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Interim Bolivian president meets with labor leaders

Bolivia's new interim president Eduardo Rodriguez traveled to the opposition stronghold of El Alto, appealing for calm as angry labor leaders promised more of the kind of protests that toppled his predecessor if he does not promise to nationalize the oil and gas industry and hold early elections.

Rodriguez spent nearly two hours on Sunday with the coalition of Indian and labor activists whose nearly month-long blockade cut off the main food and gasoline supply route from the slum city of El Alto to the capital, La Paz.

Opposition leaders have promised to send another massive march into La Paz today in a show of strength as Congress begins a session to assess their demands.

"We must re-establish the peace," Rodriguez told the strike leaders.

Rodriguez's meeting with the opposition leaders in El Alto -- a teeming city of 750,000 that was the nucleus for the protests that led to the ouster of president Carlos Mesa's US-backed government -- even before he had formed a Cabinet -- underscored the urgency of establishing calm in the country.

Rodriguez took office just last Thursday after weeks of street marches that brought tens of thousands of protesters into the capital from El Alto.

The demonstrators were demanding the ruling elite grant more power to the poor majority through a "constitutional assembly," that natural gas fields be nationalized and that the government back away from the free-market reforms many people blame for compounding chronic poverty in the country.

Rodriguez on Sunday met with campesino, labor and municipal leaders in El Alto, urging them to help create a climate for constructive talks.

Abel Mamani, one of the protest leaders in El Alto, praised Rodriguez for agreeing to meet face-to-face. But he said his group was going ahead with plans for a large-scale -- but peaceful -- protest march today, although it would not be accompanied by the crippling street blockades.
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