Vaca Diez Steps Down, Congress About to Meet in Bolivia

June 9, 2005
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Dear Colleague,

We haven’t stopped in Bolivia, and it’s now past 9:00 at night. A half
hour ago Senator Vaca Diez left the Sucre Battalion military
installation, where he had taken refuge since suspending the session of
Congress scheduled for today. He came it the center of the Bolivian
capital to give a press conference, at which he renounced his right to
presidential succession, but also blamed Carlos Mesa and Evo Morales
for everything that had happened to him and asked them for certain
guarantees in order to begin the session.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/6/9/222532/7815

Evo responded almost immediately. And he asked that Vaca Diez simply
renounce his right is right to succeed Carlos Mesa as president and
call the Congress… we’ll keep reporting on this from here as it
develops.

Hormando Vaca Diez, making himself out as the ultimate victim of the
crisis that has this country in a virtual state fo war, announced that
he was willing to finally give up his right to succeed Mesa, who he
meanwhile accused of never having been willing to leave.

Also accusing Evo of not having given enough security guarantees to
hold legislative sessions for several days, Vaca Diez said that the
marchers demonstrating against the government are “Don Evo Morales’
marchers, and don Carlos Mesa’s as well.”

Evo responded categorically and immediately: he asked Vaca Diez to
present, now, his formal resignation from becoming leader of Bolivia,
and that he convoke the session of Congress.

Mario Cossío, a deputy from the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
(MNR) and president of the Chamber of Deputies, Bolivia’s lower house
of Congress, said the same thing fifteen minutes later. He accused Mesa
of de delegitimizing the legislature, saying further that Mesa’s
government was incapable of dialog with the various groups and that, in
general, he had promoted confrontation.

A new “victim” of current events, Cossío spoke for more than five
minutes against the government, summarizing, as did Vaca Diez, the
recent history, but a version in which he and Vaca Diez were
systematically attacked by Mesa and his administration, “to hide the
structural problems that affect this country.” The current government,
he said, “was incapable of overcoming the factors” that brought the
former government (of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada) to an end.

To end his diatribe, Cossío reaffirmed that “the president of the
Chamber of Deputies has no in accepting constitutional succession.” The
MNR congressman, from the same party as Sánchez de Lozada and his
son-in-law Balcázar, insisted that he had turned down the presidency
several days ago, and that he was simply reiterating this.

And he announced that the Congress’ “senators and deputies are not
running away, and are present” to resolve this country’s problems:
Cossío said that, if the right security conditions exist, the National
Congress will meet at 9:30 in the local government building… that is,
in just a few minutes.

Don’t miss what happens…

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/

From somewhere in a country called América,

Luis A. Gómez
Acting Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
Email: luisgomez [at] narconews.com

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