Bolivia puts city under martial law - Clashes between troops and protesters over gas exports

Associated Press ^ | Oct. 13, 2003, 12:05AM | By CARLOS VALDES

[weegee]

Bolivia puts city under martial law Clashes between troops, protesters over gas exports bring death toll to 16

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivia's government imposed martial law on a city outside the capital Sunday after clashes between troops and demonstrators angry about proposals to export natural gas to the United States and Mexico. Sixteen people have been reported killed. Soldiers manned major intersections in El Alto, a poor, industrial city 10 miles outside the capital, La Paz. But the move didn't stop protesters who repeatedly clashed with the soldiers and police trying to disperse them.

Roman Catholic priest Asensio Mamani said he saw three people killed in the clashes in his neighborhood, Senakata, on Sunday. Another priest, Modesto Chino, said two demonstrators were also killed in the Ballivian neighborhood.

Those deaths would bring the total killed to 16 in El Alto since the clashes began. The government had reported that 11 people had been killed previously.

That figure included a 7-year-old boy killed Saturday by a stray bullet.

"It was Juanito, my only son," his mother, Eva Mollericano, told the Associated Press. "We came out to the terrace of our house when we heard the shootout and a bullet hit him in the head. He collapsed, he was dead."

Hospital and human rights groups officials said some 30 people were hurt.

The demonstrators are angry about a plan proposed by President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to export gas from Bolivia's reserves in the southern region of Tarija to the United States and Mexico.

The demonstrations are the latest to plague Sanchez de Lozada, who has faced a series of violent protests by workers and indigenous leaders opposed to his free market policies.

Presidential spokesman Mauricio Antezana accused demonstrators of trying to overthrow the government, an allegation the administration has made previously.

Antezana said the military decided to lock down El Alto after demonstrators attacked soldiers Saturday night with firearms and rocks.

He said martial law was necessary "to ensure the safety of its citizens and protect public and private properties."

The government calls the protests unjustified, saying details of the project aren't even finished yet.

-----------------------

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

· Government officials estimate gas exports would generate about $1.5 billion for Bolivia, South America's poorest nation. But union leaders and Bolivia's poor Indian majority, who have frequently led protests against government attempts to privatize the country's state industries, argue the economic benefits won't reach them.

· The protesters also are partly upset that the government might decide to ship the gas out of a port in Chile. Bolivia has been a landlocked nation since it lost its coastline in an 1879 war against Chile, and resentment against its neighbor is still strong.

[weegee]

I have to wonder how much outside agitation there is from environmentalists, communists, and assorted antiglobalist anarchists.

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[GeronL]

big bump

[GeronL]

let me guess, your sorry for the double post, right? uh=huh

[weegee]

FR may have been a little bumpy. I even had trouble getting this thread to post (I almost had to re-enter the whole thing when I got a web error).

[GeronL]

so.. its your fault!

just kidding.

I have decided to become a one man political party! freestateparty.50megs.com

[Truth666]

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
I think it starts here : http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2122966
Houston Chronicle Foreign Service
Nearly three quarters of the country's 8 million people survive on less than $2 a day.
The project's opponents say Bolivia would receive just 70 cents for each thousand square feet of gas exported, less than half the amount earned from current gas exports to Brazil.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

I’m trying to, but I really don’t understand the “rational” behind this.

The project's opponents say Bolivia would receive just 70 cents for each thousand square feet of gas exported, less than half the amount earned from current gas exports to Brazil.

Somehow, this is not the entire story. There is much more to it but what? I would really like to know. There is also a lot of terrorist activities brewing in that country from what I have been reading.

[Truth666]

It looks like Losada is finished.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480592103&p=1012571727102

[FreedomSurge]

"I have to wonder how much outside agitation there is from environmentalists, communists, and assorted antiglobalist anarchists."

I spent a summer in Cochabamba, the Catholic priests in Bolivia are all communists and probably environmentalists and anti-globalist anarchists too.

[Norse]

I was there also this summer. I only spent 250 dollars in Bolivia in three weeks and I lived like a God. Not only that, being 6'3, 165 pounds of muscle with light hair and eyes really makes one stand out. I was in El Alto walking around at 3 a.m. I saw some crazy, crazy things. My buddy and I just returned from a 25 mile hike through the country that lasted 1.5 days, and we were dead tired. We actually saved this kid from being abducted. Luckily we were in the right place at the right time in order to beat the hell out of the 3 perps.