BOLIVIA'S CAPITAL UNDER SIEGE AS MASS PROTESTS DEMAND PRESIDENT RODRIGO PAZ RESIGN

Bolivia's political capital, La Paz, is under effective siege as mass protests entered their fourth week, with miners, teachers, farmers, and indigenous groups blocking highways and demanding the resignation of President Rodrigo Paz. The demonstrations began as opposition to a law allowing land mortgages but have expanded into a broader rebuke of the government's economic management, according to Al Jazeera. Bolivia is experiencing its worst financial crisis in four decades, with year-on-year inflation reaching 14 percent in April.

The blockades have left more than 5,000 trucks stranded on major highways, generating losses estimated at more than $50 million per day, according to the Bolivian government. Hospitals in La Paz have reported severe shortages of medical oxygen, and food markets have been largely emptied as supply chains collapse. Fuel shortages are widespread across the country following a presidential decree in December 2025 that ended national fuel subsidies, causing a sharp rise in gasoline prices.

President Paz reshuffled his cabinet this week in an effort to defuse tensions, but protest leaders rejected the move and maintained their call for his resignation, according to NPR. The shift in protest demands from policy grievances to presidential removal marks a significant escalation, with the Bolivian Workers' Central, peasant unions, and miners' federations all aligned behind the campaign to force Paz from office less than six months after he took power.

Bolivia expelled the Colombian ambassador on May 20 after Colombian President Gustavo Petro publicly expressed solidarity with protesters. Argentina, by contrast, sent two military transport aircraft carrying humanitarian aid in support of the Paz government, underscoring a regional divide over the crisis. No other Latin American heads of state have publicly intervened as of Friday.