In a shocking development in Bolivia, striking workers - who were demanding more mining concessions with less stringent environmental rules - kidnapped and "savagely beat to death" 56-year-old Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes.

Bolivian President Evo Morales is calling Friday a day of "deep pain" for the country following the violent murder of Deputy Interior Minister Rodolfo Illanes on his way to negotiate with striiking mine-workers. Illanes "was kidnapped, tortured and murdered," Morales said. As Reuters reports, officials said he died of blows to the head.

Striking Bolivian miners kidnapped and beat to death the country's deputy interior minister in a shocking spasm of violence following weeks of tension over dwindling paychecks in a region hit hard by falling metal prices. The miners were demanding they be allowed to work for private companies, who promise to put more cash in their pockets. The issue has bedeviled President Evo Morales, who began as a champion of the working class and privatized the nation's mining industry, only to see his support crater amid the downturn. Miners say Morales has become a shill of the rich, and done little to help them make ends meet as the economy slows. Deputy Minister Rodolfo Illanes, whose formal title is vice minister of the interior regime, had traveled Thursday to the scene of the violent protests in an effort to negotiate with the strikers who armed themselves with dynamite and seized several highways.

As AP reports, the fatal beating came after the killings of two protesters in clashes with police Wednesday, deaths that likely fueled the tensions.

Illanes, who was also a lawyer and university professor, had gone to Panduro, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of La Paz, to open a dialogue with the miners. They had blockaded the highway there since Monday, stranding thousands of vehicles and passengers. Officials said he was taken hostage by the miners Thursday morning. At midday Illanes said on his Twitter account: "My health is fine, my family can be calm." There were reports that he had heart problems. Illanes' body was later found abandoned on the side of the highway, his car burned. Illanes' driver escaped.

Bolivia has seen increased social agitation as a financial slowdown hit an economy heavily dependent on natural gas and minerals, which account for over 70 percent of foreign export sales. Export earnings fell by about a third in the first half of the year.

As Reuters notes, Bolivia's informal miners number about 100,000 and work in self-managed cooperatives that primarily produce zinc, tin, silver, gold and lead concentrates.

They want to be able to associate with private companies, but are currently prohibited from doing so. The government argues that if they associate with multinational companies they will no longer be cooperatives. The influential National Federation of Mining Cooperatives of Bolivia, a strong ally of Morales when metal prices were high, was organized in the 1980s amid growing unemployment in the sector that followed the closure of state mines. Federation members went on an indefinite protest after negotiations over mining legislation failed. Strikers are also demanding access to new mineral deposits and subsidized electricity to help them handle the crisis in the mining sector.

President Morales said the protests and Illanes' death looked to be part of a "political conspiracy rather than a legitimate social claim" made by the miners.