Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
Encyclopedia
Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada y Sánchez de Bustamante (born July 1, 1930), familiarly known as "Goni", is a Bolivia
n politician, businessman, and former President of Bolivia
. A lifelong member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), he is credited for using "shock therapy
", the economic theory championed by then Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs
. This measure was used by Bolivia in 1985 (when Sánchez de Lozada was Minister of Planning in the government of President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
) to cut hyperinflation
from an estimated 25,000% to a single digit within a period of 6 weeks. More broadly, he is credited with having engineered the restructuring of the Bolivian state and the dismantling the state-capitalist model that had prevailed in the country since the 1952 Revolution.
Sánchez de Lozada was twice elected President of Bolivia, both times on the MNR
ticket. During his first term (1993–97), he initiated a series of landmark social, economic and constitutional reforms. Elected to a second term in 2002, he resigned in October 2003 in protest after violent protests related to the Bolivian gas conflict in which some 60 protesters, soldiers and policemen died. In March 2006, he resigned the leadership of the MNR.
, where he attended boarding school at Scattergood Friends School
and studied literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago
. Having grown up in the United States, his Spanish is accented, leading many Bolivians to refer to him as "El Gringo." He returned to Bolivia
in 1951, on the eve of the 1952 revolution led by the MNR political party, which transformed Bolivia from a semi-feudal oligarchy to a multiparty democracy by introducing universal suffrage
, nationalizing the mines of the three Tin Barons, and carrying out a sweeping agrarian reform. Sánchez de Lozada pursued film-making and participated in several cinematic projects in the 1950s, including the production of early footage of Bolivia's 1952 Revolution. In 1954 he founded Telecine. His film Voces de la Tierra (Voices from the Earth) won First Prize for documentaries at the 1957 Edinburgh film festival. In 1957, he founded Andean Geoservices. In 1966, he founded the mining company COMSUR, later becoming one of the most successful mining entrepreneurs in the country.
In 1979 and again in 1980, on the return to democracy after 18 years of military dictatorships, Sánchez de Lozada was elected to congress as deputy for Cochabamba
. In 1985, he was elected senator from Cochabamba and became President of the Senate. Soon after, President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
named him Planning Minister. As Planning Minister, Sánchez de Lozada oversaw a series of economic structural reforms that steered the country away from state capitalism, towards a mixed economy. He describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social progressive.
Sánchez de Lozada ran for president in 1989 as the MNR candidate. While he won the plurality with 25.6% of the popular vote, in the congressional runoff between the top three candidates, the third-place winner, Jaime Paz Zamora
of the MIR, who had polled 21.8% of the popular vote, won the presidency. Paz Zamora was backed in the runoff by the second-placed, former military dictator Hugo Banzer
of the ADN, who had won 25.2% of the popular vote.
(Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Katari de Liberación, MRTKL), an indigenous party formed in 1985 whose leader Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
was the candidate for vice-president. The MNR-MRTKL ticket won the first plurality, this time with 36.5% of the popular vote, and Sánchez de Lozada was confirmed as president by Congress. A coalition government that included the center left Free Bolivia Movement
(MBL) and populist Civic Solidarity Union
(UCS) was formed. The 1993 electoral victory also made Cárdenas the first elected indigenous vice president in South America.
The 1993–97 MNR-led government initiated a series of Constitutional, social, economic and political reforms. Most noteworthy was the redefinition of Bolivia in the Constitution as multethnic and multicultural and the first articles in Bolivia's Constitutional history enshrining indigenous rights. Other vanguard legislation included the pro-poor Popular Participation Act, which decentralized the country by creating 311 (since expanded to 321) municipal governments and empowered them for local governance. The law introduced direct, municipal elections for the indigenous population, and included direct decision making on municipal spending for which 20 percent of federal spending was guaranteed to the municipalities on a per capita basis. Other reforms included the Educational Reform that introduced classroom teaching in the local indigenous language, Universal Maternity Coverage and milk and medical coverage for children up to the age of five years, a Universal Old-age Annual Benefit, opening elections to independent candidates for congressional seats, Capitalization, a reform which enabled the formation of joint ventures by private capital and the Bolivian people (not the Bolivian state) and requiring the private capital be invested directly in the new company.
The Capitalization reform was controversial because it was perceived as a privatization of five major state-owned companies. The law was controversial because it ceded management of these industries to foreign interests. Supporters of the law, however, believed that the requirement that the private capital be directly invested in the new joint ventures significantly reduced the room for corruption and would bring about the development of these "strategic" resources in the absence of any possibility of Bolivia alone funding their development, that the fiscal obligations of the new companies would greatly increase the funds available for human and social, as well as infrastructure development, and that the dividend payouts for the Bolivian people went to create a universal, annual old-age benefit, the BONOSOL, which though small would have an immense impact on the rural elderly, the most marginalized sector of Bolivia's indigenous population
Finally, the reforms also included changes to the country's electoral laws. A new electoral system was introduced. The change opened elections to independent candidates who were elected by plurality to fill 70 congressional seats, and the remaining 60 seats were filled proportionally by the votes cast for the presidential tickets. Also, the president would no longer be elected from among the top three contenders (if no candidate won an absolute majority), but from among the top two, and his term of office would be five years.
, an independent historian and journalist who had MNR sympathies. Sánchez de Lozada hired U.S. political consultants James Carville
, Stan Greenberg
and Bob Shrum
to advise his campaign.
After running a sophisticated campaign based on public relations strategies formed by the US political consulting firm, Greenberg Carville Shrum, de Lozada seemed well on his way to winning a strong enough plurality to form a strong government. However, three days before the elections the US ambassador publicly warned the Bolivian people against electing "those who want Bolivia to again be an exporter of cocaine" as it would put in jeopardy US aid to Bolivia. The population's subsequent reaction to this statement swelled the anti-US vote of Evo Morales in the last three days of the campaign by 9 percent putting him on the heels of Sánchez de Lozada's vote. Evo Morales
of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) received 20.94% of the popular vote. The center-right neopopulist candidate, Manfred Reyes
of NFR
placed a close third with 20.91% of the popular vote. After a difficult coalition-building process, Sánchez de Lozada was elected in a coalition formed by the MNR-MBL, MIR and UCS, the last two former members of the preceding coalition headed by the rightist, former dictator General Hugo Banzer.
When Sánchez de Lozada took office, he was faced with an economic and social crisis inherited from the preceding administration. Under the preceding administration, economic growth had plunged from the 4.8% at the end of Sánchez de Lozada's first presidency to 0.6% in 1999 and had recovered to only 2% for 2002. The fiscal deficit was running at 8%.
, a group of union leaders (Evo Morales
for the “cocaleros” — coca growers, Jaime Solares
and Roberto de la Cruz for urban workers and miners, Felipe Quispe
for the indigenous farmers in the Aymara region surrounding La Paz
) joined together to found the "People's High Command" (Estado Mayor del pueblo). A new wave of heightened protests began; main roads were blocked and towns and cities were brought to a standstill. Some aired long-standing grievances against the government, others were targeted entirely locally, against decisions of the now self-governing municipalities. In February, a standoff between police demanding higher pay and army units called to protect the presidential palace suddenly ended in violence and deaths in the streets of La Paz without articulated demands.
The acute economic crisis affecting above all the urban workers and the farming/indigenous population fed widespread support for protests in general. Protests and demands became more focused: the cocaleros continued protesting against eradication of a milenary plant (coca) although Banzer’s "Coca 0" policy had been replaced by the earlier subsidized crop substitution policy for gradual coca reduction but not total eradication; the indigenous farmers of the La Paz Aymara region wanted a "re-founding" of Bolivia, with the recognition and inclusion of Bolivia's indigenous ethnic groups as legitimate political blocs, and a type of economic de-centralization based on said recognition of indigenous groups as legitimate political actors. Other demands included autonomy for their territories; urban workers, primarily in La Paz, and miners protested against the proceeds of increasing natural gas production going to foreigners.
Demands for a return to the corporatist state put in place by the 1952 revolution and the nationalization of Bolivia's hydrocarbon resources assumed primacy, and calls began to be heard for the resignation of Sánchez de Lozada. In late September, a convoy of buses and trucks under a police escort was bringing back to La Paz over 700 persons, including foreign tourists, freed after a 10-day blockade of a valley resort town, when the convoy was ambushed on the highlands (Altiplano). The attackers were well armed and gave every indication of being well organized. The armed confrontation left six dead, among them two soldiers and a child.
A few days later, in early October, it claimed that President Sánchez de Lozada had decided to export Bolivia's gas to Mexico
and the United States through a Chile
an port notwithstanding strong public opposition. Rancor runs high against Chile since Bolivia lost its coastal territory to Chile in the late 19th century War of the Pacific
. The main highway from the city of El Alto down to neighboring La Paz was blockaded and the local population called out to protest. A massive demonstration and virtual siege of La Paz ensued.
After three days, fuel and other essential supplies were dangerously low in La Paz. On the fourth day, President Sánchez de Lozada sent a security force to open the way for highly explosive diesel and gasoline cisterns through densely populated neighborhoods to pass safely down to La Paz. The convoys were attacked by rioters at several points along their route. Some of the protesters are said to have been armed with firearms or dynamite sticks. According to official figures, 59 deaths resulted from this incident.
On 17 October, Evo Morales' supporters from Cochabamba tried to march into Santa Cruz, the largest city of the eastern lowlands where support was strong for the president. They were turned back. Faced with the option of resigning or more bloodshed, Sánchez de Lozada offered his resignation in a letter to an emergency session of Congress. After his resignation was accepted and his vice president invested, he left on a commercially scheduled flight for the United States.
According to his attorney, Sánchez de Lozada is currently residing legally in the United States.
in downtown Princeton, New Jersey
. A group of activists from Food & Water Watch, served summons for Sánchez de Lozada for the events of the October 2003 Gas War between presidential candidates. The event was seen as a political stunt as only US Marshals can serve in a case like this, since neither the documents nor the servers had any legal validity or jurisdictional authority. Nonetheless, the documents were transmitted to the U.S. State Department on June 22, 2005.
On November 11, 2008, Bolivia formally served the US government with a request to extradite Sánchez de Lozada back to Bolivia.
On November 10, 2009, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that the claims for crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings could move forward in two related U.S. cases against Gonzalo Daniel Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante and former Bolivian Defense Minister Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. The cases, Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez Berzaín, and Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez de Lozada, seek compensatory and punitive damages under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n politician, businessman, and former President of Bolivia
President of Bolivia
The President of Bolivia is head of state and head of government of Bolivia. According to the current Constitution, the president is elected by popular vote to a five year term, renewable once...
. A lifelong member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), he is credited for using "shock therapy
Shock therapy (economics)
In economics, shock therapy refers to the sudden release of price and currency controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, and immediate trade liberalization within a country, usually also including large scale privatization of previously public owned assets....
", the economic theory championed by then Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs
Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments in the...
. This measure was used by Bolivia in 1985 (when Sánchez de Lozada was Minister of Planning in the government of President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro was a politician and president of Bolivia. He ran for president 8 times , winning in 1951, 1960, 1964, and 1985....
) to cut hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or out of control. While the real values of the specific economic items generally stay the same in terms of relatively stable foreign currencies, in hyperinflationary conditions the general price level within a specific economy increases...
from an estimated 25,000% to a single digit within a period of 6 weeks. More broadly, he is credited with having engineered the restructuring of the Bolivian state and the dismantling the state-capitalist model that had prevailed in the country since the 1952 Revolution.
Sánchez de Lozada was twice elected President of Bolivia, both times on the MNR
Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement is a Bolivian political party, perhaps the most important in the country during the 20th century. At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won, in an alliance with the Free Bolivia Movement, 26.9% of the popular vote and 36 out of 130 seats in the...
ticket. During his first term (1993–97), he initiated a series of landmark social, economic and constitutional reforms. Elected to a second term in 2002, he resigned in October 2003 in protest after violent protests related to the Bolivian gas conflict in which some 60 protesters, soldiers and policemen died. In March 2006, he resigned the leadership of the MNR.
Political life
The son of a political exile, Sánchez de Lozada spent his early years in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he attended boarding school at Scattergood Friends School
Scattergood Friends School
Scattergood Friends School educates students in grades nine through twelve. It is in Cedar County, Iowa, two miles east and one half mile south of the town of West Branch. Founded in 1890 by Iowa Wilburite Quakers to provide a "guarded education" for their own children, it is owned and operated...
and studied literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. Having grown up in the United States, his Spanish is accented, leading many Bolivians to refer to him as "El Gringo." He returned to Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
in 1951, on the eve of the 1952 revolution led by the MNR political party, which transformed Bolivia from a semi-feudal oligarchy to a multiparty democracy by introducing universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, nationalizing the mines of the three Tin Barons, and carrying out a sweeping agrarian reform. Sánchez de Lozada pursued film-making and participated in several cinematic projects in the 1950s, including the production of early footage of Bolivia's 1952 Revolution. In 1954 he founded Telecine. His film Voces de la Tierra (Voices from the Earth) won First Prize for documentaries at the 1957 Edinburgh film festival. In 1957, he founded Andean Geoservices. In 1966, he founded the mining company COMSUR, later becoming one of the most successful mining entrepreneurs in the country.
In 1979 and again in 1980, on the return to democracy after 18 years of military dictatorships, Sánchez de Lozada was elected to congress as deputy for Cochabamba
Cochabamba
Cochabamba is a city in central Bolivia, located in a valley bearing the same name in the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cochabamba Department and is the fourth largest city in Bolivia with an urban population of 608,276 and a metropolitan population of more than 1,000,000 people...
. In 1985, he was elected senator from Cochabamba and became President of the Senate. Soon after, President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro was a politician and president of Bolivia. He ran for president 8 times , winning in 1951, 1960, 1964, and 1985....
named him Planning Minister. As Planning Minister, Sánchez de Lozada oversaw a series of economic structural reforms that steered the country away from state capitalism, towards a mixed economy. He describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social progressive.
Sánchez de Lozada ran for president in 1989 as the MNR candidate. While he won the plurality with 25.6% of the popular vote, in the congressional runoff between the top three candidates, the third-place winner, Jaime Paz Zamora
Jaime Paz Zamora
Jaime Paz Zamora was President of Bolivia from August 6, 1989 to August 6, 1993. He also served as Vice-President between 1982 and 1984.-Foundation of the MIR and alliance with Siles Zuazo:...
of the MIR, who had polled 21.8% of the popular vote, won the presidency. Paz Zamora was backed in the runoff by the second-placed, former military dictator Hugo Banzer
Hugo Banzer
Hugo Banzer Suárez was a politician, military general, dictator and President of Bolivia. He held the Bolivian presidency twice: from August 22, 1971 to July 21, 1978, as a dictator; and then again from August 6, 1997 to August 7, 2001, as constitutional President.-Military and ideological...
of the ADN, who had won 25.2% of the popular vote.
The first presidency: 1993–1997
In 1993, Sánchez de Lozada again ran for president, this time in alliance with the MBL, a leftist party, and the Tupac Katari Revolutionary Liberation MovementRevolutionary Liberation Movement Tupaq Katari
The Revolutionary Liberation Movement Tupaq Katari is a left-wing political party in Bolivia....
(Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Katari de Liberación, MRTKL), an indigenous party formed in 1985 whose leader Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas
Víctor Hugo Cárdenas Conde is a Bolivian indigenous Aymara activist and politician. He is the leader of the MRTKL party...
was the candidate for vice-president. The MNR-MRTKL ticket won the first plurality, this time with 36.5% of the popular vote, and Sánchez de Lozada was confirmed as president by Congress. A coalition government that included the center left Free Bolivia Movement
Free Bolivia Movement
The Free Bolivia Movement is a progressive political party in Bolivia. The party was formed on January 15, 1985, following a split in MIR...
(MBL) and populist Civic Solidarity Union
Civic Solidarity Union
The Civic Solidarity Union is a political party in Bolivia.At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won 5.3% of the popular vote and five out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies but no Senate seats. UCS was founded on 15 August 1989 by Max Fernández, and is currently led by his son,...
(UCS) was formed. The 1993 electoral victory also made Cárdenas the first elected indigenous vice president in South America.
The 1993–97 MNR-led government initiated a series of Constitutional, social, economic and political reforms. Most noteworthy was the redefinition of Bolivia in the Constitution as multethnic and multicultural and the first articles in Bolivia's Constitutional history enshrining indigenous rights. Other vanguard legislation included the pro-poor Popular Participation Act, which decentralized the country by creating 311 (since expanded to 321) municipal governments and empowered them for local governance. The law introduced direct, municipal elections for the indigenous population, and included direct decision making on municipal spending for which 20 percent of federal spending was guaranteed to the municipalities on a per capita basis. Other reforms included the Educational Reform that introduced classroom teaching in the local indigenous language, Universal Maternity Coverage and milk and medical coverage for children up to the age of five years, a Universal Old-age Annual Benefit, opening elections to independent candidates for congressional seats, Capitalization, a reform which enabled the formation of joint ventures by private capital and the Bolivian people (not the Bolivian state) and requiring the private capital be invested directly in the new company.
The Capitalization reform was controversial because it was perceived as a privatization of five major state-owned companies. The law was controversial because it ceded management of these industries to foreign interests. Supporters of the law, however, believed that the requirement that the private capital be directly invested in the new joint ventures significantly reduced the room for corruption and would bring about the development of these "strategic" resources in the absence of any possibility of Bolivia alone funding their development, that the fiscal obligations of the new companies would greatly increase the funds available for human and social, as well as infrastructure development, and that the dividend payouts for the Bolivian people went to create a universal, annual old-age benefit, the BONOSOL, which though small would have an immense impact on the rural elderly, the most marginalized sector of Bolivia's indigenous population
Finally, the reforms also included changes to the country's electoral laws. A new electoral system was introduced. The change opened elections to independent candidates who were elected by plurality to fill 70 congressional seats, and the remaining 60 seats were filled proportionally by the votes cast for the presidential tickets. Also, the president would no longer be elected from among the top three contenders (if no candidate won an absolute majority), but from among the top two, and his term of office would be five years.
The second presidency: 2002–2003
In 2002, Sánchez de Lozada again ran for president. As his running mate, Sánchez de Lozada chose Carlos MesaCarlos Mesa
Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert is a Bolivian politician, historian and President of Bolivia from October 17, 2003 until his resignation on June 6, 2005....
, an independent historian and journalist who had MNR sympathies. Sánchez de Lozada hired U.S. political consultants James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
, Stan Greenberg
Stan Greenberg
Stanley Bernard Greenberg is a leading Democratic pollster and political strategist who has advised the campaigns of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry, as well as hundreds of other candidates and organizations in the United States and around the world, including the former Bundeskanzler ...
and Bob Shrum
Bob Shrum
Robert M. "Bob" Shrum is an American political consultant, who has worked on numerous Democratic campaigns.-Education:Shrum was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania and raised in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of Loyola High School of Los Angeles and Georgetown University...
to advise his campaign.
After running a sophisticated campaign based on public relations strategies formed by the US political consulting firm, Greenberg Carville Shrum, de Lozada seemed well on his way to winning a strong enough plurality to form a strong government. However, three days before the elections the US ambassador publicly warned the Bolivian people against electing "those who want Bolivia to again be an exporter of cocaine" as it would put in jeopardy US aid to Bolivia. The population's subsequent reaction to this statement swelled the anti-US vote of Evo Morales in the last three days of the campaign by 9 percent putting him on the heels of Sánchez de Lozada's vote. Evo Morales
Evo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...
of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) received 20.94% of the popular vote. The center-right neopopulist candidate, Manfred Reyes
Manfred Reyes Villa
Manfred Reyes Villa is a Bolivian politician, who was mayor of Cochabamba four times and ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2002 and 2009 against Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Evo Morales Ayma. He founded and led the Nueva Fuerza Republicana political party...
of NFR
New Republican Force
The New Republican Force is a center-right personalist political party in Bolivia.At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won 26.5 % of the popular vote and 25 out of 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and two out of 27 seats in the Senate...
placed a close third with 20.91% of the popular vote. After a difficult coalition-building process, Sánchez de Lozada was elected in a coalition formed by the MNR-MBL, MIR and UCS, the last two former members of the preceding coalition headed by the rightist, former dictator General Hugo Banzer.
When Sánchez de Lozada took office, he was faced with an economic and social crisis inherited from the preceding administration. Under the preceding administration, economic growth had plunged from the 4.8% at the end of Sánchez de Lozada's first presidency to 0.6% in 1999 and had recovered to only 2% for 2002. The fiscal deficit was running at 8%.
Gas War and resignation
From his inauguration in August 2002 until the end of the year, there were fewer public tensions. In January 2003 and under the leadership of Evo MoralesEvo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...
, a group of union leaders (Evo Morales
Evo Morales
Juan Evo Morales Ayma , popularly known as Evo , is a Bolivian politician and activist, currently serving as the 80th President of Bolivia, a position that he has held since 2006. He is also the leader of both the Movement for Socialism party and the cocalero trade union...
for the “cocaleros” — coca growers, Jaime Solares
Jaime Solares
Jaime Solares is a Bolivian labor leader, and a major figure in the Bolivian Workers' Center , Bolivia's largest union confederation.-Further reading:...
and Roberto de la Cruz for urban workers and miners, Felipe Quispe
Felipe Quispe
Felipe Quispe Huanca "El Mallku" is an ethnic Aymara Bolivian political leader. He heads the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement and has also been general secretary of the United Union Confederation of Working Peasants of Bolivia...
for the indigenous farmers in the Aymara region surrounding La Paz
La Paz
Nuestra Señora de La Paz is the administrative capital of Bolivia, as well as the departmental capital of the La Paz Department, and the second largest city in the country after Santa Cruz de la Sierra...
) joined together to found the "People's High Command" (Estado Mayor del pueblo). A new wave of heightened protests began; main roads were blocked and towns and cities were brought to a standstill. Some aired long-standing grievances against the government, others were targeted entirely locally, against decisions of the now self-governing municipalities. In February, a standoff between police demanding higher pay and army units called to protect the presidential palace suddenly ended in violence and deaths in the streets of La Paz without articulated demands.
The acute economic crisis affecting above all the urban workers and the farming/indigenous population fed widespread support for protests in general. Protests and demands became more focused: the cocaleros continued protesting against eradication of a milenary plant (coca) although Banzer’s "Coca 0" policy had been replaced by the earlier subsidized crop substitution policy for gradual coca reduction but not total eradication; the indigenous farmers of the La Paz Aymara region wanted a "re-founding" of Bolivia, with the recognition and inclusion of Bolivia's indigenous ethnic groups as legitimate political blocs, and a type of economic de-centralization based on said recognition of indigenous groups as legitimate political actors. Other demands included autonomy for their territories; urban workers, primarily in La Paz, and miners protested against the proceeds of increasing natural gas production going to foreigners.
Demands for a return to the corporatist state put in place by the 1952 revolution and the nationalization of Bolivia's hydrocarbon resources assumed primacy, and calls began to be heard for the resignation of Sánchez de Lozada. In late September, a convoy of buses and trucks under a police escort was bringing back to La Paz over 700 persons, including foreign tourists, freed after a 10-day blockade of a valley resort town, when the convoy was ambushed on the highlands (Altiplano). The attackers were well armed and gave every indication of being well organized. The armed confrontation left six dead, among them two soldiers and a child.
A few days later, in early October, it claimed that President Sánchez de Lozada had decided to export Bolivia's gas to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and the United States through a Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an port notwithstanding strong public opposition. Rancor runs high against Chile since Bolivia lost its coastal territory to Chile in the late 19th century War of the Pacific
War of the Pacific
The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...
. The main highway from the city of El Alto down to neighboring La Paz was blockaded and the local population called out to protest. A massive demonstration and virtual siege of La Paz ensued.
After three days, fuel and other essential supplies were dangerously low in La Paz. On the fourth day, President Sánchez de Lozada sent a security force to open the way for highly explosive diesel and gasoline cisterns through densely populated neighborhoods to pass safely down to La Paz. The convoys were attacked by rioters at several points along their route. Some of the protesters are said to have been armed with firearms or dynamite sticks. According to official figures, 59 deaths resulted from this incident.
On 17 October, Evo Morales' supporters from Cochabamba tried to march into Santa Cruz, the largest city of the eastern lowlands where support was strong for the president. They were turned back. Faced with the option of resigning or more bloodshed, Sánchez de Lozada offered his resignation in a letter to an emergency session of Congress. After his resignation was accepted and his vice president invested, he left on a commercially scheduled flight for the United States.
According to his attorney, Sánchez de Lozada is currently residing legally in the United States.
Attempts at extradition
On November 3, 2005, Sánchez de Lozada was speaking at the reception sponsored by a non-profit group associated with Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
in downtown Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
. A group of activists from Food & Water Watch, served summons for Sánchez de Lozada for the events of the October 2003 Gas War between presidential candidates. The event was seen as a political stunt as only US Marshals can serve in a case like this, since neither the documents nor the servers had any legal validity or jurisdictional authority. Nonetheless, the documents were transmitted to the U.S. State Department on June 22, 2005.
On November 11, 2008, Bolivia formally served the US government with a request to extradite Sánchez de Lozada back to Bolivia.
On November 10, 2009, the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that the claims for crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings could move forward in two related U.S. cases against Gonzalo Daniel Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante and former Bolivian Defense Minister Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín. The cases, Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez Berzaín, and Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez de Lozada, seek compensatory and punitive damages under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS).
See also
- Sánchez de Lozada is a member of Club of MadridClub of MadridThe Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Composed of 80 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 56 countries, the Club de Madrid is the world’s largest forum of former Heads of State and Government.Among...
. - Sánchez de Lozada reforms.
- Our Brand Is CrisisOur Brand Is CrisisOur Brand Is Crisis is a 2005 documentary film by Rachel Boynton on American political campaign marketing tactics by Greenberg Carville Shrum in the 2002 Bolivian presidential election...
, a 2006 documentary about Sánchez de Lozada's second presidential campaign and the advice he received from American political consultants - List of presidents of Bolivia
- History of BoliviaHistory of BoliviaThis is the history of Bolivia. See also the history of Latin America and the history of the Americas.Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America...
- Politics of BoliviaPolitics of BoliviaThe politics of Bolivia takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the president is head of state, head of government and head of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the...
External links
- Biography of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in the official website of the Presidency of the Republic of Bolivia http://www.presidencia.gov.bo/Presidentes_Bolivia/pr61.htm
- Social and Economis Reforms of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada unofficial website of his Presidency of the Republic of Bolivia http://sanchezdelozada.info/
- Gallery of portraits and biographies of presidents of Bolivia http://www.presidencia.gov.bo/Presidentes_Bolivia/pr_Bolivia.htm
- Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/index.html
- Interview from Commanding Heights, PBS documentary
- October 2003: A complete analysis http://www.boliviauncovered.com