On October 17, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada became the latest in a string of pro-neoliberal South American presidents to be forced out of office. A day after saying his resignation wasn't an option, the now ex-president of Bolivia sent his resignation letter to Congress and hopped a military flight to Miami. The next day, Vice-President Carlos Mesa was sworn in as president, the culmination of a month-long popular uprising that swelled in response to the government repression enlisted to put it down.

The latest pro-citizen revolution began as a protest against Sanchez de Lozada's penning agreements with US energy companies Pacific LNG and Sempra to pipe Bolivian natural gas through Chile for transport to North America. Calling the President's plan a "personal business deal," campesino leader and congressman Felipe Quispe began a hunger strike in early September; by the time the President had resigned, there were a thousand more hunger strikers. The national labor union, led by miners, began a series of marches around the country in opposition to the gas deal.

As opposition grew and spread, the government responded with tear gas and deadly force. Following a three-day period in early October when government forces killed over seventy unarmed protesters and wounded hundreds more, the opposition exploded. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Bolivia's cities on a scale not seen in Bolivia's two decades of democracy. The "Gas War," was well underway. The nation united not only against the gas exports but in the determination that the "assassin," Sanchez Lozada, must go. Campesinos closed the borders with Peru and Brazil. Roads everywhere were closed with uprooted paving stones, tires and downed trees. With the roads impassible and nobody working, the La Paz airport and most everything else closed down. Tanks protected the presidential palace, which had become the headquarters for the whole Bolivian government.

The President reportedly considered an "auto-coup," calling in the military to take over. On October 13, he postponed the gas deal until December 31. He accused the opposition of being terrorists who wanted to impose a "narco-dictatorship."

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stressed "our support for the democratically elected Government of Bolivia and our opposition to extra-constitutional attempts to seize power."

Boucher didn't mention that the "democratically elected," Sanchez Lozada (called "The Gringo," because he spent so much of his life in the US he is said to speak Spanish with an American accent) got only 23 percent of the vote in the previous election and was subsequently installed by the congress. The US state Department threatened Bolivia with a cut of aid if the congress installed the 2nd place vote getter, Evo Morales, who had about 20 percent.

Morales is a leader of the coca growers movement. And Bolivia's historic uprising has roots in US drug policy, just as it does in neoliberalism and the 500-year exploitation of Bolivia's mineral wealth to the detriment of its mainly indigenous inhabitants.

Coca has been cultivated in Bolivia for thousands of years. It is used medicinally, ritually, and socially. (Reportedly, when Nancy Reagan visited Bolivia as First Lady, she was served coca tea by her hostess, Bolivia's First Lady). The leaf is chewed to alleviate the effects of extreme altitudes and, owing to its high nutritional content, helps reduces malnutrition in impoverished Bolivia.

That is to say, coca is an ancient and inextricable aspect of Bolivia's economy which has nothing to do with America's drug problem. The US government's zero tolerance of coca for anybody anywhere has become a source of political conflict in Bolivia. The coca growers organized and have become an activist political force. They insist that America's drug problem is not Bolivia's problem. Morales says that the new president will have to accept the fact that there will never be "zero coca" in this country. He said, "the issue that the new president will have to analyze comes down to two words: 'forced eradication.' We know that the [US] Ambassador has been trying, since this morning, to put pressure on Carlos Mesa. But we hope for a new policy, more open, more human, that leaves behind the attacks and assassinations that we have suffered for a long time. If he tries to repeat them, we will go out into the streets again to force Mesa to leave."

Making the connection between gas pipelines, neoliberalism, and the drug war, he said, "the defense of our natural resources is an issue that affects the entire Bolivian people. This is our wealth. And we should benefit from it. The same for the coca leaf, because it has been part of our culture for millennia." He denied Sanchez Lozada's accusations that he has ties to Colombian guerrillas and narcotraffickers. But he notes that "the Colombian and Gringo troops dedicated to combating the narco are also guarding oil pipelines, for example." The Chapare, Evo Morales' region, is also one of the places that was planned for oil and gas exportation.

The new president, Carlos Mesa, said almost immediately upon taking office that the gas deal will be subject to a "binding referendum." He says he is running an "interim" government that will call a constitutional convention and early elections to democratically elect a successor.

They're celebrating a great victory in Bolivia--over the US government as well as their own. The US State Department and its resident ambassador will of course begin lobbying, reconsidering aid to Bolivia, and dialing up the CIA. The "gas war" isn't over yet. But the tide has turned.

compiled from reports in La Jornada, Indymedia, Narconews, and Agence France Presse.