Thursday Brings a New Assault on Power in Bolivia

The day was a bit rough in La Paz, but not so much as in the last few weeks: the tension has moved to other places, mainly Sucre, the nominal capital of Bolivia where the National Congress will supposedly meet to decide on whether Carlos Mesa will leave the presidency.

In El Alto, the organizations there decided this afternoon to create a Popular Assembly, to begin, now, the first moves towards self-government. Meanwhile, thousands of miners and many Aymara peasant farmers are on their way to Sucre, which in these hours is already surrounded by that area’s rural poor.

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Downtown La Paz was nearly deserted this morning after weeks of mobilizations. There were a few small marches, such as the El Alto bus drivers’ union and several hundred peasant farmers from around the country allied with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). But what is now well known is that the gasoline is gone, the food scarce, and because of this, urban life is declining.

The great majority of the miners who faced the police with dynamite downtown yesterday have already departed towards Sucre. And thousands more head there as well. Among them, hundreds of rural Aymaras, who decided to go as well this morning to surround the National Congress and stop its president, Senator Hormando Vaca Díez, from taking the office of president of the republic.

Vaca Díez, in a conference early this morning, said that he is willing to assume command and reaffirm the weakened Bolivian right’s political line.

Tomorrow, we will try to learn whether this conflict will deepen, who decided its end, or if there is a possibility of calling early elections, as Mesa proposed last night…

Kind readers, renew your strength tonight and wait for tomorrow...

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From somewhere in a country called América,

Luis A. Gómez
Acting Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

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