Home > Thousands Seek Ouster of Bolivian Leader
Thousands Seek Ouster of Bolivian Leader
By KEVIN GRAY, Associated Press Writer
October 17, 2003, Reuters
LA PAZ, Bolivia - Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada inherited a
country suffering a deep economic crisis and long-
simmering class and racial tensions when he became
president of Bolivia.
Now those problems have exploded into deadly street
riots that threaten his presidency a little more than a
year after he took office.
For weeks, poor Bolivian miners, peasants and indigenous
groups have taken to the streets, demanding Sanchez de
Lozada’s resignation in a burst of animosity directed at
a government plan to export natural gas to the United
States and Mexico.
Highly unpopular, the proposal tapped deep discord with
Bolivia’s decade-old free-market experiment, which has
brought punishing price hikes and austerity programs.
The proposal also underscored spreading popular distrust
with his administration’s U.S.-backed anti-coca growing
policies, which have deprived thousands of poor Indian
farmers of their livelihood and plunged the president’s
popularity ratings into the single-digits.
A 73-year-old mining magnate, Sanchez de Lozada is a
U.S.-educated millionaire elected with 22 percent of the
vote in August 2002. He previously served as president
from 1993 until 1997.
It didn’t take long before his government was put to the
test.
In February, protests over a government austerity plan
provoked two days of riots that left 31 people dead.
Striking police officers clashed with soldiers in a
groundswell of invective over proposed tax hikes and
salary cuts that sparked demonstrations, roadblocks and
widespread looting.
After escaping from the besieged presidential palace in
an ambulance, Sanchez de Lozada gave a nationally
televised speech appealing for calm and announcing he
would suspend the tax increases. His decision calmed the
furor in the streets, but it laid the foundation for the
latest crisis.
Politicians in the coalition government began to
distance themselves from Sanchez de Lozada after he
began floating an ambitious plan three weeks ago to
export natural gas to a North American market that is
hungry for the fuel.
The president called those resources "a gift from God"
that would bring millions of dollars annually to a cash-
strapped Andean country. But few here believe his claims
that average Bolivians, many of whom earn only a few
dollars a day, would benefit.
Bolivia, which declared its independence from Spain in
1825, is a majority indigenous country where many speak
Spanish haltingly. The country yielded its vast mineral
wealth to its colonial rulers â€" and many see the gas-
export project as a return to that legacy.
Opponents also object to the use of neighboring Chile, a
longtime rival, to export the fuel and argued the $5
billion project would only benefit wealthy elites.
Soon street clashes ensued.
Human rights groups report that as many as 65 people
have been killed in the clashes between police and
government opponents, a group that includes miners and
rural peasants.
The government will not confirm a figure, but critics
say heavy-handed government tactics in quelling the
dissent have only furthered the aims of labor and
indigenous leaders arrayed against the president and his
U.S.-backed investment policies.
Where once he was the butt of jokes among some Bolivians
because he speaks Spanish with an American accent, now
his nickname "Goni" is being chanted by angry marchers
in the streets who are demanding his ouster.
Sanchez de Lozada was raised in Washington, where his
father was a diplomat. He went on to study philosophy
and English literature at the University of Chicago.
"How can we have a president that sounds like that?"
said Jorge Carrasco, a 31-year-old waiter who joined
thousands of demonstrators Thursday chanting "Goni, you
have to go!"
But Sanchez de Lozada has said he would not consider
resigning, saying "it has not even passed through my
mind to step down."