Mass protests force president to resign
Is Bolivia on the edge of revolution?
June 10, 2005 | Pages 6 and 7
BOLIVIAN PRESIDENT Carlos Mesa was driven out of office June 6 following weeks of escalating protests demanding nationalization of the country’s natural gas resources.
Who would succeed Mesa was still uncertain as Socialist Worker went to press, but it was clear that the popular movement against transnational corporate domination of Bolivia’s natural resources and the country’s own native elite had scored a huge victory.
The upheaval in Bolivia is the latest flashpoint in a wave of struggle crisscrossing Latin America—from Ecuador, where the government of Lucio Gutiérrez was toppled in April, to Venezuela, with the sharpening of anti-imperialist sentiment in the face of renewed threats from the U.S.
Latin America has become a crucible, where Washington-backed free-market policies known as neoliberalism are despised by the mass of the population. Capitalism and political systems that serve only the rich may be dealt a series of crippling blows.
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http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-1/547/547_06_Bolivia.shtml