LA PAZ, Jan 1: Faced with spreading civil unrest, Bolivian President Evo Morales late on Friday rescinded a government decree that significantly raised fuel prices and provoked violent protests that left 15 people injured.
Vice President Alvaro Garcia issued the decree on Sunday removing subsidies that keep fuel prices artificially low but cost the Bolivian government an estimated $380 million per year.
As a result fuel prices went up by as much as 83 per cent in the sharpest increases since 1991.“Answering to the wishes of the people, we have decided to rescind Decree number 748 and other measures that accompanied it,” Morales told reporters at the presidential palace.
“These decisions will not take effect,” the president added. “There is no justification for raising transportation fares or food prices right now. Nor do we want to fuel speculation.” Earlier in the day, Morales decided to cancel his trip to Brazil for the inauguration of that country’s new president, a government official told AFP.
He was presiding over back-to-back government meetings aimed at crafting a strategy for quelling civil unrest in La Paz, Cochabamba and other major Bolivian cities sparked by the decision to remove price controls.
Fifteen police officers were injured on Thursday in clashes with rock-wielding protesters near La Paz, as major cities in the Andean nation were crippled by a transport strike protesting huge fuel price hikes.
Initial reports from El Alto said police officers came under attack by rock-wielding demonstrators and responded by lobbing tear gas.
The residential area surrounding the La Paz international airport saw thousands of protesters throwing up barricades across access roads, burning tires and hurling stones at government buildings to vent their anger.
The crowds tried to set a monument to Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara on fire, broke the doorway to the vice president’s residence, torched highway toll booths and damaged offices of state-run BoA airlines and the Central Obrera union.
Morales’s palace in La Paz was besieged by angry demonstrators who were also repelled by police using tear gas
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