BOLIVIA: AROUND 30,000 PROTESTERS IN SANTA CRUZ MARCH AGAINST PRESIDENT CARLOS MENA

Record ID: 647284

  • Title: BOLIVIA: AROUND 30,000 PROTESTERS IN SANTA CRUZ MARCH AGAINST PRESIDENT CARLOS MENA
  • Date: 21st January 2005
  • Summary: (BN06) SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, BOLIVIA (JANUARY 21, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF MARCH (6 SHOTS) 0.24 2. WS: PROTESTERS GATHERED IN SANTA CRUZ'S MAIN PLAZA 0.27 3. SCU: WOMAN HITTING A POT 0.31 4. MV'S: EFFIGIES OF NATIONAL LEADERS BEING BURNED (2 SHOTS) 0.37 5. GENERAL VIEW OF PROTEST 0.41 6. VARIOUS PROTESTERS IN FRONT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT BUILDING (12 SHOTS) 1.29 7. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) OPPOSITION LEADER JOSE CESPEDES SAYING: "Santa Cruz is asking for autonomy in this moment. It wants the designation of a governor by January 28." 1.36 8. WS: CROWD SHOUTING "MESA MUST GO" 1.46 9. VARIOUS OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS THAT WERE TAKEN OVER BY PROTESTERS (4 SHOTS) 2.01 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER WHO HELPED TAKE OVER A PUBLIC BUILDING SAYING: "We want to ask for autonomy - we don't want the national government anymore. We want departmental leaders. An autonomy that we determine for ourselves, by the people." 2.12 11. VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS ON HUNGER STRIKE (10 SHOTS) 2.45 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 5th February 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, BOLIVIA
  • Country: Bolivia
  • Reuters ID: LVA58N1FCOQGMJSA5WK4MQ86NLF4
  • Story Text: Some 30,000 people march against Bolivian president
    Carlos Mesa.


    Protesters in Bolivia's wealthy Santa Cruz province
    stepped up their pressure on President Carlos Mesa on
    Friday (January 21) by announcing plans to set up their own
    separatist government and break ties with the capital, La
    Paz.

    About 30,000 protesters, waving the green and white
    provincial flag, marched to the main square of Santa Cruz,
    the regional capital, chanting "autonomy, autonomy!" and
    "Mesa out!"
    "Santa Cruz is asking for autonomy in this moment. It
    wants the designation of a governor by January 28,"
    opposition leader Jose Cespedes said.

    Ruben Costas, the leader of a Santa Cruz civic group
    leading the protests, announced to the noisy crowd that an
    independent administration would "begin functioning
    immediately if the assembly approved it." He declined to
    provide more details.

    The announcement came after two weeks of crippling
    strikes and blockades, triggered by fuel price hikes, that
    paralysed the country's two biggest cities and threatened
    to unseat Mesa.

    The protests initially included an unusual alliance of
    conservative business leaders and poor, indigenous groups
    from El Alto, the centre of a bloody October, 2003, revolt
    that ousted the previous president, U.S. ally Gonzalo
    Sanchez de Lozada.

    But the tension eased in El Alto this week after Mesa,
    a former television news anchor with no political
    affiliation, scaled back the fuel prices hikes and also
    bowed to protesters' demands to cancel a foreign-owned
    water utility contract.

    However, those concessions failed to satisfy opposition
    groups in affluent Santa Cruz 550 miles (900 km) southeast
    of the capital, where a European-descended conservative
    elite not only wants the fuel price hikes fully reversed
    and Mesa's resignation but wants to manage its own affairs
    without interference from La Paz.

    Analysts said Santa Cruz could bring down Mesa just as
    El Alto toppled Sanchez de Lozada.

    In addition to Friday's march, several protesters peacefully
    took over various public buildings.

    "We want to ask for autonomy - we don't want the
    national government anymore. We want departmental leaders.

    An autonomy that we determine for ourselves, by the
    people," explained one protester who helped take over a
    building.

    Meanwhile, some 200 other protesters continued a hunger
    strike they began this week.

    Mesa has been in office since October, 2003. His term
    expires in 2007.

    The leader, backed by Washington for his backing in the
    anti-drug campaign in the Andean countries, scrambled to
    rally support in Congress to prevent the fragile democracy
    from crumbling.

    Lawmakers agreed on Friday to mediate between Mesa and
    the opposition, sending a committee to Santa Cruz to start
    talks.

    But analysts fear more upheaval is inevitable in South
    America's poorest nation, where a small minority own the
    riches of natural gas, mining and farming and where most in
    the indigenous majority scrape by on less than 2 US dollars
    a day.
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