Bolivian protests halt capital:Poor majority oppose U.S.-backed government

[Judi Lynn]

Article Published: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 - 4:48:41 PM PST

Bolivian protests halt capital

Poor majority oppose U.S.-backed government
By Bill Cormier , Associated Press

Violent street protests choked off Bolivia's crippled capital Tuesday, as the collapse of President Carlos Mesa's government failed to quell demands by the poor Indian majority for more power from the white elite that has ruled the country for decades.
Riot police firing arcing tear gas canisters sent thousands of demonstrators fleeing down the cobblestoned streets of La Paz's old colonial center.

Miners, who joined protesting Indians, farmers and laborers, responded by blasting dynamite sticks that sent pigeons fluttering. Ambulances sped away with victims and a major public hospital said it receive 12 victims. Most were felled by tear gas and rubber bullets, but the hospital said one miner lost a hand in a dynamite explosion.

A group of helmeted officers dragged miners roughly from the yellow dump trucks they had used to converge on the city, beating some of the protesters as others regrouped amid the biting tear gas.

Army troops took up defensive positions around the Government Palace, the scene of clashes Monday that capped weeks of opposition to Mesa's U.S.-backed, free-market government. Police reported at least 10 arrests by late afternoon, when most of the demonstrators had dispersed.
(snip/...)

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,207~24637~2908789,00.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Bolivian turmoil hits the streets after president offers to step down

Bolivian turmoil hits the streets after president offers to step down
Chaos prevents congressional action on the leader's resignation or replacement
By TYLER BRIDGES and BILL FARIES
Knight Ridder Tribune News



Associated Press
Anti-government demonstrators march toward downtown La Paz in Bolivia on Tuesday.

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA - Riot police launched round after round of tear gas Tuesday to repel thousands of dynamite-wielding marchers in downtown La Paz. The chaotic scene prevented Congress from meeting to consider President Carlos Mesa's resignation, offered the night before.

Senate President Hormando Vaca Diez said that Congress would attempt to meet again today. But if the situation remains unstable, Vaca Diez said, Congress could leave La Paz to meet in the old capital of Sucre, in the south.
(snip)

In a dramatic late-night broadcast, Mesa appealed to the Senate president and lower parliament chamber chief to step aside and allow early elections to halt the protests.

"The country can not continue playing with the possibility of splitting into a thousand pieces. The only solution for Bolivia is an immediate electoral process," Mesa said. "It is a call to a country on the brink of civil war."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/3215930
(Free registration is required)

[Judi Lynn]

8. Bolivia erupts against inequality and poverty -09/06/05

Bolivia erupts against inequality and poverty -09/06/05

A popular coalition built around indigenous Indians, power workers, peasants and civil movements - including trade unions and radical Catholics – has erupted against years of poverty and inequality in one of Latin America’s poorest countries.

Bolivian capital La Paz today remains at a virtual standstill, as the country awaits the outcome of a congress meeting being held 200 miles away in Sucre, following the deposition of President Carlos Meza this week.

In the1980s Bolivia was seen as an exemplar of the Western-backed strategy of combining US-friendly democracy with free markets to tackle underdevelopment. But the International Monetary Fund’s policy of making international support conditional on the privatisation of key utilities backfired badly.

Ordinary Bolivians, especially the indigenous majority (including Incan and Aymaran peoples) suffered worsening hardship under IMF-led policies as the gap between rich and poor grew still further.
(snip/...)

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_05069lapaz.shtml

[punpirate]

2. At this moment...

... the crack strategists in the White House are preparing a statement saying that Bolivia's troubles would evaporate if they would only endorse the FTAA treaty.... :)

Virtually the same thing is now happening in Ecuador (on an only slightly less dramatic scale), and in both countries, the principal problem has been US trade treaty problems that have sucked wealth out of them. I think these people remember Simon Bolivar, and what his revolution was all about....

[Quakerfriend]

3. You are exactly right!

The US gov't grossly underestimates the strength and courage of these people.

Honduras has had protests, as well.

Colombia will follow.

[annabanana]

4. Why do I look at these countries

and feel like I'm gazing into a crystal ball? What will it take for the uberrich to value and nurture a strong, fluid, middle class?

[David__77]

5. Continental revolution!

The people cannot trust the leadership to do it for them, not even in Venezuela--they must purge the local tyrants and take control themselves. The Bolivian government is just a symptom of a broader class problem.

[Say_What]

6. Noriega at OAS session blamed Chavez for Bolivia's problems...

<clips>

The US Seeks to Blame Chavez for Bolivian Turmoil
As Yogi Berra supposedly once said, it feels like deja vu all over again.

Five years ago, as Bolivia was similarly wracked by political turmoil during the Cochabamba water revolt, Bolivian government spinners sought desperately to blame the protests on “narcotraffickers”. The Associated Press reporter at the time, who just happened to be a close friend of the President’s spinner, pedaled the bogus analysis in AP dispatches all over the US. We were supposed to believe that Bechtel’s massive water rate hikes had nothing to do with those protests at all.

Now the US government is playing the same false blame game. This morning’s Miami Herald reports on the efforts by the US’s lead diplomat for Latin America, at the OAS meeting in Florida, to blame Bolivia’s current troubles on…Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Here’s the article.

Here’s the portion about Roger Noriega's comments:

Noriega also sparked an exchange of barbs with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez when he seemed to hint that Chávez was somehow responsible for the worsening situation in Bolivia. Some Latin American and U.S. officials have long alleged that Chávez has provided financial assistance to Bolivian opposition leader Evo Morales. ''Chávez's profile in Bolivia has been very apparent from the beginning,'' Noriega said when asked about Chavez's role in the turmoil in Bolivia. ``His record is apparent and speaks for itself.''

http://democracyctr.org/blog/


Evo Morales, a House leader of the leftist MAS party and head of an indigenous protest movement blockading La Paz, is seen at his office drinking lemonade and wearing a T-shirt depicting revolutionary icon CHe Guevara in downtown La Paz, Bolivia on Wednesday, June 8, 2005. Morales demanded early elections and the nationalization of oil resources as key demands for ending a political crisis. He said the country could face armed confrontation if traditional parties appoint a new president unacceptable to majority Indians.(AP Photo/Dado Galdieri)

[GirlinContempt]

9. Well, it's

sort of TRUE. I mean, Chavez supports the theories of permanent revolution, and seems to have started putting them into action. But, on the other hand, if it wasn't him, it'd be someone else, or something else.

But really, the blame falls right at the feet of the US & the IMF for creating a situation in Latin America that forces people into revolution.

[Judi Lynn]

7. No. 1 Quits in Bolivia, and Protesters Scorn Nos. 2 and 3

No. 1 Quits in Bolivia, and Protesters Scorn Nos. 2 and 3

By JUAN FORERO
Published: June 9, 2005



Victor R. Caivano/Associated PressProtesters, mostly indigenous Indians, trooped from El Alto to La Paz Wednesday to campaign for more economic power and new elections to remove the current leading politicians, part of the elite of Spanish heritage.

Small slide show & remarks on a Bolivian hip-hop artist:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2005/05/25/international/20050526_BOLIVIA_FEATURE.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1118301298-rsh/xicx/sy+mAOjo38Jhw

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....Since 2000, when a popular uprising forced an American water utility out of Cochabamba, a restive Indian majority has flexed its political muscle, protesting against foreign multinationals and market reforms prescribed by the United States and the International Monetary Fund. Before Mr. Mesa, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was also forced out; he fled into exile in October 2003.

Many Bolivians, especially the indigenous people, say market reforms put into practice by politicians like Mr. Sánchez de Lozada have left their country poorer than ever.

That impatience has been evident across Latin America, where eight presidents have been ousted or forced to resign in popular uprisings since 2000. Left-leaning candidates have been swept into power in two-thirds of South America's countries.

"The bottom line is that Latin America is in open rebellion of the economic policies of the Washington consensus," said Jim Shultz, executive director of Democracy Center, a policy analysis group in Cochabamba. "Sometimes it happens in the ballot box. Sometimes it happens on the street, like in Bolivia. It is, in essence, the same rebellion."
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/09/international/americas/09bolivia.html?
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