The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

From ENN, another reason why we should pursue renewable energy sources instead of more fossil fuels. The human costs right now today are combining with the results of "prohibition" creating a lucrative black market to illustrate the abject failure of long-standing federal policy on these two issues:

Tuesday, October 14, 2003
By Rene Villegas, Reuters


LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia's embattled president suspended a controversial project Monday to export natural gas to the United States in a bid to defuse a monthlong wave of protests against him that has resulted in about 30 deaths.

Some 20 protesters were reported killed Sunday after President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada sent thousands of troops backed by tanks to quell increasingly violent protests his government says are led by opponents trying to start a coup.

The project to export natural gas through Chile — which has had tense diplomatic relations with Bolivia because of a border dispute — has become a lightning rod for wider protests against Sanchez de Lozada's failure to tackle endemic poverty.

Thousands of coca farmers angry at a U.S.-backed drive to eradicate illegal crops of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine, are due to join striking workers Monday with roadblock protests of their own.

"The government has decided it will not export natural gas to new markets ... until consultations have been conducted (with the Bolivian people)," Sanchez de Lozada told a morning news conference.

Sanchez de Lozada, a U.S. ally in the antidrug war who is widely disliked for his free market policies, is seeking to head off a return to mayhem seen in February, when a government austerity drive backed by the International Monetary Fund sparked massive riots in which 32 people died.

He has played down recent protests and defied calls to step down. The gas project consultations will be wrapped up by...(Read on in: Bolivia puts brakes on gas project to quell violence)