BOLIVIAN
PRESIDENT RESIGNS, PARLIAMENT APPROVES
18 October 2003
Bolivia's
embattled President Gonzalo Sánchez
de Lozada resigned yesterday, in the wake of violent
protests and demonstrations that rattled the country
for weeks. The president delivered his resignation
to the parliament for consideration, the parliament
voted to approve the resignation, allowing the vice
president to complete the term which lasts until 2007.
It
is estimated that 74 people were killed in violent
clashes between anti-government protesters and state
police during the month leading up to the resignation.
During the demonstrations, public transit, air traffic,
trade and economic activity have stalled, increasing
the anxiety and unrest in the Andean country. According
to Pravda,
the city of La Paz was choked for food supplies as
roadblocks prevented deliveries of basic goods to
the capital. The middle class joined the demonstrations,
making the tenuous government coalition less viable,
precipitating the withdrawal of political support
for Sánchez de Lozada.
A key political ally, part of the president's governing
coalition, chose to withdraw support for the embattled
Sánchez de Lozada, saying “This can’t
go on.” The massive protests were spurred by
widespread popular opposition to a trade plan to export
large amounts of Natural Gas to the US and Mexico.
The population was outraged by the plan, because natural
gas is still largely unavailable to most Bolivians,
despite the nation’s having one of the world’s
largest natural reserves.
Widespread
opposition to the US plan to eradicate all coca crops
in the country also contributed to the organization
and the duration of the protests. Opposition leader
and representative of the Coca-growers Union, Evo
Morales, who placed second in the 2002 elections,
is a major organizer of indigenous populations and
has said that the demonstrations and the ouster of
Sánchez de Lozada showed defiance of a "culture
of death" and support for the "culture of
life" shared by indigenous peoples around the
world.
Bolivia
still dwells in a problematic system of post-colonial
hierarchy, in which an ethnic Spanish ruling class
controls most of the wealth in a country with an 80%-indigenous
population. Sánchez de Lozada lived most of
his life in the US, where he was educated, and speaks
Spanish with a North American accent, causing many
Bolivians (he won a plurality with only 23% of the
votes in 2002) to mistrust him as an outsider who
overlooks domestic concerns.
The
convergence between these suspicions, ongoing economic
distress, and the provocative issues of gas exports
and coca eradication, is thought to be the key circumstantial
impetus to the unrest across Bolivia which led to
the president's resignation. The US is sending a contingent
of military personnel to assess the security situation.
