RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Bolivian Government and the land heavy cargo transport unions signed this Friday a new agreement to stop the protests against the reactivation of the railroad to Chile which this sector considered an attempt against their livelihood.
“The transporters are committed to lifting the blockades in the different points of the national territory”, states one of the main parts of the minutes of the meeting held by the Minister of Public Works, Edgar Montaño, with the leaders of the protesting unions in Cochabamba.
The document also stated that the carriers “were informed” that Ferroviaria Andina S.A. decided “freely and voluntarily” to suspend the railroad tests in the section between the Chilean port of Arica and the Bolivian department of La Paz.
The agreement states that “work tables” will be set up and “inspections will be carried out” to identify the main difficulties in terms of transport logistics, which will begin to be developed in June, together with other points such as the speed of procedures, among others.
This is the second agreement that both parties have signed this week in relation to the railroad between Arica and La Paz, which led the heavy cargo carriers to declare an indefinite strike because they consider that the enabling of the train affects at least 2,000 of the nearly 10,000 members who carry out this work.
Read also: Train line between Bolivia and Chile, closed since 2005, reopened
Despite the signing of an initial document, the strike and the road blockades continued to the point of affecting, as on this day, the main highway that connects the west with the east of the country.
Last week, the railroad was tested on both the Chilean and Bolivian sides, which was reinstated after almost 16 years, and which concluded with the arrival last Saturday of the railroad on Bolivian soil with 442 tons of steel coils.
The railroad workers linked to this project also demonstrated with a sit-in in Potosí, in the southeast of the country, to ratify a previous statement in which they considered that the railroad would increase the flow of cargo and that it was not true that its reactivation would be detrimental to road cargo transportation.
The railroad between Arica and La Paz has a historical relationship with the century-long controversy over access to the sea between Bolivia and Chile since it is an important aspect of the 1904 treaty signed by both countries after the War of the Pacific at the end of the 19th century.