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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Bolivian gas plans provoke protests

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands took to the streets in the capital, chanting anti-government slogans despite an announcement Monday by Bolivia's president that he will shelve controversial plans for natural gas exports.\nThe plans to sell gas to the United States and Mexico had already provoked massive protests in which at least 16 people have been killed.\nBut President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada's decision to abandon the project was followed by criticism from his own vice president, demands that he resign, large demonstrations and a public transportation strike that virtually paralyzed La Paz Monday.\n"I cannot continue to support the situation we are living," Vice President Carlos Mesa said, urging the president to change his policies. However, Mesa said he will not resign.\nDevelopment Minister Jorge Torres, however, did step down citing "insurmountable differences" with the president.\nThe embattled president addressed the nation on radio and television after meeting with top advisers and military leaders, amid indications that his three-year old government was weakening.\nSanchez de Lozada vowed "to defeat the sedition and restore order," and called the massive protests "a plot encouraged from abroad aimed at destroying Bolivia and staining our democracy with blood." He did not elaborate.\nAs the president spoke, marches and sporadic clashes continued in La Paz. Witnesses said demonstrators threw rocks at the residence of former President Jaime Paz Zamora, a close associate to Sanchez de Lozada. No one was injured and Paz was not at the house at the time. The presidential palace, meanwhile, was under heavy military guard.\nBut for the most part, Monday's marches appeared peaceful. Radio stations were urging soldiers and police to use restraint.\n"Do not shoot. Let's stop the killing among Bolivians," the announcers repeated.\nProtesters were reportedly blocking roads in several areas in the country.\nDuring weekend protests in El Alto, a city of 750,000 people next to La Paz, soldiers killed at least five demonstrators, according to witnesses. The government had earlier reported 11 deaths, bringing the total in that city to at least 16. The government declared martial law, sending soldiers with automatic weapons to patrol the streets.\nResidents and human rights groups say the number of victims is probably close to 20.\nThe government had estimated that revenues from the gas exports would bring about $1.5 billion a year to Bolivia, South America's poorest nation.\nBut union leaders and the nation's poor Indian majority, which has frequently led protests against government attempts to privatize the country's state industries, argue the economic benefits won't reach them.\nThe president told an early morning news conference that he will promote a national dialogue on the gas exports.\n"There will be no gas exports to new markets," Sanchez de Lozada said.\nHe said the dialogue, in which his government will gather opinions from all sectors in the country, should last until the end of the year.\nProtest leaders said shelving the project won't stop the demonstrations.\n"We will not stop until he (the president) goes away," Roberto de la Cruz, a union leader in El Alto, said Monday.\nAlso Monday, Congressman Evo Morales, a protest leader, said that "the only political solution to this crisis is the resignation of the president of the republic."\nThe decision to shelve the gas plan "is not enough for the Bolivian people," Morales told Radio Cooperativa of Chile. "What the Bolivian people want is that the gas remain in Bolivia, for the benefit of Bolivians."\nThe president defiantly dismissed the demands for his resignation, saying that "my government is the result of a popular election," and has the support of the armed forces and the police. Sanchez de Lozada, a millionaire businessman in the mining industry who grew up in the United States, was elected in 2002 to a five-year term.\nHe accused Morales and Felipe Quispe, another protest leader, of promoting an alleged plot to overthrow him, but at the same time offered to negotiate with them and "with all sectors."\nQuispe and Morales quickly rejected the offer and insisted that the president must go.\nIn Washington, the Organization of American States Secretary General Cesar Gaviria condemned the violence, saying Monday that it already has "cost many lives" and warned "any government that arises anti-democratically is absolutely unacceptable in the Americas."\nThe plan called for exporting gas from Bolivia's mammoth reserves in the southern region of Tarija to the United States and Mexico.\nOpponents are especially upset that the government might pick a port in Chile to ship the gas. Bolivia has been a landlocked nation since it lost its coastline in an 1879 war against Chile, and resentment against its neighbor is still strong.\nSanchez de Lozada has said he would prefer a Peruvian port, but admitted one in Chile would be technically and economically more convenient for the now idled project, which would involve a $6 billion investment by an international consortium.

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