Bolivia Says Official Sent to Negotiate With Miners Is Killed

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/world/americas/bolivia-miners-evo-morales.html

Version 0 of 1.

LA PAZ, Bolivia — A conflict between the Bolivian government and miners demanding that the country’s mining laws be changed escalated on Friday as the authorities said that protesters had kidnapped, tortured and killed a top official sent to negotiate with them.

The authorities said the official, Rodolfo Illanes, 56, the deputy interior minister, was killed Thursday after being kidnapped by members of a miners’ cooperative who had blocked the highway from La Paz to the mining state of Oruro. The authorities said captors bludgeoned Mr. Illanes using sticks and stones. His body was recovered on Friday by the side of the highway, officials said.

“There was flagellation,” said a prosecutor, Edwin Blanco, as he told reporters about Mr. Illanes’s killing, which included blows to the head.

The dispute stems from the government’s attempts to enforce the country’s mining laws, which require the cooperatives to allow workers to form unions and put restrictions on cooperatives’ ability to work with foreign companies. The cooperatives, which operate as independent companies and employ about 120,000 miners, say the laws restrict their independence, and they have taken their case to the streets.

The groups have long been a powerful force in Bolivia, and are known to draw tens of thousands to their protests, with many demonstrators armed with dynamite. The miners’ cooperatives played a central role when they joined protests over Bolivia’s natural gas supply, which left dozens dead. In 2005, the miners supported further unrest which led to the resignation of Carlos Mesa, then the president.

But the current president, Evo Morales, has long enjoyed the support of the miners’ cooperatives, which was why the developments this week were surprising to many. Along with the coca growers who Mr. Morales used to represent as a unionist, the miners are important allies for the president, who has rewarded them with political posts and who courts them in speeches.

Mr. Morales’s tone on Friday changed after the killing of Mr. Illanes. “They kidnapped him, tortured him and killed him,” he said. “It’s unpardonable. I don’t understand why our brothers at the cooperatives could do this.”

Mr. Morales has suffered declining support this year after accusations of cronyism and a scandal involving a child born out of wedlock.

This year, Mr. Morales, a three-term president, lost a referendum that would have allowed him to run again. Analysts said support for the populist leader had weakened among the working poor and indigenous groups.

On Friday, the miners had removed the roadblock and had retreated into Oruro State.

The authorities said they were searching for six workers they said were connected to Mr. Illanes’s killing.