By AFP | 2024-11-01

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia -- In a wholesale market in central Cochabamba, Bolivia, farmer Damaris Macias watches in tears as 10 tons of tomatoes are discarded, delayed by roadblocks for over a week.

On a normal day, her hometown of Omereque, situated 270km from Cochabamba, is an eight-hour truck ride away.

But the blockades set up by supporters of ex-president Evo Morales to thwart his possible arrest on rape charges turned the journey into a nine-day odyssey during which the produce rotted.

"Only God knows how many tears these tomatoes caused," the distraught 48-year-old told AFP.

Cochabamba, Morales' political stronghold, is the crucible of the campaign of blockades that began on October 14 after he was accused of rape over his alleged relationship with a 15-year-old girl while president in 2015.

The former leader, attempting a comeback, denies the allegations, saying he is the victim of "judicial persecution" by his former-ally-turned rival, President Luis Arce.

The political tensions have risen dramatically in the past week, with Morales -- who was president from 2006-2019 -- accusing the state of an assassination bid, which it denies.

Rotting food

Clashes between his supporters and security forces have left dozens injured in recent days.

Arce ordered on October 30 an "immediate" end to the "anti-democratic and criminal blockade."

He estimated the cost of the roadblocks at over $1.7 billion and said they were "having terrible effects on families" by causing food and fuel prices to escalate.

Masias lost not only her tomatoes when she set out for Cochabamba but those of an entire neighborhood of what she calls "poor people."

"I tried my best to get here," she said, standing next to pallets of decomposing peppers and green beans.

From four roadblocks on October 14, the number set up around the country has risen to 24, mostly in the Cochabamba area, the authorities said.

Desperate to find an alternative route to market, food producers have begun shipping their goods by plane.

A queue of customers 300 meters long formed outside the Cochabamba parcel office of state airline Boliviana de Aviacion. Some began queuing before dawn.

"We are looking for air bridges so that our product is not ruined," said Christian Vrsalovic, a dairy producer whose transport costs have risen fivefold since the protests began.

The roadblocks have set the agricultural sector in Cochabamba alone back about $20 million, the Bolivian National Agricultural Confederation (Confeagro) estimated.

"Cochabamba is the country's main economic hub," Confeagro vice-president Rolando Morales, who is no relation to Evo Morales, said.

"All the [food] exports from Santa Cruz pass through here en route to the port of Arica in Chile to generate the foreign currency that the country so badly needs," he said.

Santa Cruz is Bolivia's richest department.

'Customers scold us'

On a retail market in Cochabamba, Ana Luz Salazar lines up the yellow chickens that are left on her hands at the end of the day.

Since the blockades began, the price of the birds has shot up from $2 to $3.40 per kg, causing sales to plummet.

"Customers scold us. They say 'it's so expensive.' Some don't buy anything," the 55-year-old vendor said.

On the outskirts of the city of 660,000 inhabitants, on a poultry farm owned by 48-year-old businessman Ivan Carreon, the vast sheds usually teeming with battery hens lie nearly empty.

The chickens and hens of Cochabamba are fed soybeans and corn from the regional capital, Santa Cruz, but the protests have blocked the roads to Cochabamba.

"We had to sell 15,000 hens ... to guarantee balanced feed for our other batches," Carreon explained.

Beef producers are in even worse straits, as cattle feed is in extremely short supply, Confeagro's Morales warned.

"Cochabamba, which used to be called Bolivia's breadbasket,' remains so in name only," he said.