From NACLA
In late May and early June, tens of thousands of mostly Aymara campesinos, miners, students, public school teachers, factory workers and residents of the sprawling impoverished city of El Alto overran neighboring La Paz. For the second time in less than two years, they forced Bolivia’s president to resign. In both cases, the rebellions were largely driven by a single concrete demand: greater control over Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, the second largest in South America and the nation’s most valuable resource."We want the gas to be industrialized here in Bolivia," Teodoro Calle, a soft-spoken Aymara street vender from El Alto, told me in late October 2003 as he leaned on crutches outside a church community center in hopes of receiving a small handout. Calle had been shot in the left leg by Bolivian soldiers while protesting against a plan to export natural gas to the United States.
"Before, perhaps we agreed to everything, but not anymore," said Calle. "People know now what's going on.... But the government wants to sell the gas abroad at the price of a dead chicken. That's why we're fighting. Every neighbor, every Bolivian, that's why."
