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Ecuador president ousted by Congress
QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez was ousted by Congress on Wednesday after thousands of demonstrators demanded the former army colonel quit for meddling with the nation's top court. A military helicopter flew Gutierrez out of the presidential palace in colonial downtown Quito to an unknown destination after 60 congressmen from the 100-seat chamber voted to oust him for "abandoning his post."
Congress named Vice President Alfredo Palacio to serve out the remainder of a four-year term that expires in January 2007. Palacio, a 63-year-old cardiologist, had been a prominent critic of his former boss. Opposition congressmen, who accused Gutierrez of being a dictator for trying to take over the courts, said he had effectively abandoned his post by failing to properly carry out presidential duties. The armed forces, traditional arbiters of power, abandoned Gutierrez, who had refused to quit. "We have been forced to withdraw support from the president in order to ensure public safety," said the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Victor Hugo Rosero. Demonstrators celebrated and shook hands with security force members after news spread Gutierrez had become the third president of the Andean nation toppled amid popular unrest since 1997. In 2000, Gutierrez himself helped topple President Jamil Mahuad. He was briefly jailed for leading a coup and was elected in late 2002 with support from the poor. A man of dark, native Indian features, Gutierrez promised voters a change from centuries of domination by a white elite. But he alienated many supporters with austere economic policies that brought growth but little relief to poverty. STREET PROTESTS Street protests erupted in Quito a week ago to protest a Supreme Court decision to drop corruption charges against former President Abdala Bucaram, a key political ally of Gutierrez. Bucaram, known as the "the Madman," was himself ousted from the presidency by Congress in 1997 for "mental incompetence." Thousands of Gutierrez supporters armed with machetes and guns had driven on buses into the capital, Quito, on Wednesday, but were met by crowds of anti-government protesters who tried to block their path downtown. Plumes of smoke rose over parts of the Andean mountain capital as the rival groups of protesters ran riot. Anti-government demonstrators broke into the Congress building, smashing windows and chairs in the chamber. Two people were killed in protests on Tuesday night and Wednesday, according to the Red Cross and hospital officials.
Congress fired the newly appointed Supreme Court on Sunday, just two days after Gutierrez dismissed it himself in an attempt to defuse the crisis. Gutierrez also declared a state of emergency in Quito on Friday night but rescinded it after less than 24 hours to make talks with the opposition easier. Gutierrez and the opposition both said they wanted to set up a system to name independent judges, but could not agree how. Ecuadorean government bonds fell sharply after the latest bout of chaos in a country that is now booming thanks to oil exports but defaulted on foreign debt in 1999. "There is an awful lot of instability, it's going to take quite some time to sort through all this to have any measure of governability to build again," said Enrique Alvarez, Latin America debt strategist at IDEAglobal in New York. |
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