Indian miners fight to join siege against Bolivian president

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Regardless of the outcome, this is clearly the most decisive battle in
Latin America since the defeat of the coup attempt against Chavez in
April 2002. And it may be the biggest popular battle fought in Bolivia
since 1952.

The imperialist media clearly seem to suspect that the army cannot be
relied on in a conflict of this scope and depth.  The fact that troops
are now surrounding the Presidential Palace signals that the army's
guns may now be pointing both ways, although so far only the masses
are being fired on.
Fred Feldman

Bolivian Troops Fight Back Protesters
1 hour, 15 minutes ago


By Alistair Scrutton

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivia's army fought to stop a column of
dynamite-wielding Indian miners from streaming into the besieged
capital on Wednesday, leaving two dead as a popular uprising against
the president spread.


Catholic priest Porfirio Ticona, who saw the bodies, said two miners
were killed and nine other protesters injured 50 miles outside La Paz
as a convoy of miners threw dynamite at soldiers manning a road block.
The government said the miners carried "a huge quantity" of dynamite.


Thousands of coca farmers and workers, including miners who blew up
dynamite sticks on cobbled colonial streets, rallied in the center of
La Paz only blocks away from a presidential palace guarded by a ring
of riot police and armored vehicles.


"For God's sake Goni, Go!" shouted student Rene Roca, draped in a
multicolored Inca flag. Goni is a common name for President Gonzalo
Sanchez de Lozada, whose free market policies are blamed for the
poverty of this landlocked nation.


The month-long revolt against Sanchez de Lozada's U.S.-backed policies
has resulted in a steady stream of fatalities, with the estimated
death toll now at 55. No official figures were available.


Analysts say Sanchez de Lozada, whose coalition is crumbling, will
have to make concessions to protesters to prevent the violence from
toppling his administration.


At least 14 rights activists and intellectuals went on hunger strike
on Wednesday to demand the president quit, the common rallying cry of
demonstrators.


In El Alto, an area on the outskirts of La Paz that has been a focus
of protests, five cars of a cargo train were blown off a bridge with
explosives, falling on to a road below. There were no reported
victims.


PROTESTS SPREAD


Protests have spread across Bolivia, engulfing Cochabamba, southeast
of La Paz, the center of unpopular, U.S.-backed efforts to eradicate
coca. Marchers threw rocks at police and Molotov cocktails at a
government palace.


The government in South America's poorest nation, where six out of 10
people live on less than $2 a day, is under attack for a host of
grievances ranging from plans to export natural gas to the United
States to the eradication of coca, the raw material used to make
cocaine.


Columns of workers, farmers and miners from the region surrounding La
Paz have streamed toward the high-altitude capital. Some miners were
stopped by the army but others have reached the capital. The
government says it will not allow them to reach the city center,
accusing them of planning violence.


There were sporadic clashes in La Paz as police fired tear gas at
demonstrators in the morning.


The city was nearly cut off from supplies of fuel and basic foodstuffs
like bread and eggs. Banks and schools were shut and Indian markets
sold only rotting vegetables. Congress closed its doors, airlines
could not land at the one international airport and tourists were
trapped.


Thousands of Bolivians in the poor outskirts of the city set up
barricades of tires and stones along key access routes to the capital
and stoned anyone who tried to drive past.


The United States on Wednesday warned citizens not to travel to La Paz
and the surrounding area.


Pope John Paul  also appealed for an end to the violence in his weekly
general audience and urged citizens of the mostly Catholic country to
"prefer civil dialogue and seek fair solutions."


Spanish oil and gas group Repsol has temporarily halted plans to
export gas from Bolivia.

Criticism of the gas project through Chile, which has a border dispute
with Bolivia, is one of the rallying cries of the Indian-led
opposition's campaign to force Sanchez de Lozada to resign. Sanchez de
Lozada on Monday shelved any decision on the project until next year.
(Additional reporting by Rene Villegas in La Paz and Eduardo Kragelund
in Cochabamba)









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