A protester is blocked by security from reaching Morillo Square in front of government palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Thursday Oct. 20, 2011. Protesters arrived to La Paz on Wednesday after an estimated 242-mile march from Trinidad that began Aug. 15 to protest a government planned highway that would cut through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory National Park, home to 15,000 indigenous people.
(AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
Bolivian Indian protesters set up camp at palace
A protester is blocked by security from reaching Morillo Square in front of government palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Thursday Oct. 20, 2011. Protesters arrived to La Paz on Wednesday after an estimated 242-mile march from Trinidad that began Aug. 15 to protest a government planned highway that would cut through the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Territory National Park, home to 15,000 indigenous people.
(AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
LA PAZ, Bolivia—Indians who marched to La Paz to demand President Evo Morales halt plans to build a highway through their Amazon jungle preserve have set up camp in front of the presidential palace to press their cause.
About 100 have erected tents in Plaza Murillo in front of the palace. Others are camped out elsewhere in the capital. More than 1,000 arrived Wednesday after a two-month trek that included a failed police attempt to break up the protest march.
Protest leaders are demanding to meet with Morales and vowed Thursday not to leave until he agrees to scrap the highway.
The marchers are lowlands Indians unaccustomed to the 11,900-foot (3,640-meter) altitude of La Paz. Some have fallen ill with altitude sickness and are being treated in hospitals.
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