Qualla: 2003 La Paz Riots

2003 La Paz Riots: Introduction

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The president of Bolivia called the US Treasury Secretary to beg for $120 million. The Secretary offered fifteen. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, in perfect English, told him that with that amount he "couldn't even afford to pay for the cigars he smoked" -- and hung up. Within hours, his own police force had mutinied, soldiers and officers were shooting at each other across the Plaza Murillo, and La Paz was burning. The 2003 La Paz riots -- Febrero Negro, Black February -- lasted two days, killed thirty-one people, and exposed the catastrophic distance between international financial orthodoxy and the daily reality of the poorest nation in South America.

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2003 La Paz Riots: Two Dollars Too Many

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bolivia had been in recession for five years by the time Sanchez de Lozada took the podium on the evening of 9 February 2003. Unemployment stood at 7.7 percent, GDP growth had measured just 2.5 percent against a projected eight, and external debt had reached 54.2 percent of GDP. ...

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2003 La Paz Riots: The Police Turn Their Guns

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Opposition was near-universal. Evo Morales, then a deputy and cocalero union leader, denounced the tax as an attempt to "unload the economic crisis on the backs of the people." The Bolivian Workers' Center declared a general strike. But the most consequential opposition came from...

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2003 La Paz Riots: Hell in the Plaza

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

From the roof of the Foreign Ministry, police units fired tear gas and live ammunition at soldiers below. The soldiers returned fire. A police officer walking outside was shot in the leg; another was shot in the head and killed instantly. Police occupied Radio Nueva America's bui...

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2003 La Paz Riots: The Reckoning That Never Came

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 13 February, the violence spread. In El Alto, looters overwhelmed guards at the Customs Service and stormed a Coca-Cola plant, breaking down brick walls while Air Force troops fired into the crowd, killing four. Ronald Collanqui, a twenty-eight-year-old handyman, was shot by a...

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