LA PAZ, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales and his political opponents traded recriminations Friday over the beating death of a high-ranking government official by protesting miners who had blockaded a highway.
The killing of Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes underscored how Morales, a former coca growers' union leader, has increasingly found himself at odds with the same kind of popular social movements that fueled his rise to power and have made up his political base.
"This is a political conspiracy, not a social demand," Morales said at a news conference, accusing his political opponents of backing the miners' cause. He called for three days of official mourning, criticized the "cowardly attitude" of the protesters and insisted that his government had "always been open" to negotiation.
Illanes "was kidnapped, tortured and murdered," Morales said.
He ordered prosecutors to find and bring to justice those responsible for Illanes' killing, as well as anyone who may have ordered it.
Businessman and opposition leader Samuel Doria Medina rejected Morales' comments about the opposition and said the government should try to make peace.
"The prices of minerals have gone down, and the costs of production have increased," Medina said. "That is the cause of the protest."
"Morales would do well to be critical of himself and set aside false conspiracy theories blaming the right wing and the media," former President Jorge Quiroga said, "when the undercurrent of these protests is the crisis."
Mourners carried flowers to a funeral Mass for Illanes on Friday in the capital, La Paz, where a red-uniformed honor guard carried his coffin into the government palace. Lawmakers and government officials paid their respects.
Illanes' kidnapping and killing came after weeks of tension over dwindling paychecks in a region of Bolivia that has been hit hard by falling metal prices.
The fatal beating came after the killings of two protesters in clashes with police Wednesday.
Illanes, who was also a lawyer and university professor, had gone to Panduro, 80 miles south of La Paz, to open a dialogue with the miners. They had blockaded the highway there since Monday, stranding thousands of vehicles and passengers.
Officials said he was taken captive by the miners Thursday morning. At midday Illanes said on his Twitter account: "My health is fine, my family can be calm." There were reports that he had heart problems.
Illanes' body was later found abandoned on the side of the highway, his car burned. Illanes' driver escaped.
Labor Minister Gonzalo Trigoso said the highway was clear Friday morning, as the miners returned to their camps.
Bolivia's informal miners number about 100,000 and work in self-managed cooperatives that primarily produce zinc, tin, silver, gold and lead concentrates. They want to be able to associate with private companies but are currently prohibited from doing so. The government argues that if they associate with multinational companies they will no longer be cooperatives.
The miners in the barren, high-altitude "altiplano" region of the Andes live in camps and work with picks and dynamite in nearly tapped-out mines.
The National Federation of Mining Cooperatives of Bolivia, a strong ally of Morales in years when metals were more valuable, was organized in the 1980s amid growing unemployment in the sector that followed the closure of state mines.
Federation members went on an indefinite protest after negotiations over mining legislation failed. Strikers are also demanding access to new mineral deposits and subsidized electricity to help them handle the crisis in the mining sector.
Morales says they have "exaggerated ambitions."
Bolivia has seen increased social agitation as a financial slowdown hit an economy heavily dependent on natural gas and minerals, which account for over 70 percent of foreign export sales. Export earnings fell by about a third in the first half of the year. Though down from recent years, Bolivia is still expected to see GDP growth of about 3.9 percent in 2016, outperforming its South American neighbors.
A Section on 08/27/2016