Now That Goni Is Gone

They were the kind of ugly street scenes that few presidencies survive. All last week, thousands of poverty-stricken Bolivians protested in the capital, La Paz, and around the country, railing at President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. Sánchez — or Goni, as he is called — sent the army to restore order. As Bolivian soldiers fired on demonstrators, impoverished Indian mine workers used crude slingshots to hurl lighted sticks of dynamite back at them. But they were no match for the army's tear gas and bullets, and the clashes left as many as 80 people dead.

The people...