Church in the World

Four die in protests over reforms

Bolivia

Bishops have appealed for calm after protests over government reforms killed four people and left 130 injured, writes Agostino Bono.

Violence erupted and protesters clashed with police last weekend in the administrative capital of Sucre, where the constitutional assembly, dominated by supporters of left-wing President Evo Morales and boycotted by many of his opponents, gave preliminary approval to proposals for a new constitution. The assembly met under military guard.

Mr Morales, like his political ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is seeking reforms that would allow the president to seek re-election indefinitely. The President, an Aymara Indian, wants a new constitution to change a political, social and legal system deemed to favour the country's traditional power structure at the expense of the poor majority.

Bolivia's bishops have remained neutral on Mr Morales' proposed reforms even though they would end the legally privileged status of the Church.