Rising tensions in Bolivia: President Evo Morales calls for dialogue, to no avail

Incidents continue in Bolivia. Faced with the mutinies of police units and the occupation by demonstrators of several state media, President Evo Morales launched Saturday, November 9, a call for dialogue. Appeal immediately rejected by the opposition.

In the evening of Saturday to Sunday, according to local media reports, incidents were still taking place in El Alto, a city stuck in La Paz and considered a stronghold of Evo Morales.

Groups of pro-government protesters blocked the toll on the highway linking the two cities, while the installations of a private television channel, Unitel, were destroyed in the early evening, denounced the channel in a statement.

Sign of rising tension, Evo Morales reported that the house of governor of Oruro (west), member of the ruling party, the Movement to Socialism (MAS), had been burned, as well as that of his sister.

"I call for dialogue with the parties that won seats in Parliament in the last general elections, four parties," said a little before the Bolivian president, in a speech to the nation, during which he also called the mutinous police to stop their movement.

On the other hand, Evo Morales did not call for dialogue the powerful committees of civil society who launched the protest movement against his reelection.

"Nothing to negotiate"

Minutes after this speech, Carlos Mesa, former Bolivian president and main rival Evo Morales in the October poll, rejected his proposal. "I have nothing to negotiate with Evo Morales and his government," he said.

Other formations have also declined.

As a further sign of the worsening of the situation, a crowd of demonstrators hostile to the Bolivian president occupied Saturday the seats of two state media (Bolivia TV and Radio Patria Nueva), and forced their employees to leave the premises .

"We were forced out after receiving threats from people who had gathered in front of the building in which these two media are located," said Ivan Maldonado, director of Radio Patria Nueva, based in La Paz.

Asylum applications in Mexico

Evo Morales condemned the occupation of these media. "They say they defend democracy, but they act like dictatorships," he wrote on Twitter.

Los medios estatales BTV y RPN han sido intervenidos por grupos organizados that después de amenazar y amedrentar to the periodistas los obligaron a abandonar su sus fuentes de trabajo. Dicen defender the democracia, pero actúan como en dictadura.

Shortly after, a radio station of the CSUTCB peasant union was also invaded by protesters, according to another tweet from the Bolivian president. The latter condemned "a cowardly and wild attack". "In the style of military dictatorships, putschists attack union headquarters," he wrote.

"The situation in Bolivia is very serious, the dialogue convened today is urgent," responded the head of the Mexican diplomacy, Marcelo Ebrard, confident that his country had "already asylum applications in progress", without more than precision.

The situation in Bolivia is serious. El diálogo convocado es urgent. Sigo los acontecimientos de cerca. Ya tenemos solicitudes of asilo in curso that atenderemos.México está por the democracia y el respeto to the ley. Golpe de fuerza is retroceso.

With AFP