Bolivia's La Paz Under Siege as Two Weeks of Nationwide Road Blockades Empty Markets, Drain Hospital Oxygen and Kill at Least Three, Pushing Six-Month-Old Paz Government Into Its Worst Crisis
The Bolivian Workers' Central, peasant unions and miners have closed roads across nearly the entire country after the government imported 'junk gasoline' that damaged transport fleets — and now Argentina has launched a humanitarian airlift while eight Latin American governments warn against any attempt to topple the democratic order.
LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Rodrigo Paz is facing the deepest political crisis of his six-month-old presidency as two weeks of nationwide road blockades have left Bolivia's political capital under siege, emptied La Paz markets and drained hospital oxygen reserves to dangerous lows. The Bolivian Workers' Central trade union federation, the country's largest peasant federations and the powerful miners' union have spearheaded the closures, which have now spread to cover nearly every department of the South American nation.
The government in La Paz says at least three people have died after emergency vehicles were physically blocked from reaching medical centers; private hospitals in the city's southern zone have warned they will be forced to evacuate intensive care patients within days if pressurized oxygen cylinders cannot be replenished. Pharmacy chains have rationed insulin, infant formula has disappeared from supermarket shelves in El Alto and Santa Cruz, and gasoline lines have stretched for miles outside the few stations that still have fuel. 'We have not seen the country paralyzed like this since 2003,' said political scientist Daniela Espinoza of the Universidad Católica Boliviana.
The detonator was an October decision by the state-owned oil company YPFB to import low-octane, low-quality gasoline from a Russian intermediary at deep discount — a shipment transport workers say damaged thousands of taxis, minibuses and long-haul trucks, with widespread reports of fuel-system failures and seized engines. The 'gasolina chatarra' (junk gasoline) scandal forced the resignations of two senior YPFB executives last week but did nothing to calm a transport sector that began the original strike. The Bolivian Workers' Central added its own demands for wage increases above inflation, currently running at 14.6%, while peasant federations are demanding a guaranteed steady gasoline supply for the planting season.
Behind the labor demands lies a deeper political contest. The protests have been openly encouraged by former president Evo Morales, who governed Bolivia from 2006 to 2019 and remains the country's most polarizing political figure. Morales, banned from running in the 2025 election that brought Paz to power, has held rallies in Cochabamba calling Paz a 'gringo president' and demanding his resignation. Paz, the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora, has refused, saying he will not 'reward street pressure with a coup against the ballot box.' His interior minister, Eduardo del Castillo, has accused Morales-aligned groups of coordinating the blockades 'to destabilize the constitutional government.'
Eight Latin American governments — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay — released a joint statement Tuesday rejecting 'any action aimed at destabilizing the democratic order' in Bolivia and urging dialogue. Argentine President Javier Milei went further, ordering a weeklong humanitarian airlift from Buenos Aires to El Alto carrying oxygen, baby formula, insulin and basic medicines. The first three Argentine C-130 transports landed Tuesday afternoon. The Trump administration has not commented, though the State Department's Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau quietly issued a Level 3 travel advisory warning Americans to reconsider travel to Bolivia.
Paz's government opened separate dialogue tables Wednesday with the COB, the peasant federations, the miners and public schoolteachers, who are conducting their own salary negotiation. Officials offered a 7% wage increase, a one-time 1,000-boliviano voucher for damaged vehicles and access to additional mining concessions for the cooperativist sector. The COB rejected the offer as 'an insult.' Paz, in a national address Wednesday night, warned that 'Bolivia cannot keep being held hostage to its own roads' and gave protest leaders 72 hours to begin unblocking highways before he authorizes the army to clear them. The country has not seen military deployment against civilian blockades since the bloody 2003 'Gas War' that toppled then-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada.
Originally reported by NPR.