Protests hit roads in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department

Roads in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department have been blocked by locals demanding the local administration to perform road improvements, while the governor is accusing ruling party MAS of being behind the mobilizations to destabilize his administration. 

On Monday, local organizations and authorities from Cuatro Cañadas municipality blocked a section of the highway linking Santa Cruz with the neighboring Beni department (pictured). Among their demands is the improvement of 38km of route between Cuatro Cañadas and Puerto Vanegas, Bolivia TV reported.

Just last Friday, the department had managed to negotiate an end to another blockade in the same road initiated by locals and authorities of San Juan, whom also demanded road improvements.

In that occasion, the departmental government agreed to pave a 5km section of the road linking the towns of Los Troncos and Okinawa.

Now Santa Cruz’s government is accusing majors aligned with the MAS coalition of coordinating their protests to destabilize the local administration and said that more protests will follow with similar demands.

“What we see is that this is going to be an escalation of the measures that are being taken by mayors aligned with [MAS] with the objective of blocking the administration of our governor [Luis Fernando Camacho]”, Santa Cruz’ economic development secretary Fernando Menacho said via press release. 

In particular, he said that most of the petitions made by protestors fall outside the departmental government’s jurisdiction and are the responsibility of the national government instead.

Camacho and the central government in La Paz have repeatedly clashed over financing for public works, with the former saying that the previous Santa Cruz administration signed commitments without resources, while the latter warns that key projects such as  Santa Cruz-Buena Vista-Las Cruces highway will remain stalled until Camacho signs a co-financing agreement.