2003 La Paz riots

The president's tax announcement was near-unanimously repudiated by the general public, with businessmen, opposition political parties, and trade unions all threatening to mobilize in protest of the impuestazo.[9] Deputy Evo Morales—leader of the opposition and head of the cocalero trade unions—decried Sánchez de Lozada's tax proposal as an attempt to "unload the economic crisis on the backs of the people".[10] The People's General Staff—a consortium of social organizations opposed to the government of which Morales held membership—announced mobilizations in Cochabamba against the tax. As did the Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), which broke off social security negotiations it was carrying out with the government, declaring a twenty-four-hour general strike. For its part, the Unified Syndical Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB) proposed an open "revolt" against the government in coordination with other trade union organizations.[9] Business interests also opposed the bill, deeming it harmful to the economy by reducing consumption, increasing unemployment, and promoting the informal economy, which evades tax payments. In an emergency meeting, the Confederation of Private Entrepreneurs of Bolivia (CEPB) requested an urgent meeting with Sánchez de Lozada to negotiate a reversal of the president's tax project.[5][9] Sánchez de Lozada stood firm on his stance, justifying that any other budget plan would be infeasible without "endangering the stability of our economy ... If a budget like this is not approved, [Bolivia] will go into economic collapse".[11]

The announced tax was also a topic of discussion among the rank and file officers of the National Police Corps (PN), as their Bs880 monthly salaries stood to be directly affected.[12] The majority Aymara police force, characterized by a respect for community decision-making where resolutions are final, resolved to oppose the government's tax reform bill.[13] At the center of these discussions was the Special Security Group (GES)[lower-alpha 1] under the command of Major David Vargas. Vargas had a history of aiding and abetting acts considered "seditious" by the government, having previously participated in the so-called Cochabamba Water War just under three years prior, though he never faced legal repercussions.[15] The GES demanded a 40% increase in police wages.[16] Additionally, they sought a modification to the tax bill so that it would only apply to the most affluent sectors of society, those earning the equivalent of $660 per month. If their demands were met, the officers pledged to cease protesting. Although Minister of Government Alberto Gasser had publicly stated that the tax bill was "non-negotiable", he did nonetheless meet with Police High Command the following day.[13]

David Vargas was a lead figure in the police strikes that devolved into riots in February 2003.

Gasser arrived at GES headquarters at 6 a.m. on the morning of 12 February, where he told Vargas and other senior officers that the tax could not be withdrawn due to the government's commitment to the IMF.[13] By that point, uniformed and plainclothes police officers from various units had begun to congregate around the headquarters, located half a block from the Plaza Murillo, where the Palacio Quemado—the presidential palace—and other government institutions were located. Throughout the morning, police in and around the capital abandoned their posts, gathering near the Plaza Murillo and GES headquarters armed with weapons and riot control equipment. They were joined by cadets bused in from the National Police Academy as well as firefighters and a small amount of retirees. Some officers positioned themselves on the roof of the GES and from there made their way to the adjacent Foreign Ministry building.[lower-alpha 2][14]

At 10 a.m., about 100 police officers began marching through the plaza itself, shouting their demands at the windows of the Palacio Quemado, where President Sánchez de Lozada, Vice President Mesa, and the cabinet had convened an emergency meeting the hour prior.[lower-alpha 3][13] After a brief discussion between the president and his ministers, it was resolved not to give in to the PN's demands but to instead attempt to negotiate with Vargas and his mutineers. Sánchez de Lozada delegated this difficult task to his presidency, government, and defense ministers: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, Alberto Gasser, and Freddy Teodovich, respectively.[17] Shortly after 10:30 a.m., the president got into contact with US Treasury Secretary John W. Snow to request US$120 million in aid in order to add some flexibility to possible amendments to the tax bill. Snow offered US$15 million, an amount Sánchez de Lozada found insulting and unacceptable. Exasperated, the president responded, in perfect English, that with that he "couldn't even afford to pay for the cigars he smoked" and hung up.[7] Shortly thereafter, the palace chief of security instructed everyone to move to the third floor. As recounted by Mesa, the conversation shifted focus to macroeconomics "in an unspoken intention to separate from the dramatic reality".[7]

Outside the Palacio Quemado, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., students from the Ayacucho School abandoned their campus to join the protests in the plaza but were repelled on the corner of Ayacucho and Comercio streets by crowd control units from the Police Academy, who used tear gas to disperse them. However, they later reconvened, making their way towards the Palacio Quemado and forcing the policemen to retreat to the Legislative Palace. A small contingent of soldiers attempted to disperse the students but was fired on with tear gas by PN officers. Lacking gas masks, the soldiers withdrew into the palace, leaving the building's exterior unguarded. Given the lack of security, the students began stoning the palace's façade, shattering windows on the ground floor and up to the second floor.[14] In an attempt to protect the building, palace guards fired tear gas at the students. According to Vargas, the tear gas, which reached police headquarters, was taken as an act of provocation, causing the police to fire back. By this point, an army contingent about a thousand strong moved in to occupy the plaza, commencing a standoff between soldiers and police.[13]

Army units continued to take up positions in and around the Plaza Murillo and Palacio Quemado, maintaining formation in the face of a growing crowd of protesting police and civilians, who levied shouts, obscenities, and tear gas. Elsewhere, the military occupied the corner of Comercio and Socabaya streets and began advancing north along Bolívar Street towards Ballivián Street, where another group of protesters had gathered. Police responded by lobbing tear gas, causing the army to retreat south and take up defensive positions around the Legislative Palace. At one point, a 17-year-old PN firefighter, Julián Huáscar Sánchez, was shot in or near the eye by a rubber bullet. Despite surviving the initial shot, he later died from his injuries, becoming one of the first casualties of the deadly events that soon unfolded.[14][18] Major Vargas subsequently reported to local media that the PN would be executing "Plan Red", warning citizens to stay in their homes. Privately, however, he resumed dialogue with Brigadier General Hugo Tellería and Defense Minister Freddy Teodovich in a meeting mediated by Sacha Llorenti of the Permanent Assembly of Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB). A short ceasefire was reached in order to facilitate further negotiations. The military agreed to withdraw its forces from the plaza center, and in exchange, the police would halt their demonstrations.[14]

At some point during the military withdrawal, around 2 p.m., the situation escalated, and live ammunition was exchanged between the military and national police. Which side shot first is unclear, with police claiming it was the military.[13] The official report of events lays blame on the police, stating that a contingent of officers arrived on Comercio Street brandishing weapons as they exited their vehicles. As the soldiers retreated to Ayacucho Street, they fired tear gas behind them, at which point a fire-fight commenced.[14] Sociologist Natalia Camacho Balderrama recounts that "for one day, the center of the city of La Paz, seat of government, served as a 'battlefield', [with] indiscriminate crossfire".[19] From the roof of the Foreign Ministry, police units shot tear gas and ammunition at the soldiers, who responded in kind. A police officer walking outside the Foreign Ministry building was shot in the leg, while another was shot in the head, dying instantly. The PN's Immediate Action Group (GAI) arrived at GES headquarters soon after, carrying long storage boxes—presumed to be containing sniper rifles—that they brought into the National Institute of Agrarian Reform. Police also occupied the building housing Radio Nueva América, seizing apartments and offices between the sixth and tenth floors, from which they fired on military units below. An infantry captain standing on the roof of the Palacio Quemado was shot dead and a soldier attempting to aid him was also killed.[14]

From inside the palace, Mesa states that "what I saw was hell". He likened the events to the violent riots that culminated in the lynching of President Gualberto Villarroel in 1946. At around 1:30 p.m., Tellería informed President Sánchez de Lozada that the military was no longer confident in its ability to protect him inside the building and requested that he evacuate the palace.[20] In the ensuing days, multiple outlets reported that the president was smuggled out in an ambulance.[12][21] Mesa called that theory "lying nonsense", assuring that Sánchez de Lozada left in the presidential car as part of a caravan of a dozen other vehicles: "You would have to be extremely inept to choose an ambulance having the presidential armored car—the only armored vehicle in the palace that day— ...". The president, vice president, and cabinet spent the rest of the day at Sánchez de Lozada's private residence in Obrajes.[22]

At 3:30 p.m., Ombudsman Ana María Romero called Vice President Mesa asking him to relay to the president her request that he withdraw the tax hike to avoid a wider catastrophe across the country. Sánchez de Lozada agreed, and an hour later, in a televised address to the nation, the president announced the suspension of the tax plan and the withdrawal of the bill from Congress.[23] He also ordered the withdrawal of military forces, pleading for the populace to end the violence.[12] By that point, Mesa states it was already realized that "the city, without a government, without a police force, was abandoned to its fate".[22] In the absence of rule of law, La Paz devolved into anarchy, engulfed by a wave of looting, rioting, and vandalism.[24]

Vandals targeted multiple public buildings, with government and municipal institutions bearing the brunt of the damage. A total of seven buildings were set on fire, which, given the absence of firefighters, continued to smolder into the night. Most notable was the Vice Presidency, which caught on fire at around 5 p.m. As the building burned, the vice president's security team worked to safeguard the archives at the Library of Congress from being consumed by the flames. Other buildings that sustained heavy damage included the Ministry of Finance, which was looted and burned, and the El Alto Mayor's Office, which suffered a large assault by rioters. Mobs also targeted the headquarters of the country's main political parties, destroying the offices of Sánchez de Lozada's Revolutionary Nationalist Movement and those of the Revolutionary Left Movement, his main coalition partner. The former—an antique building from the early 20th century—sustained such heavy damage that it collapsed in on itself, leaving only the exterior walls intact.[12][23][25]

Protests and riots in all parts of La Paz and El Alto continued into the afternoon of 13 February. Guards at the Bolivian Customs Service were overpowered, with looters stealing trucks full of imported merchandise. In El Alto, looters stormed the local Coca-Cola plant, breaking down the surrounding brick walls and overwhelming security and company employees attempting to repel them. By this point, the army had been deployed in an attempt to quell the unrest. At the Coca-Cola plant, Air Force troops fired on the looters, killing four and wounding several more.[26] Sometime after noon, Ronald Collanqui, a 28-year-old handyman, was sighted on the roof of a building and was shot from across the street by a police sniper who mistook him for an enemy combatant. At 1:20 p.m., Ana Colque, a 24-year-old student nurse, was shot through the chest while attempting to apply first-aid to Collanqui; both died from their injuries.[24]

In the capital and elsewhere in the country, protests erupted demanding Sánchez de Lozada's resignation. Large demonstrations against the government were carried out in Cochabamba, Oruro, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra.[24] These were supported by the CEPB and the COB, the latter of which publicly declared the president "arrogant" and "incapable" and demanded that he resign, calling for popular demonstrations in all nine departmental capitals. In response, Sánchez de Lozada assured that he had no intentions of stepping down, instead calling for a public conference between the country's leading political parties and social movement organizations.[27]

By the end of the day, the government successfully brokered a deal with the PN that, among other aspects, granted police the payment of government bonds, compensation for the families of dead or injured officers, and the allocation of funds for the procurement of new equipment and uniforms. Save for some holdouts—such as around 2,000 security personnel who rioted in Palmasola prison demanding a 40% pay increase—the agreement returned around 22,000 law enforcement agents to the streets. With the return of police, the riots quickly subsided.[27] Thirty-one people, between civilians, police, and soldiers, died as a result of the unrest, with a further 268 wounded.[18] At the time, it was the worst period of violence since the country's transition to democracy in 1982.[21]

One day after the riots were quelled, on 14 February, Foreign Minister Carlos Saavedra Bruno transmitted an urgent request to the Organization of American States (OAS) requesting an impartial investigation into "acts of terrorism that affect the security of the population and the rule of law itself". In response, on the same date, the Permanent Council of the OAS issued Resolution CP/RES. 838 (1355/03) determining the body's decision:[31][32]

OAS Secretary-General César Gaviria met on 6 March with President Sánchez de Lozada. The OAS agreed to collaborate with the Prosecutor's Office in its investigation of events, providing technical cooperation as well as international experts in the field of criminal investigation. In compliance with the Bolivian government's request, the OAS also published a full report describing the events that occurred between 12 and 13 February, outlining the body's conclusions in this regard and making recommendations to prevent the recurrence of similar happenings.[33] The OAS attributed blame for the unrest to the PN, stating that what occurred between 12 and 13 February was an "insubordination by members of the police against the Bolivian Constitution and laws". However, the report also included that, though Sánchez de Lozada's life was endangered, "at the moment, there is not enough evidence to affirm categorically that said shots [that were fired at the Palacio Quemado] responded to a pre-established plan to assassinate the president of the Republic of Bolivia".[34]

A total of nineteen people—nine police officers, six civilians, and four soldiers—were charged for the deaths that occurred. The trial against them was installed in 2008, but various legal challenges have led to the suspension or postponement of over twenty hearings. On 24 August 2021, the Eighth Criminal Sentencing Court in La Paz held a hearing to make way for the commencement of the trial, but as of 25 October 2023, it has not been initiated.[18]