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Reporter's Notebook: Al Giordano

Bolivia Airport Strike vs. Vaca Diez Closes La Paz Airport: Sucre & Cochabamba Next

Posted by Al Giordano - June 9, 2005 at 2:08 pm
The Spaniard news agency EFE reports:

La Paz, (EFE).- The El Alto International Airport, which serves the Bolivian city of La Paz, suspended its flights today as a consequence of a strike by air traffic controllers to demand that Congress call new elections.

The Vice Minister of Transportation, Mauricio Navarro, informed EFE that as of noon Bolivian time "the airport has ceased functioning for scheduled flights" due to a strike by the workers of the Autonomous Administration of Auxilary Services of Air Navigation of Bolivia (AASANA in its Spanish initials).

As a condition of lifting the strike, AASANA demands that the leaders of the Senate and House renounce their presidential succesion during today's Congressional session in the southern city of Sucre...

Those resignations would cede power to the third in line, the Supreme Court President, the only of the three with the power to call for new elections and apparently the only solution the the crisis...

More info at the jump...
The EFE report continues:

According to Navarro, the (Viru Viru) International Airport of Santa Cruz "has not adhered to the strike," but the air ports of Cochabamba... and Sucre could join it in the coming hours because "they have also asked that (the Senate President Hormando) Vaca Diez must not become president."

...he warned that because there is no access to the El Alto airport, due to the strike by the inhabitants of that city, officials... "trained to replace the personnel of the control tower in case of extreme emergency" can't get to the airport.

Kind readers: Please fasten your seatbelts, put your seats and tray tables upright, and prepare for take-off... an aspiring pilot named Vaca Diez may not have anyplace to land by nightfall!

About Al Giordano

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Publisher, Narco News.

Reporting on the United States at The Field.

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