President of Bolivia to resign (This Freeper's Living It!)

TribNet.com ^ | October 17, 12:55 p.m. PDT | By KEVIN GRAY, Associated Press

[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.

[wardaddy]

The Indians and their Euro-elitist-academia-inelligentsia-Che-wannabe leaders say that gas exports through the new proposed pipeline would produce revenues unlikely to reach the average Boliviano.....not a stretch admittedly.

They are also against building a pipeline thru either Peru or Chile both historical foes...Chile in particular.

The more Gaia-worshipping radical elements also claim some indig fascination with touting coca as Bolivia's true export as being more in tune with "native tradition" and more "eco-friendly"...lol...Bolivia's coca money ends up primarily in the hands of Colombian drug lords...a point they apparently overlook in Bolivian political theory circles.

Typical marxist indigenous masses versus oligarchs Latin American fare.

I see no answers here....aside from a benevolent dictator.

[Cicero]

We've been through a period of relative democracy and stability in Latin America. It looks as if this is in the process of changing. There have always been endless cycles of political violence in South America. Right wing tyrants are followed by left-wing revolutionaries. Democratic governments open the way for unrest and discontent. And so forth. As I've said before, these cycles of capitalist exploitation and Marxist violence are brilliantly portrayed in Joseph Conrad's novel, Nostromo, written a hundred years ago.

[Truth666]

I predicted this at a time where there were more alternatives left.

[Travis McGee]

Take care!

[Beck_isright]

"Goni's out. What next?"

A Marxist takeover just like Venezuela and Brazil.

[AMNZ]

How have we gotten behind on South America? Everything had shifted favorably, now it seems to be going the wrong way.

[Beck_isright]

"How have we gotten behind on South America?"

Our guv did what it always does: Waits until it's a crisis before acting. The word "proactive" is not part of a bureaucrats vocabulary.

[ClaireSolt]

This looks like a case of the phenomenon of "rising expectations" to me. The per capita income in Boliva is up to $900/yr. that is about three times what it is in many third world countries. Unfortunately, Hollywood exports the idea of Americans living in lavish mansions with every luxury, and once life starts to get a little better in a Latin American country, peasants demand to know why they aren't living like movie stars, yet.

We do a poor job of teaching Econ 101 and home economics, so poor people at home and abroad do not understand what it takes to get the lifestyle they want. They succomb to demogogery and exchange their most precious resource (freedom) to tyrants. They will get daily rations of rice but not the cars, computers, and washing machines they could earn if they stayed with free enterprise.

[DoctorMichael]

Simmering-on-the-back-burner Bump.

[jocon307]

"Too bad instead of a millionaire, they couldn't find someone with a belief in having a middle class society."

Oh, but Fitz, Fitz, Fitz, don't you see, the middle-class, those are the Bourgeoisie, they are not to be tolerated.

I am having a historical epiphany here (I am, it is series and hugh). The stinking leftists are not bothered by systems where there is an entrenched elite and a suffering underclass. The stinking elitists are never bothered by this either. But only in a system where you have a middle class can ordinary people prosper.

Conclusion: America - the last best hope for mankind.

Our founding fathers really were amoung the greatest men who ever lived!

[FITZ]

How have we gotten behind on South America? Everything had shifted favorably, now it seems to be going the wrong way.

We don't have Reagan.

[FITZ]

I think there are answers --- getting later and later but I think there still are.

Funding Freedom
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/2000/0004.neier.html

President Reagan told the British that Salvadorans "braved ambush and gunfire, trudging miles to vote for freedom." Equating human rights with elections, Reagan committed the United States to a global effort to promote democracy. "What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term," the President said, "the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history."

[wardaddy]

We helped stop the insurgency in El Slavador, but it still simmers of course like everywhere south of the Rio Grande sans Costa Rica or Chile perhaps.

Bolivia is a fairly large country. I'm not sure what we can do. The demographics there are troubling....even more so than El Salvador and I am skeptical with what we have to work with. Peru is also in this boat to a degree.

How to stop the appeal of collectivism in nations where the vast majority of folks are quite poor and have been since the Spanish Conquest is a daunting task. Lots of band-aids.

[wardaddy]

I forgot....I have nothing against doing something. I supported the Contras somewhat at fundraisings in Miami but I fear that all we are doing is stemming the flow.

[FITZ]

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900319-contra.htm

NICARAGUA: THE LONG, HARD MARCH TO FREEDOM (House of Representatives - March 19, 1990)

...It's important to understand that upon coming into office in 1977 the Carter administration facilitated the downfall of the Somoza dictatorship through its effort to promote human rights. In my opinion the Carter administration policy was the correct one to pursue. The Somoza regime was repressive, corrupt, and undemocratic. If we were to promote the ideals of the United States in the world, we had to hold friends to the same standards as we did foes.

However, the Carter administration committed one crucial mistake prior to the downfall of the Somoza regime--it failed to intervene early enough in the Nicaraguan turmoil to ensure a democratic succession. Not wanting to make the mistake of imposing a `Yankee' solution, it found itself unable to influence the ultimate outcome. In the post-Vietnam era, President Carter did not want the United States going it alone. However, in Central America, a region of the world where a strong American voice was expected, the unsure pronouncements from Washington simply confused the situation....

Ronald Reagan came to Washington in 1981 with a mandate to restore U.S. strength in a dangerous world. The humiliation of Iran holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days, along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, had convinced the American public that a change was required.

In Nicaragua, the Reagan administration decided to take a tougher approach. From 1981 until 1984, the Reagan administration put together a military assistance program through various intelligence authorization acts. Assistance went to a variety of groups who had taken up arms against the Sandinistas: former National Guard members who has formed the Nicaraguan Democratic Forces [FDN], Miskito Indians of Misura, and former Sandinista fighters under the leadership of Eden Pastora and the Nicaraguan Democratic Revolutionary Alliance [ARDE]....

Benign neglect concerning the problems of our southern neighbors will only cost us more in the future.

[FITZ]

One thing Reagan insisted on were elections which is how the people managed to defeat the Sandanistas ----and of course outraged the left because it showed the poor people weren't so fond of them after all. A lot of those problems could have been prevented if Jimmy Carter had done anything right ---- but of course he was a very weak man who couldn't. We need to promote something else in Latin America ---- it shouldn't be the fascist dictatorships of the right or the left. We get Republicans in office who do at least something good ---- but then we alternate with very weak Democrats who let everything slide toward Communism.

[wardaddy]

This would be where we diverge.

I am not sure everyone is prepared for representational government.

I will take a right wing dictator friendly to the US over a lefty hostile anyday.

In a more perfect world I would share your idealism 100%.

[Beck_isright]

"We do a poor job of teaching Econ 101 and home economics, so poor people at home and abroad do not understand what it takes to get the lifestyle they want. They succomb to demogogery and exchange their most precious resource (freedom) to tyrants. They will get daily rations of rice but not the cars, computers, and washing machines they could earn if they stayed with free enterprise."

Sadly, you are only about 25% correct. We have done a lousy job teaching the benefits of free enterprise and democracy. Preferably we would teach a republican (small "r") system of government. Sadly, in my travels, I've noticed that all of the people I've met in the poorer parts of the world think that we were "given" or "endowed" with our riches. After I explain the facts to them, half look grim, half look hopeful. Our government does not care to teach, it cares to exploit. Thus the problem we will deal with in the 2010-2030 era; a Marxist Latin America armed with nuclear weapons and IRBM's supplied by the Asian powers.