BRASLIA: Brazil’s government raised the stakes in its tense standoff with striking truckers on Friday, ordering troops onto the streets to clear huge blockades that have left much of the country paralysed.

The country’s economic capital of Sao Paulo declared a state of emergency, the auto industry shut down, gas stations ran out of fuel and dozens of flights were cancelled on the fifth day of the protest on Friday.

The truckers have attempted to put a stranglehold on movement of goods in Brazil to protest fuel price rises.

They blocked main roads in much of the vast South American country that has only limited rail services and where 60 per cent of goods are transported by road.

The truckers pressed on with the strike despite an agreement announced by the government with union representatives late on Thursday to call a 15-day suspension.

President Michel Temer announced in a televised address that he had “mobilised the security forces” to clear the roads — a move criticised by Amnesty International as “impermissible.” “We are not going to permit that the population does not have access to essential goods... that hospitals do not have the necessary medicines to save lives,” he said in a televised address.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2018