A one-day transportation strike in Bolivia backed by the country’s main trade union federation shut down the capital and other cities on April 22, part of a series of protests by workers, farmers, and students against the policies of President Carlos Mesa. More than 100 unions and other organizations backed the action by the transport workers and thousands took to the streets in rallies against rising fuel prices, price-gouging “middlemen” who supply the fuel, and the government’s moves to sign a deal with Argentina for Bolivia’s natural gas.

The strike, supported by the Bolivian Workers Federation (COB), coincided with student demonstrations that mobilized more than 10,000 university students and teachers into the streets demanding an increase in spending for education. Peasants have organized protests over Mesa’s refusal to implement demands of rural toilers for land and government assistance.

Last year, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, a U.S.-backed mining tycoon, confronted an eruption of worker and peasant protests sparked by the government’s moves to sell off Bolivia’s natural gas reserves—the largest in Latin America. The protests spread after the regime called on the police to assault the demonstrations, leaving 80 dead. Sánchez de Lozada was forced to resign and Mesa, then the vice president, took his place. The new president has not fundamentally broken from the policies of his predecessor.

The U.S. embassy, which publicly backed Sánchez de Lozada even after his police slaughtered dozens of protesters, issued a statement declaring its support for Mesa’s administration “to the end of its tenure in August 2007.”