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Authorities reported more than 95 arrests following clashes in which protesters used dynamite charges, fireworks and stones against riot police, who responded with tear gas and chemical agents.
By Mateo Palacios May 20, 2026
Bolivia’s government rejected calls for a state of emergency on May 19 even as escalating protests led by supporters of former president Evo Morales paralysed key transport routes, triggered violent clashes in La Paz and deepened fears of economic collapse.
President Rodrigo Paz instead ordered a reinforced police and military deployment around the capital while insisting security forces would continue operating in a “deterrent” role without lethal weaponry.
"Those seeking to destroy democracy will go to jail," Paz warned last week.
The unrest entered its third week after thousands of demonstrators descended from El Alto into central La Paz demanding Paz’s resignation and fresh elections within 90 days. Protesters linked to Morales’ hard-left political movement Evo Pueblo, alongside miners, coca growers and labour activists from the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), attempted to breach police cordons protecting Plaza Murillo, home to the presidential palace and congress.
Authorities reported more than 95 arrests following clashes in which protesters used dynamite charges, fireworks and stones against riot police, who responded with tear gas and chemical agents. Public buildings and private businesses suffered extensive damage, while several commercial premises were looted and burned.
Speaking during a rally in El Alto, Cochabamba peasant leader Nelson Virreira warned Paz he would face “social convulsion” if he refused to resign voluntarily.
“We are offering Rodrigo Paz a peaceful exit,” Virreira said in remarks broadcast by coca growers’ radio station Kawsachun Coca. “Otherwise, he will leave through the roof with the rebellion of the people.”
The government accused Morales' loyalists of attempting to force a change of power through anti-democratic means. Presidential spokesman José Luis Gálvez said officials had identified armed groups infiltrating demonstrations and circulated footage allegedly showing members of the indigenous activist group Ponchos Rojos carrying weapons and calling for civil war.
Interior vice-minister Hernán Paredes said anyone carrying firearms or dynamite would be arrested. He confirmed police detained a former electoral candidate carrying explosives and fuses in a backpack near protest zones in La Paz.
Authorities are also investigating the movement of large sums of money allegedly arriving from Chapare, Morales’ coca-growing stronghold, to finance road blockades around the capital.
The protests have exposed the fragility of Paz's centrist administration only months after he ended nearly two decades of MAS rule, which collapsed at last year's election amid an internal feud between Morales and former president Luis Arce. Paz took office in November without a congressional majority and inherited a severe economic downturn marked by fuel shortages, inflationary pressure and declining foreign reserves.
His government axed fuel subsidies shortly after taking office, pushing up transport and consumer costs across the country. Analysts say the administration has struggled to implement broader reforms needed to stabilise Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in four decades.
Road blockades have intensified shortages. Bolivia’s highway authority said more than 40 blockade points were active across six departments, including La Paz, Oruro, Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, Potosí and Santa Cruz.
More than 130 fuel tanker lorries remained stranded on highways as diesel and petrol shortages worsened nationwide. Hospitals in La Paz declared emergency conditions after reporting shortages of oxygen and medical supplies.
Business groups warned the country was approaching institutional and economic paralysis. The National Chamber of Commerce estimated losses above $50mn per day, while the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade (IBCE) said cumulative damage from the blockades had already surpassed $500mn.
Rather than imposing emergency powers, the government opted to establish humanitarian corridors coordinated with neighbouring countries including Argentina, Chile and Ecuador to secure food and fuel deliveries into major urban centres.
“There is no possibility of a state of emergency,” Government Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo said in a radio interview. “We will instead take tough and strict measures with greater police and military presence.”
Vice-President Edmand Lara called for unconditional national dialogue to prevent shortages from evolving into a humanitarian crisis.
The violence has already left at least four people dead since the blockades began. Among them was Alberto Cruz Chinche, an indigenous community leader associated with the Ponchos Rojos movement. According to Gálvez, Cruz Chinche died after falling into a trench dug by protesters themselves near a blockade point.
Other victims included two women unable to access timely medical treatment because of road closures and a 20-year-old woman whose death was reported in El Alto on May 14.
Morales, who governed Bolivia between 2006 and 2019, has continued encouraging demonstrations from Chapare, where he has avoided arrest since 2024 over allegations involving the abuse of a minor in 2016. A second detention request related to the same case was issued earlier this month.
Supporters of the controversial former president have reportedly secured an unused airstrip in Chapare amid fears authorities could attempt to detain him.
The crisis has also generated diplomatic tensions. While receiving support from the United States and several Latin American governments, Paz's administration pushed back against comments by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who described events in Bolivia as a "popular insurrection." On May 20, the government ordered Colombia's ambassador to leave the country, citing sovereignty concerns and non-interference in internal affairs.
Meanwhile, Morales' allies continue mobilising supporters in rural and indigenous communities, framing the protests as a response to economic hardship and alleged government repression.
Despite mounting pressure, Paz has refused to negotiate directly with Morales’ faction, insisting his administration will preserve constitutional order while avoiding measures that could deepen political polarisation.
Bolivia: Paz Government Using Lawfare Against Protesters, “Terrorists” and “Drug Traffickers”
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In Bolivia, after weeks of protests against the proposed privatization of indigenous lands, the Rodrigo Paz government is setting the stage for mass repression against political opponents. The president, who calls himself a democratic centrist, has unleashed a systematic campaign of criminalization and stigmatization against Bolivia’s indigenous and popular movements.
What we are witnessing is the deliberate rhetorical construction of an enemy within, designed to legally and politically justify the dismantling of democracy, the Plurinational State, and the rights of indigenous peoples along with them.
From the highest levels of government, there has been a highly coordinated narrative that the protesters are not legitimate, organic, peaceful citizens exercising their constitutional rights, but rather, in rather Orwellian terms, threats to the democratic order and progress.
In an interview at the Casa del Pueblo, Vice Minister of Indigenous Justice and Coordination with Social Movements, Jorge García, laid out the administration’s line with striking candor. He accused the blockade leaders of being “completely radicalized, identified with the movement of Evo Morales,” and claimed they are subsidized by the former president’s political machinery.
García suggested using the State’s legal apparatus to pursue these social movements, which he linked directly to “narcotrafficking.” He accused the MAS of having “kidnapped Bolivia, isolated us from the world so we couldn’t know the truth of what was happening here; they have destroyed Bolivia.”
President Paz himself has dismissed the protesters with contempt. “Under ideological arguments, they want to generate tribune arguments because they have neither sociological nor philosophical density.”
Minister of Public Works Mauricio Zamora has accused the movements of being financed by Evo Morales, who is tied to drug trafficking, saying “the blockades have always brought death and been used for social convulsion.” The Minister of the Presidency, Jose Luis Lupo, has said the protests are used to destabilize Bolivia, faced with a “Black May.”
The Ministry of Productive Development issued statements blaming blockades for price hikes, referring to “so-called protesters,” while painting them as illegitimate. Representatives of the state security apparatus have said they will use “progressive and proportional force,” with rumors they will use live ammunition against blockaders.
Former president Carlos Mesa and right-wing leader Tuto Quiroga have joined the chorus, calling protesters “violent minorities,” with their supporters referring to protesters as “dirty” and “uncivilized” “Indians” — a racial slur that has been lobbed at the indigenous resistance since the colonial era. On social media, thousands of comments label demonstrators “terrorists,” “authoritarians,” “drug traffickers,” “fraudsters,” and a wide range of racist and classist slurs.
The protests, despite the government and right-wing opposition’s best efforts, are not marginal. The tens of thousands of Red Ponchos (an Aymara territorial defense force), the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB), the Rural Teachers’ Union, mining unions, and indigenous communities from the Amazon (who walked all the way from there to La Paz) are blockading roads across La Paz, El Alto, Cochabamba, and Lake Titicaca. These are the largest protests since the Paz government took power.
The Bolivian Highway Administration (ABC) has reported at least 41 blockade points, paralyzing key routes and cutting access to the Peruvian border, Sucre, Oruro, Potosí, and Santa Cruz. Access to critical supplies have been affected by the blockades.
The government’s response has been swift and brutal. On the morning of May 16, a contingent of 3,500 military police intervened at Río Seco in El Alto with tear gas, riot gear, and rubber bullets, apprehending dozens, including journalists. Some protesters were brutalized by police. On May 18th, the police put up barricades across downtown La Paz, and evacuated key government buildings. I witnessed a standstill attack between the Red Ponchos and security forces at the Judiciary building, one block from the Casa del Pueblo.
Similar operations followed in other areas, a continuation of the repression from days prior, that is almost certain to escalate. One protester nearly lost an eye, while another has reportedly died. Journalists have also been harrassed by police, tear gassed, and pushed out. Over 100 protesters and journalists have been arrested.
The Wiphala, the indigenous flag that symbolizes the Plurnational State and pro-indigenous democracy, has been quietly removed from public spaces, including the Plurinational Assembly and the Casa del Pueblo, the seat of the executive. The government no longer defends the rights of indigenous peoples. Counter-protesters are openly calling the Wiphala a “terrorist symbol,” with some stepping on it in public squares. One group of counter-protesters on May 18th burned the Wiphala in front of indigenous protesters.
Vice President Edmand Lara, a populist anti-corruption crusader and former police officer whom social movements have embraced as an ally (which, according to all accounts, immensely helped Paz win the presidential election last year), issued two powerful statements breaking with Paz. The statements are part of a series of direct rebukes and insults from “Captain Lara” against Paz.
Lara condemned “the indiscriminate use of chemical agents and any action that violates the integrity and fundamental rights of citizens, particularly elderly persons, pregnant women, children and girls.” He exhorted police and armed forces to act with “responsibility, professionalism, and strict adherence to protocols on the rational and proportional use of force.”
He condemned the intimidation of press workers. And he made a direct call to Paz: “Prioritize dialogue and conciliation as fundamental mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of social conflicts.”
Most significantly, Lara invited the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to monitor the situation.
The COB has already stated that protests will not stop, despite the COR El Alto signing a deal with the government and being accused by protesters of selling out. The government has been signing deals with certain social movement factions to get them to defect, in a “divide and conquer” strategy, buying them off while jailing opposition leaders and repressing remaining blocks.
The Paz administration has systematically dismantled the legal and institutional framework that once protected Bolivia’s plurinational democratic character. They have dismantled the Ministry of Justice, and practically annulled the results of the judicial elections from last year. They have jailed former president Luis Arce, taking away his rights to a lawyer and due process.
They have laid the groundwork to go after the COB, student unions, and other socialist organizations. Perhaps most chillingly, they have released the 2019 coup plotters — former interim president Jeanine Áñez and Santa Cruz governor Luis Fernando Camacho — figures convicted for sedition, terrorism, and crimes against humanity for their role in the illegal overthrow of Evo Morales, backed by the United States and the Organization of American States. The coup government employed death squads and the state to target and even kill opposition, while preventing the democratic will from being upheld.
Former indigenous-socialist president Evo Morales himself has issued warnings. In a statement, Morales alleged that the United States ordered the Paz government to execute a military operation, with the support of the DEA and SOUTHCOM, to detain or kill him. Among the architects, he named former right-wing minister Carlos “Zorro” Sánchez Berzaín, who fled to Miami after the 2003 Black October massacre, and Paz’s Vice Minister of Social Defense Ernesto Justiniano, currently in Washington. Justiniano has said “there will be a DEA office in Bolivia” this week.
Meanwhile, Argentina has sent a Hercules aircraft reportedly carrying tear gas and police equipment, disguised as “humanitarian aid” with food and medicine shipments. Milei, who is fighting his own war on democracy at home, has expressed solidarity with Paz, arguing the protesters destabilize Bolivia and block “liberty and progress.”
Bolivia, as does Latin America in its autocratic shift, faces a dark moment in its short democratic history, where indigenous protesters are labeled by the state as illegitimate terrorists, drug-traffickers, and obstacles to progress to be crushed. Soon, with promised U.S. involvement against “narcoterrorism” and support from other Latin American autocracies, that moment may get even darker.
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