An Aymara woman arrives with a bouquet of flowers to leave for Bolivia’s late Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Rodolfo Illanes, at the government palace in La Paz, Bolivia Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.
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“He was humiliated, tortured and beaten to death (…) according to information we have”, said the defense minister Reymi Ferreira.
Angry striking miners in Bolivia on Thursday hacked the Deputy Interior Minister to death during a clash with the police in the town of Panduro.
He was beaten to death subsequently.
“All signs indicate that our deputy minister, Rodolfo Illanes, has been cowardly and brutally murdered”, Interior Minister Carlos Romero told a press conference.
Moises Flores, director of the local radio station Fedecomin, said that he and other reporters covering the protests saw the bodies of both the dead miner and Illanes. The country’s President Evo Morales has since called for three days national mourning in the wake of the murder. “We pray for the pain of the family”.
Disabled Bolivians camped out for weeks near his offices, clashing with police in May at a protest condemning their paltry state benefits of $14 a month.
The majority of Bolivian miners, one of the poorest countries in South America, indeed work in cooperatives, for which they extract silver, tin or zinc.
Demonstrators said police had fired on them and killed two workers.
The strike has brought roads to a standstill. Romero said that efforts were underway to recover Illanes’ body.
The body of deputy minister Rodolfo Illanes was found abandoned on a roadside next to his burned-out auto, which his attackers had set on fire.
Illanes’s bodyguard escaped the scene after being stripped of his gun, and had been admitted to a clinic in La Paz.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) Striking miners in Bolivia kidnapped and beat to death the country’s deputy interior minister after he traveled to the area to mediate in the bitter conflict over mining laws, officials said.
However, the miners, who were striking to demand more mining concessions and less regulation, chose to lift their protest in order to avoid further clashes.
Morales, an ex-coca grower, nationalized Bolivia’s resources sector after taking power in 2006, initially winning plaudits for plowing the profits into welfare programs.
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But his government has been dogged by accusations of cronyism and authoritarianism in recent years.
