Ecuador president ousted
By Carlos Andrade and Alexandra Valencia
QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez was ousted by Congress on Wednesday after a week of increasingly violent protests in which he was accused of abusing his power by meddling with the country's top court.
Gutierrez, the third president of the Andean nation to be toppled amid popular unrest in eight years, was replaced by his vice-president after escalating clashes between opposing protesters in which two people were reported killed.
A military helicopter flew Gutierrez from the presidential palace in colonial downtown Quito after 60 congressmen from the 100-seat chamber voted to fire him for "abandoning his post."
Brazil's foreign ministry said in a statement issued in Brasilia later that Gutierrez was in the Brazilian embassy in Quito.
Congress named Vice President Alfredo Palacio to serve out the rest of Gutierrez's four-year term, which expires in January 2007, but the move drew immediate counter-protests.
Several hundred demonstrators briefly trapped Palacio in the building where he was sworn in and demanded that he dissolve parliament and call early elections.
Palacio, a 66-year-old cardiologist who had been a prominent critic of his former boss and his economic policies, said he would consider an early election but could not dissolve Congress.
"I will accept the will of the people. My position (as president) depends on them, but first we need order," he said.
At a news conference with top military commanders, Palacio said he would call a referendum in the next few months to reform the constitution before any election.
Before the fate of Gutierrez became clear, plumes of smoke rose over parts of the city as rival groups of protesters ran riot. At one point anti-government demonstrators broke into the Congress building, smashing windows and chairs in the chamber.
The state prosecutor's office said it ordered Gutierrez's arrest for two deaths during the demonstrations.
Airports were closed and Palacio said the borders should be sealed to stop political fugitives from leaving the country.
Opposition congressmen, who accused Gutierrez of being a dictator after his move last December to fill the Supreme Court with political allies, said he had effectively abandoned his post by failing to properly carry out presidential duties.
MILITARY ABANDONS PRESIDENT
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.
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 largely from the poor.
Although the economy in the oil-rich country, also the world's biggest exporter of bananas, has been flourishing there has been little relief for the country's poor and Gutierrez's support plummeted.
A man of dark, native Indian features, he promised voters a change after centuries of domination by a white elite.
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, but were met by crowds of anti-government protesters who tried to block their path downtown.
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 each 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.
"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.
The Organization of American States called a special meeting for Thursday to discuss the situation in Ecuador and the United States urged "all Ecuadoreans to come together to peacefully resolve their issues."
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