"Hundreds of miners brought downtown La Paz to a standstill on Monday, demanding that President Rodrigo Paz's government repeal the 5503 decree ending fuel subsidies, which has sent diesel prices soaring by over 100 per cent. Coca growers and other groups affiliated with the Bolivian Workers Centre (COB) also joined the protest. The COB, along with the Bolivian Confederation of Drivers' Unions, is calling for an indefinite general strike to push for the repeal of the measure. Footage filmed on Monday shows miners marching through Bolivian streets holding signs reading: 'No more dictatorship. No more D.S. 5503!', 'D.S. 5503 benefits businessmen and their mafias' among others. Protesters reached Pedro Domingo Murillo Square, the seat of Bolivia's government, where police secured the area to block access. Mario Argollo Mamani, executive of the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), called for the "immediate repeal of the neoliberal, hunger-inducing decree 5503," describing it as "an attack on what the country's working classes represent." "The working people, with this decree, unfortunately, will be plunged into misery, because it practically has one hundred and twenty-some articles that are designed exclusively for the privileged sector, for which the government is now issuing this decree," he said. Decree 5503, enacted on Wednesday by President Rodrigo Paz, introduced new fuel prices, with regular petrol at 6.96 bolivianos per litre ($1.01), premium petrol at 11 bolivianos ($1.59), and diesel at 9.80 bolivianos ($1.42). The changes mark increases of up to 86 per cent for petrol and 162 per cent for diesel compared with the subsidised rates in place for more than two decades."