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Posted on 02/13/2003 6:28:05 PM PST by BlackJack
Striking Bolivian police exchanged gunfire with soldiers, leaving 17 people dead and 100 wounded, during protests over a tax rise that forced the president to flee his palace hidden in an ambulance.
"Police and people united will never be beaten," protesters shouted as they confronted heavily armed soldiers outside the palace.
The demonstration started when the centre-Right President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada announced a rise in taxes, expecting popular discontent but nothing the police could not handle. The police, faced with the prospect of losing more of their £70 monthly wages, joined protesters in the streets.
With no officers to protect the presidential palace Mr Sanchez called up the troops. They took up positions in the capital, La Paz, and confronted 7,000 demonstrators, many of them police, in Plaza Murillo, the city's central square.
Soldiers opened fire on the crowd and the police responded in kind. A running battle broke out on the plaza, with army marksmen shooting from the roofs of the presidential palace and the neighbouring cathedral.
Police fired tear-gas at the troops and as protesters laid siege to the presidential palace Mr Sanchez escaped. As darkness fell eight policemen lay dead, many shot in the head, most likely by army snipers, while two soldiers were killed and 13 wounded.
The seven other dead were civilians. The president later appeared on national television announcing the suspension of the tax rise and the withdrawal of troops.
But with no police or army to provide security, looters went on the rampage, storming a brewery and setting seven official buildings on fire, including the vice-president's office and the governing party headquarters. The historic building of the Works Ministry was put to the torch and the nation's labour records destroyed.
Hospital workers had to form human chains to prevent people flooding the emergency rooms to find out about loved ones. Doctors ran out of blood and antibiotics to treat the wounded. "All of them are coming in with gunshot wounds," said Eduardo Chavez, the director of Hospital de Clinicas.
In the early hours yesterday the government and the police worked out a deal to stop the fighting. The president agreed to pay £6,200 to the families of every policeman killed and an unspecified bonus to 15,000 other officers.
Meanwhile, coca growers, who have been holding protests for several weeks, stepped up their demonstrations yesterday. One was shot dead by troops and three were wounded as they put up barricades on a main road 370 miles from the capital.
They are protesting against the American-sponsored eradication of coca, which indigenous people use as part of their culture and to fight altitude sickness. Because coca is the basis of cocaine Washington has pressured the Bolivian government to destroy all coca crops except registered fields which supply legal demand.
Next Pres may be Socialist who supports coca farming.
Another drug "war"success story in the making.
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Another Chavez perhaps?
Er,.....uh.....yea! works good for that!LOL!
This is just another failure of a distorted view of democracy. SNORT!!!!
The Bolivian's apparently do not know what the hell the taxes are spent on and they don't like it. Who would have thought?
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF Altitude sickness. Ah ha.
In a hurry.
Is this the post cold war madness that was predicted?
Thats why I say we should be minding our own business. President Washington was correct.
You've noticed too, huh?
This has been germinating for a long time with help of American journalists/activists. One who has the same last name as mine caught my eye with an article in the Sacto BEE and I liked something he wrote.
We became sorta pen pals with email breifly. Then he put me on his e-news letter list and I soon saw his Commonistic side as he bragged about his agitation in Bolivia against American interests.
We blame so much on foreign Communists/Commonists and their class warfare, but it's being grown right here in our institutions of higher indoctrination!
That's right. They can quit any time thay want to....
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