[Onthebarricades] BOLIVIA: FLASH--Evo Morales' army shoots at demonstrators

[Andy]

>
> Bolivia: The army recovers by force a gas plant seized by indigenous
> people demanding expropriation From news reports via aporrea.org
> 2/04/2007
>
> A confrontation yesterday in the natural gas-rich locality of Camiri,
> in the Bolivian southeast, left six wounded, five civilians and two
> cops, when troops of the Bolivian army using tear gas and shooting
> rubber bullets took back control of a plant that distributes LNG to
> Brazil and was attacked by local residents demanding complete
> nationalization of the plant, including expropriation.
>
> Government spokesman Alex Contreras, confirmed yesterday to
> journalists that there are six wounded and that none of the five
> civilians had used firearms. But, on the other hand, Victor Eduardo
> Hoyos, emergency room physician at the local hospital, indicated that
> "two of the victims have bullet wounds."
>
> The residents of Camiri, a vital commercial nexus of Santa Cruz in
> northern Argentina, demand of the Bolivian government that the
> hydrocarbons policy benefit the whole Chaco region, that borders
> Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and is the richest gas reserve in
Bolivia.
>
> Last Monday, the residents of Camiri, a city of some 30,000
> inhabitants, led by a radicalized leader and critic of the government
> of President Evo Morales, began to protest with a civil strike that
> blocked traffic with northern Argentina and on Friday-Saturday night
> they seized by force the gas distribution plant of the Transredes
> company, administered by the Dutch Shell company.
>
> The Bolivian federal authorities sent the army, that, together with
> police troops, took back the plant after hard battles that continued
> for several hours. The government charged that the demonstrators
> exploded dynamite to try to enter the gas distribution plant a second
> time and that there was a risk that the blast could affect the
> pipelines which had fuel and that this fact caused the troops'
reaction.
>
> He indicated in addition that the combined troop mobilization of
> police and the army was ordered because suspending the supply of
> gasoline and gas to Bolivia and other countries could not be permitted.
>
> The civic leader Mirko Orgaz, who led the revolt, indicated that the
> region of the Chaco possesses the richest gas reserve in Bolivia,
> calculated at 48.7 trillion cubic feet (1.55 billion cubic meters),
> but that the economic benefits are not coming to the impoverished
> residents.
>
> He added that the demonstrators are demanding the "nationalization
> with expropriation of the oil companies," a measure that the Evo
> Morales government is unwilling to adopt.
>
> The government explained that the supply of gas to Brazil by
> subsidiaries of the oil companies Repsol (Spain) and British
> Petroleum, that operate gas fields and deliver gas to Transredes, was
> not suspended.
>
> Meanwhile, in La Paz, the public defender, Waldo Albarracín, called
> for the pacification of Camiri and urged the Morales establish
> dialogue committees, because at this moment "no one can exempt himself
> from participating and supporting the dialogue, and we must all be
> involved in pacifying the region"
>
> * * *
>