Forced by demonstrators to leave La Paz and meet in Sucre to discuss President Carlos Mesa's resignation, Bolivia's Congress yesterday could face the same music, as protesters vowed to take their fight all the way to the country's political capital.
Evo Morales, a leftist leader of coca farmers and one of the most influential protest leaders, called on Quechua Indians in the Sucre area, 740km southeast of La Paz, to prevent the meeting, set for 10:30am.
Protesters will tighten their blockade of roads leading to Sucre, Morales said Wednesday, adding that militant area miners were heading towards the city. Some 2,000 Quechua Indians were also heading to Sucre from the city of Cochabamba, a top Morales lieutenant said.
PHOTO: AP
Mesa, who resigned Monday, warned in a speech Tuesday that Bolivia was so polarized it was heading towards civil war.
"Let us avoid lost lives, let us avoid a violence that devours us all," he said, calling for early elections. He also warned that Bolivia was "on the brink of civil war."
Felipe Quispe, an Aymara Indian protest leader, seemed to relish the idea. "That is much better, because that way we can define (the future of) this country with weapons," he said in an interview with a Peruvian radio stations.
"There is a racial battle between whites and Indians," he said. "It was high time for us (Indians) to take power, that the invaders return our territory," he added.
Demonstrators are demanding new presidential elections, the nationalization of the oil and gas industry and constitutional reform to establish regional autonomy.
Mesa called on Senate leader Hormando Vaca Diez -- first in line to succeed him -- and House of Deputies leader Mario Cossio to resign in order to facilitate early presidential elections.
If both step aside that would allow Supreme Court chief justice Eduardo Rodriguez to become interim leader and call for early elections.
Congress could also reject Mesa's resignation, as it did on March 7, when he also offered to step down amid popular unrest.
Mesa served as president for 20 months, after his predecessor Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada was also driven from office by protests over control of Bolivia's gas reserves.
A successor would serve out the remainder of Sanchez de Lozada's term, through August 2007.
Bolivia's social meltdown pits the poorer Andean regions surrounding La Paz against interests in the modern, relatively prosperous eastern and southern plains, where most of the natural gas wealth is located.
The government has raised taxes on oil and gas companies doing business in Bolivia in a bid to quell discontent, but protest leaders vowed demonstrations would continue until their goal of nationalization is met.
In eastern Bolivia, protesting Guarani Indians took over three oil fields belonging to British Petroleum and four belonging to Spain's Repsol, a spokesman for a group representing the 20 foreign energy concerns operating in Bolivia said.
Protesters earlier took over a pipeline station on the border with Chile, cutting off crude exports to the northern Chilean port of Arica.
The political system is dominated by people of mostly European descent -- many descending from 16th century Spanish conquistadores -- oriented to global markets. But grassroots activism has stirred demonstrators in the majority indigenous Aymara and Quechua nation of 8.5 million to a greater share of their country's wealth.
Bolivia, South America's poorest country, has the second-largest gas reserves in South America, after Venezuela.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS