Posted on 10/15/2003 6:20:54 PM PDT by EsclavoDeCristo
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched Wednesday in major cities around Bolivia to call on the president to resign, as popular resistance to the government spread in South America's poorest country. Two people were reported killed.
About 1,000 miners clashed with government troops in the city of Patacmaya, 60 miles west of La Paz, killing two people and injuring nine others, radio and TV reports said.
Independent Radio Erbol and private broadcaster TV 21 said troops fired tear gas and live ammunition at the column of buses carrying marchers, who responded by tossing lit sticks of dynamite.
The military eventually halted the march after demonstrators agreed to suspend the protest in exchange for the release of several detained comrades. But tensions remained high as some 300 soldiers backed by tanks stood guard over the highway leading to the capital.
Elsewhere, about 1,000 people marched through La Paz, joining scattered demonstrations by thousands of poor Indians, union workers, and street vendors. After nightfall, police fired tear gas to disperse a smaller group of demonstrators during one flare-up in tensions, but there were no injuries and calm was restored quickly.
The capital was emptied of traffic Wednesday, and schools, shops, banks and businesses closed. Protesters manned barricades of burning debris on major highways, shutting down La Paz and the capital's sister city of El Alto.
Thousands more crowded the downtown plaza in Cochabamba, in southeastern Bolivia, in the latest phase of a three-week-old popular outpouring against President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.
"Viva Bolivia!" demonstrators shouted noisily in Cochabamba as they vowed to wage an indefinite work stoppage. Marchers tossed rocks and Molotov cocktails at government troops, torching a police office.
Many voiced angry opposition to the president's plan, since suspended, to export natural gas from southern Bolivia's underground reserves to the United States and Mexico - a project critics claim would only benefit the wealthy.
A 27-year-old unemployed worker, Victor Raiz, watched protests Wednesday and said he thought the only sure solution was for the president to resign.
"The people are no longer with him," Raiz said.
Elsewhere, about 1,000 miners were marching toward La Paz to join demonstrations by thousands of poor Indians, union workers, and street vendors.
Reports by independent Radio Erbol and private broadcaster TV 21 said the miners clashed with government troops in the city of Patacamaya, about 60 miles west of La Paz. Those reports indicated troops fired tear gas and miners responded by hurling dynamite.
Human rights groups and local media have reported up to 65 deaths in three weeks of street clashes between mostly Indian demonstrators and troops. The authorities have reported at least 16 deaths, but have not confirmed the higher figure.
Protests spread to the western city of Oruro and the southern city of Sucre, once the country's colonial capital. Thousands of peasants moved to blockade the four major highways leading into Sucre.
Outside La Paz, some 1,000 coca-growing farmers from the northern region of Los Yungas descended on the capital to join the protesters, who include labor unions, students, community groups and other government opponents.
Bolivia's poor Indian majority has grown increasingly disenchantment with free market reforms and U.S.-backed plans to eradicate coca, the plant that is the raw material for cocaine but is also chewed to stave off hunger and as a natural stimulant in the Andean mountain nation.
The capital, emptied of traffic Wednesday, took on the appearance of a ghost town. Schools, shops, banks and businesses closed. Protesters manned barricades of burning debris on major highways, shutting down La Paz and the capital's sister city of El Alto.
The protests began in mid-September in angry opposition to Sanchez de Lozada's plan to export natural gas to the United States and Mexico to raise badly needed export revenue.
The move ignited long-simmering discontent against his democratically elected 14-month-old government.
Although the president announced Monday he was shelving the plan, he has vowed not to resign - despite pledges by demonstrators to continue their protests until he leaves office.
Pressure against Sanchez de Lozada has also arisen from within his ruling coalition government.
Manfred Reyes Villa, a key member of the governing coalition, said he urged Sanchez de Lozada to call a referendum on the gas export plan and a legislative assembly "to help calm the country."
But Evo Morales, the most powerful Indian opposition leader, said the president had to step down to avoid further conflict.
Opponents to the gas plan objected to the use of neighboring Chile as the main port of export and argued the $5 billion project would only benefit the country's wealthy.
A U.S.-educated millionaire, Sanchez de Lozada served as president from 1993 to 1997. Now 73, he took office for a second term in August 2002 after narrowly defeating Morales, a radical congressman. He has the backing of the U.S. government.
Last modified: October 15. 2003 7:19PM
Darn. Where is the UN? Welcome to FR. Good luck, and stay safe.
Keep your head down. I wouldn't doubt Castro is instigating this, along with Shining Path, FARC and the big marxist cheese, Hugo Chavez.
Chavez, intent on destabilizing the area, established Venezuelan training bases for Columbia's FARC narco-terrorists. Cuban "advisors" currently are in positions throughout the Chavez government with some even masquerading as sports coaches. Before he was imprisoned in 1994, fellow Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. "Carlos the Jackal", whose long and sordid history of KGB/Cuban trained terrorism included acting as a specialist in terror for Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Lebanon, may be the original connection between Chavez and Islamic terrorists finding haven in Venezuela. Chavez has capitalized on his position as president of one of the five original founding members of OPEC to not only wage economic warfare against the US but to use his position to deal covertly with the anti-US Islamic members.
According to Chavez's former personal pilot, Venezuelan Air Force Major Juan Diaz Castillo, Chavez told him, "...to organize, coordinate, and execute a covert operation consisting of delivering financial resources, specifically $1 million, to [Afghanistan's] Taliban government, in order for them to assist the al-Qaeda terrorist organization...making it appear as if humanitarian aid were being extended to the Afghan people."
Former director of Venezuela's border-control service, General Marcos Ferreira, said that Cuba's General Intelligence Directorate completely dominates Venezuela's Directorate for Intelligence, Security, and Prevention (DISIP) and Chavez's Interior Minister, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, demanded that Ferreira cover up the identities of terrorists passing through Venezuela. The Chavez government is also issuing Venezuelan cedulas, similar to US Social Security cards, to nationals from Columbia, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon. In 2001 Chavez himself went abroad and signed "cooperation agreements" with Libya, Iraq, and Iran. Another military dissident, General Nestor Gonzalez Gonzalez, states that Chavez funnels arms and supplies from Cuba via Venezuela to Marxist guerrillas in Colombia. FARC deserters have even provided the longitude and latitude of their camp in the Venezuelan Perija Mountains.
Furious that defectors have exposed his schemes, Chavez is demanding that the US refute news stories showing his links with and funding to terrorists. Chavez is especially bitter about a US News and World Report article "Terror close to home". Chavez angrily said, "I challenge the staff of US News and World Report or its owners to come here and look for one single shred of evidence, to show the world one single shred of proof. The US government should respond to this call. (The magazine) supposedly cites information provided by US government officials. If a Venezuelan daily ran something as filthy as this, citing presidential officials here, my government would respond. It is a lie, but all the same, the idea has been planted. It is a strategy, to launch an offensive by concocting anything -- an assassination, a coup, an invasion."
Chavez's fears may not be all that unfounded since last year the military did attempt a coup. He still does not enjoy the support of his military and relies almost exclusively on Cuban advisors and Circulos Bolivarianos that are government-sponsored armed militias modeled on Cuba's Revolutionary Defense Committees. These militias have taken over the police stations around Caracas. One of the Circulos Bolivarianos, headed by the former guerrilla leader, Ali Rodriguez Araque, a.k.a. "Comandante Fausto" now commands the site of the state run oil company, PDVSA. Chavez is also populating Venezuela's financial institutions, state corporations, and security systems with men such as Araque and his personal bodyguards are mostly Cuban.***
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