The Bolivian Police have arrested this Wednesday Vicente Salazar, the highest responsible for one of the main organizations promoting the protests and blockades that have been taking place for more than a month against the policies of President Rodrigo Paz.
Police agents deployed in La Paz proceeded to the arrest of Salazar, leader of the Túpac Katari Peasants' Federation, when he arrived in the Bolivian capital accompanied by other demonstrators to join the march organized by the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB).
Within the framework of the operation, security forces used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, as reported by the state agency ABI, which recalls that the La Paz Police had warned the population hours earlier to avoid traveling through the city center from noon onwards after detecting the presence of "people carrying sticks, slingshots, firecrackers, dynamite, and other objects" in the announced mobilization.
The mobilizations began in La Paz more than 40 days ago and have gradually spread to other regions of the country, with clashes with law enforcement and the establishment of about a hundred blockades, most of them in La Paz and Cochabamba, the political stronghold of former president Evo Morales.
The indefinite strike promoted by the COB, the country's main trade union confederation, has been joined by road blockades led, to a large extent, by peasant and rural organizations. Initially, participants demanded improvements in their living and working conditions amid the social and economic crisis that has plagued the country for years, although as the days went by, they began to demand Paz's resignation as a requirement.