.



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