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Crisis deepens as death toll mounts in Bolivia: Yes, it's oil again
Khaleej Times, (AFP)
13 October 2003
LA PAZ - Bolivia’s weeks-old political crisis deepened on Monday, with five more dead in clashes between protesters and security forces, and opposition leaders dismissing a government call for dialogue.
Government official Ernesto Justiniano acknowledged that bloody clashes on Sunday killed four civilians and one soldier in El Alto, a city of half a million residents 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) west of La Paz.
That brings to ten the number of people killed since unrest erupted in El Alto on October 9 -- but local church-linked media gave higher tolls.
Catholic radio station Erbol said 26 had died and 90 were wounded by bullets and buckshot. Fides, a news agency also linked to the church, said 15 had died and 88 were wounded.
Leaders of the Catholic Church and humanitarian organizations called the events in El Alto “a true massacre” in a letter to President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who sent troops to the flashpoint city late on Saturday after his government accused the opposition of plotting to overthrow the government.
The groups said they had been able to confirm from multiple sources that the army used in El Alto “large-caliber weapons, including heavy machine-guns, against the Bolivian people.”
Airlines on Sunday cancelled flights in and out of La Paz International Airport, located on the road between La Paz and El Alto. Airport sources said flights would resume on Monday if calm returned.
Clashes continued late on Sunday and unions pledged to paralyze traffic with roadblocks from Monday to press their demand for Sanchez de Lozada to annul a controversial law governing hydrocarbon exports, or step down.
Protesters oppose the planned export of natural gas to the United States via Chile under terms they say do not benefit Bolivians. They say that under current law Bolivia would get only 18 percent of the profits from the project.
The international oil companies involved in the project, Pacific LNG and Sempras, want the gas exported via a planned five-billion-dollar pipeline to the Chilean port of Patillos.
Landlocked Bolivia lost its Pacific coast territory in a war with Chile in 1879. The two nations have not had diplomatic relations since 1978.
At least 20 people have died in the last three weeks, including two children, in clashes between security forces and civilians.
El Alto residents were pleading on radio broadcasts on Sunday for blood donations and medicine, and hospitals said they were short on staff because doctors living in La Paz could not get to work due to roadblocks and unrest.
The government said it was opening a dialogue late on Sunday with union and community leaders from El Alto in a bid to restore calm to the city, but the Bolivian Worker’s Central, a main promoter of the protests, dismissed its importance.
“We don’t want to negotiate,” said Angel Villca, leader of the Federation of Neighborhood Boards in El Alto. “We only want the government to issue a decree repealing the hydrocarbon law, and for them to tell us that gas will not be exported via Chile or Peru, and that they will industrialize Bolivia.”
Roberto de la Cruz, another union leader from El Alto, said that he and other political leaders had gone into hiding after the government accused them of plotting a coup.
Evo Morales, a lawmaker and leader of Bolivia’s main opposition party, Movement Toward Socialism, denied the coup charges.
“This conflict is fundamentally about natural gas. All Bolivian people know that the gas is in the hands of transnationals, and the only way to solve this problem is for Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to guarantee the return of gas and hydrocarbons to Bolivians,” he added.
Morales has called for new roadblocks on Monday which if successful will paralyze the main artery connecting the east and west of the country.
A powerful union representing public transit drivers has called for a 24-hour strike on Tuesday, and bakers have announced they will go on strike for three days starting on Monday.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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