Hours after Illanes death was confirmed, miners lifted roadblocks they were using in hopes of forcing government concessions.
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Romero condemned the killing of his colleague, terming the action as a “cowardly and brutal” murder.
Striking Bolivian miners kidnapped and beat to death the country’s deputy interior minister in a shocking spasm of violence following weeks of tension over dwindling paychecks in a region hit hard by falling metal prices.
Protesters have been demanding greater union representation and the right to work for private companies.
The dispute has hurt President Evo Morales’s popularity after his election as a champion of the working class.
Undated file photo shows Bolivia’s Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes.
An autopsy found Illanes died from trauma to the brain and thorax.
Seven miners’ leaders have been detained by police and their offices raided. Several officers were injured during clashes.
According to Morales, this protest, during which two miners also died, was part of a conspiracy against his administration.
“This is a political conspiracy, not a social demand”, Morales said at a news conference, accusing his political opponents of backing the miners’ cause.
“The prices of minerals have gone down and the costs of production have increased”, he said. At least two workers were killed after shots were fired by police. Thousands of passengers and vehicles are stranded on roads blocked by the strikers.
Earlier this week, violent clashes erupted between miners and police.
Rather than listen to Illanes, miners took he and his bodyguard hostage at a roadblock. At midday he said via Twitter: “My health is fine, my family can be calm”. There were reports that he had heart problems.
Mourners brought 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. Bolivia’s Labor Minister, Gonzalo Trigoso, told the media on Friday that “the leaders have decided not to show their faces for a dialogue”.
The vast majority of miners in Bolivia work in cooperatives and scrape a living producing silver, tin and zinc. They want to be able to associate with private companies, but are now prohibited from doing so.
While the mining cooperatives are old allies of the Morales government, which have benefited from equipment, economic resources and advisory roles, new environmental conditions for the mining industry have angered them.
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The national federation of mining cooperatives (Fencomin) representing some 10,000 miners rejects any trade union influence on Bolivia’s mining sector.
