LA PAZ: Protesting miners on Wednesday lifted road blockades that had left Bolivia's capital isolated for two days after winning the right to work a tin-rich area at a state-owned mine.
The move ended the latest in a string of headaches for populist President Evo Morales, who was elected on a wave of indigenous support in 2005 but seemingly cannot please anyone these days in South America's poorest country.
Over the spring and summer, doctors and police went on strike for more pay and indigenous people -- Morales is the country's first indigenous president -- marched on the capital to protest plans for a highway to be built across their ancestral homeland.
The miners, organized into private cooperatives, reached an agreement with the government late Tuesday allowing them to share the Colquiri mine with colleagues at the state-run firm Comibol.
The protesters had also blocked roads leading out of Bolivia and into Peru and Chile, effectively cutting off the country by land with the rest of South America.
"The highways are open. There is no blockage whatsoever," a highway police official said.
The mine has been the scene of repeated clashes between miners grouped in the cooperatives and those employed by Comibol. One miner died last week in one of the clashes.
The cooperative workers sometimes set off sticks of dynamite during protest rallies.
But the government passed a decree Wednesday banning the use of such explosives in street demonstrations.
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