10-17 Update: After a 5th straight day of massive street demonstrations and blockades by over 100,000 workers, farmers, and students in La Paz, [ Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ] Bolivian President Gonzalo "Goni the Assassin" Sanchez de Lozada resigned on Friday and fled the capital for exile in Miami. Sanchez de Lozada, a University of Chicago educated millionaire and favorite of the Bush Administration, sent his resignation to an emergency session of the Bolivian Congress. Prior to this highly anticipated move, the Pentagon announced that it would send a small team of U.S. military personal to La Paz within the next few days, "to assess the situation." Meanwhile, "Goni" has been replaced by his Vice-President, Carlos Mesa Gisbert, former journalist and until recently, an admirer of Sanchez de Lozada's neoliberal economic policies.

As many as 86 people have been killed in Bolivia by government forces since a popular uprising erupted 5 weeks ago against efforts by Sanchez de Lozada to sell off the country's natural gas resources to multinational corporations for export to the US. But as one BBC correspondent reports, "this was never just about gas. Bolivia is South America's poorest nation and the peasants want land reform, the elderly want better pensions and the workers want more money." The Bolivian Workers Central (COB) - the country's main labor federation - continues to demand a halt to the gas export scheme, and has called for the recovery of these resources for the Bolivian people. If the new government fails to do so, a Popular Assembly, convened by the workers, unions, and popular representatives, will assume the task of taking the gas and oil away from transnational hands, asserts COB leader, miner Jaime Solares.

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