Protesters gain force in Bolivia

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Thousands streamed into the Bolivian capital, La Paz, on Tuesday as Indian protests against the ruling elite gained force even after President Carlos Mesa offered his resignation.

The critical highway to the highlands, where the international airport is situated, remained cut off by roadblocks and the city of 1 million people was hit by food shortages and a transport strike.

Demanding that the government expropriate foreign energy installations and call new elections, miners in hard hats and indigenous women in derby hats and colorful, multi-layer skirts marched into La Paz in a show of force punctuated by blasts of dynamite that demonstrated the depth of the crisis buffeting the government.

The police fired at the protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons, photographers at the scene said by phone from La Paz. Soldiers armed with rifles were, for the first time, patrolling the streets and guarding the seat of power in La Paz's main square, Plaza Murillo.

In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the Organization of American States was meeting on Tuesday, Bolivia's foreign minister, Jose Ignacio Siles, asked the member nations for a resolution pledging to "support the person who, in accordance with constitutional succession procedures, takes over the presidency" of Bolivia, according to Agence-France Presse.

Mesa submitted his resignation Monday night, and the Congress is widely expected to accept it at an emergency session on Wednesday -- if adequate security can be provided.

If the Congress accepts Mesa's resignation, it must then decide who will finish out his term, which would have ended in August 2007.

The two men next in line, the presidents of the Senate and lower house of Congress, are not acceptable to the protesters. But opposition leaders have indicated they would accept the third in line, the president of the Supreme Court, Eduardo Rodriguez, who has said he would take the post only to preside over early elections. Those could be held as early as August.

Mesa, in his late-night televised speech to the nation on Monday night, assured Bolivians that he would remain in charge until the Congress acted. Bolivia's previous president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, fled Bolivia after resigning in the face of violent protests in October 2003.

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