Energy protests defeat Bolivian President

LA PAZ - Bolivian President Carlos Mesa has submitted his resignation after weeks of crippling protests by indigenous leaders demanding he nationalise the country's energy resources.

"It is my responsibility to say that this is as far as it can go. I have taken the decision to present my resignation from the presidency," Mesa said in a television broadcast.

Earlier, tens of thousands of Indians, miners and labour protesters staged their largest anti-Government march in weeks, paralysing downtown La Paz with scattered clashes with riot police as Mesa struggled to defuse a political crisis amid calls for early elections.

Helmeted police firing volleys of tear gas canisters squared off against small groups of rock-throwing protesters as the larger and mostly peaceful columns of demonstrators began dispersing. There were no immediate reports on injuries.

More than 500 protesters were turned away by acrid tear gas as they tried to close in on Mesa's seat of power at the Government Palace.

The protests began with lines of rowdy demonstrators, including indigenous women in black bowler hats and farmers in baseball caps, snaking down from poor hilltop slums above this capital as bottle rockets screeched overhead and disgruntled miners created thunderous booms by tossing dynamite sticks.

"A people united will never be defeated!" protesters shouted, as they pressed for the nationalisation of Bolivia's energy industry and greater indigenous rights.

The demonstrations raised tensions in this impoverished Andean nation of nine million people, marking the fourth week of a swelling political and social crisis that has seen protesters throw up road blockades that have strangled the capital and triggered gas and food shortages.

The crisis pits Indian and labour groups from the poorer eastern highlands, including La Paz and its poor satellite city of El Alto, against ruling blocks from Santa Cruz in the east and the oil-rich gas fields to the south that are pursuing greater autonomy.

The protests have increased after Bolivia's Congress moved last month to increase taxes on foreign oil companies that have flocked to the country to develop its natural gas reserves, the second largest in South America after Venezuela.

The measure was intended to calm tensions in a country where anti-globalisation anger runs high. But it only unleashed new demonstrations by protesters demanding nationalisation of the oil industry and a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution giving more representation to the indigenous population, which makes up about half the population.

- REUTERS