February 16, 2003

Dear Friends,

I watched as fires spread through downtown La Paz last Wednesday night. Smoke towers rose in three different parts of the city, forming a black haze over La Paz. The clapping pop of tear gas canisters shot by the Bolivian military echoed from neighborhood televisions as the city tried to make sense of what was happening. In my old neighborhood, near the Plaza del Estudiante ("Student's Plaza"), a radio reporter frantically described the scene as some 200 people smashed through a restaurant owned by a local mayor. "The City Cafe has been destroyed," the reporter screamed into the microphone. Mobs broke into stores, looting them, and then turned their anger on ATMs. Shop owners armed themselves and told television crews they were prepared to shoot. Not a single police officer patrolled the La Paz streets or tried to intervene-the police, after all, were the original protesters marching on the presidential palace.

It's quiet now, and I, like everyone else, am trying to figure out what it means.

Over the past months, the Bolivian government has been developing a series of policies aimed at satisfying several requirements laid out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bolivia needed to meet those requirements before the IMF would approve any loans or sign any agreements with the struggling country. The signature and support of the IMF was also considered necessary for Bolivia to be able to access loans from other international agencies.

The government imposed a new tax plan that would fall heavily on middle class Bolivians who are struggling to live-one of the major requirements outlined by the IMF.

The combination of Bolivia's crushing external debt and its ongoing economic crisis has left Bolivia in a vulnerable position. One third of Bolivia's budget goes to paying off the interest on its debt-just the interest alone. It needed those loans. It still needs those loans.

On Wednesday, the Bolivian police force marched on the presidential palace demanding an end to the tax increase that the government had announced. The police officers who were protesting make around 800 Bolivianos or just over $100 U.S. per month. That places them among the more fortunate of Bolivians, but the additional taxes would have made mere survival even more difficult. They gathered in Plaza Murillo, home of Bolivia's presidential palace and its Congress.

Local school children soon joined them and began throwing rocks at the palace, breaking windows while the police looked on.

People caught in the crossfire lay dead or bleeding in a plaza normally filled with families feeding pigeons and buying cotton candy. The shoot-out between military and police filled the plaza with tear gas and bullets.

Some of the people gathered in Plaza Murillo stormed the presidential palace and began destroying nearby government buildings and the headquarters of several leading political parties. Throughout the evening, protesters, now mixed with other individuals who apparently were taking advantage of the chaotic atmosphere, broke into government buildings, set them on fire, while in the market and commerce districts, people began looting local businesses and banks.

On Thursday, in addition to the tension over the new budget announced by the government (policies that were later withdrawn by the president), coca growers and poor farmers threatened to block Bolivia's major highways, demanding the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (known as "Goni"). Mobs continued looting throughout La Paz and the adjacent city of El Alto, apparently a mixture of raw anger and desperation as well as some people taking advantage of the chaotic environment and lack of a police force. As one man put it "I don't believe it's right, but they [the Bolivian government] have stolen so much from us. It's time for us to steal a little back." In some cities, the crowds attacked symbols of economic globalization, including the Coca Cola factory in El Alto.

On Thursday afternoon, a military sniper shot and killed a nurse as she treated an injured protester. Many of the military involved in the fighting were cadets and young men serving their mandatory military service. Kids. Just out of high school.

In Santa Cruz, Oruro, and Cochabamba, people also took to the streets. Some looted and threw rocks. Other people simply marched carrying white handkerchiefs, calling for peace and an end to the killing. By Thursday evening, the violence and looting in La Paz had waned considerably. The death toll stood at 29, with over 100 injured.

After nearly two days of violence and uncertainty, La Paz's citizens began to venture out, wondering what had happened. My friend Sara and I joined those who walked down the main street, or Prado, seeing for the first time two days worth of destruction. We encountered eerie, empty streets-almost no vehicles. Closer to the city's center, families strolled, gawking, hands at their mouths. Bits of burnt paper settled in the gutters. As Sara noted, "I thought, wow, it smells so nice. Like autumn. Then I realized those aren't burning leaves."

Near my old apartment, looters had smashed windows and cleaned-out shops. Hotels had fortified their windows with mattresses and pulled-down their metal doors. Chunks of glass and old garbage lay in the middle of the street. Owners had boarded-up store after store-many clearly too late, their spaces completely emptied of goods.

In the center we found the first of the seven burned buildings: the Ministry of Sustainable Development. Chunks of charred computer and desks smoldered in piles outside the office. People pried in, trying to get past the gate for a better look. Smoke still wafted from one of the blackened windows.

Near Plaza Murillo, three lines of young men in camouflage fortified each of its four corners, pointing their automatic weapons out toward the passing crowd. Snipers continued to patrol the rooftops. A tank stood at each corner of the plaza, the barrel of its gun aimed down the street's center. Families walked by with strollers, pausing at the sight of tanks and so many military officers.

Closer to the palace, protesters had left building after building burned and empty. Windows broken, glass in the street. People standing around pointing. At Goni's party headquarters, people had overturned a large car, slamming it up against the gutted office building and burning it. A fat power line lay in the street. The mobs had made a bonfire out of papers, furniture, computers, and other belongings, though by then it was extinguished. Neighbors swept up glass and ashes in front of their homes and stores.

I passed one woman I had seen the night before on TV as she wept and described a band of protesters that had arrived at the party headquarters of Jaime Paz Zamora, ransacking the building and then burning it down. On Thursday afternoon she sat quietly with several people on the curb, staring at the decimated offices and describing how the mob had entered.

Although the police and government had reached an agreement in La Paz, police in Cochabamba were refusing to recognize it and protests continued there. Opposition leader Evo Morales and others called for Goni's resignation and announced they were considering nationwide blockades. In television interviews, Bolivians wailed and decried "Goni asesino!" Goni is an assassin. The levels of violence and death were compared to the days of Bolivia's dictatorships.

While La Paz has settled into an uneasy calm and its citizens have returned to work, the conflict is probably not yet over. Many of the people I have spoken with blame the government for not having had the foresight to solve or prevent the violence, and for having been blind to the anger the policies would cause. As my friend Lourdes said, "The government seems like it was surprised by what has happened." For many Bolivians, the violence was terrifying but not surprising. People here are desperately poor. A third live in extreme poverty, or misery, surviving on less than a dollar a day. Another third are considered poor.

Nobody knows what's going to happen now, but most people think that the conflict isn't over because the problems that powered it are still here. The anger, frustration, and desperation have been building in Bolivia for a very long time. I'll keep you posted.

Susan