Candidates are already lining up...
Posted on 10/17/2003 1:16:43 PM PDT by EsclavoDeCristo
LA PAZ, Bolivia (October 17, 12:55 p.m. PDT) - Embattled President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada will resign after weeks of deadly street riots triggered by a government plan to export natural gas, a close presidential ally said Friday.
Sanchez de Lozada said he would issue a statement at 4 p.m. His government coalition received a crippling blow earlier Friday as his last key supporter withdrew after weeks of nationwide street demonstrations.
Jaime Paz Zamora, a former president himself, called the impending announcement by Sanchez de Lozada a "patriotic decision."
Asked by reporters whether he meant a presidential resignation, Paz Zamora responded, "You are intelligent people. You know what it is."
Thousands of Bolivians marched through La Paz for a fifth straight day Friday, demanding the 73-year-old Sanchez de Lozada step down 14 months into his second term.
Columns of students, Indians and miners brandishing sticks of dynamite threaded past street barricades, shouting, "We will not stop until he's gone!"
Also Friday, military planes airlifted hundreds of stranded travelers from Bolivia's capital.
The president temporarily suspended the gas export plan last week in the face of riots, which human rights groups said claimed as many as 65 lives.
His increasingly fragile coalition suffered a key blow Friday when Manfred Reyes Villa, a key presidential supporter in congress, said he was quitting the government after weeks of deadly riots between troops and Bolivian Indians carrying sticks.
"I've come to tell him: 'No more,'" Reyes Villa said. "The people don't believe in this government anymore and there is no other option but for him to resign."
On Thursday, presidential spokesman Mauricio Antezana also resigned.
Reyes Villa's departure left the president isolated as he sought to defuse the crisis in this Andean nation of 8.8 million people - South America's poorest.
Late Wednesday, the president sought to defuse the growing crisis with a nationally televised address in which he offered to hold a national referendum vote over the plan. But opponents rejected that offer.
A U.S.-educated millionaire, Sanchez de Lozada was president from 1993 to 1997. He took office for a second term in August 2002 after narrowly defeating Evo Morales, a radical congressman.
For days, the main highway link between La Paz and El Alto has been lined with hundreds of demonstrators clutching rocks and sticks and burning barricades.
A Peruvian air force plane also evacuated 80 stranded Peruvians to the Andean city of Arequipa on Friday and planned to return to Bolivia to shuttle more people out, a Peruvian cable news channel reported.
Meanwhile, the British government advised its citizens Friday not to travel to Bolivia because of deteriorating security. Britons already in Bolivia should keep off the streets, refrain from traveling and avoid demonstrations, it said.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department warned Americans to defer travel to Bolivia.
Well put. I call it populism, its the default philosophy that permeates the society. It has various left and right manifestations, but it always comes back to the same. Dirigiste economies, economic stagnation, and endemic corruption. Each government overthrowing the previous one, and then resorting to the same solutions again and again ad infinitum.
I had that same question
Candidates are already lining up...
"LA PAZ.— New condemnations of U.S. interference, a massive popular march and the unexpected reappearance of the vice president, Carlos Mesa, who has confirmed his split with the government, revealed the intensity of the Bolivian crisis today. Arsenio Álvarez, leader of the Federation of Press Workers in La Paz as well as Jaime Solares and Roberto de la Cruz, leaders of the Bolivian Workers’ Union (COB) and the trade union in the neighboring municipality of El Alto respectively, condemned U.S. interference that is seeking to maintain President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in power despite a fierce social demand for him to resign, reported PL. This demand was the overwhelming theme today in the largest demonstration ever seen in the Bolivian capital, when some 120,000 people called on the president to stand down, according to figures released by the Catholic Fides radio station."
Bolivia's Poor Proclaim Abiding Distrust of Globalization (Socialist Resurgence in Latin America)
Tourists stand in line to board a plane at the airport in El Alto, Bolivia on Friday, October 17, 2003. Hundreds of stranded travelers were airlifted out of the Bolivian capital Friday as a key member of the embattled president's ruling coalition quit the government amid renewed street protests. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Dozens of Australians stranded in Bolivian unrest*** Instead of some holiday bargain-hunting and snapping picturesque street corners, tourists have had to pick their way through the debris of pitched street battles and numerous road blocks in the four or five streets that make up the main tourist centre.***
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