Congress voted to remove President Lucio Gutierrez from power today, and swore in his vice president, Alfredo Palacio Gonzalez, a St. Louis cardiologist, as his successor. The legislature acted after 50,000 people filled the streets of Quito and fought troops and police in pitched battles. A Chilean photographer was killed and more than 180 were injured.

(See the burning tires on the front page of the El Comercio Web site.)

Congress was emboldened to make the move after the police chief of Quito suddenly resigned, saying he was unwilling to fire on demonstators. Gutierrez prompted the protests against his two-year old government by stacking the Supreme Court with his political cronies. These cronies were responsible for dropping corruption charges against another friend of Gutierrez’s, former President Abdala ‘El Loco’ Bucaram, who said he was “older and crazier than ever” and announced plans to return to Ecuador after eight years’ exile. He added that he intended to become ‘the next Hugo Chavez.’ That triggered widespread demonstrations in the streets of Quito and Guayaquil for the past six days. Late last night, they turned violent.

Bonds meanwhile, posted the day’s steepest drop, and bond traders, like those here, are weighing potential options.

The U.S. moved its military bases from Panama to Manta, Ecuador, making this country its foothold on this continent. The disposition of the bases are unknown, but as far as I can tell, this shouldn’t be a major crisis unless Palacio is overthrown by leftist extremists for weak leadership.

Venezuelan radio is reporting that Gutierrez and El Loco both are on flight bound for asylum in Caracas, Venezuela. Two other news reports say he is bound for Panama. Knowing what public sentiment in Panama is about becoming a discarded dictator’s dumping ground, it’s an open question as to whether Panama is going to take him. Bloomberg has since reported that the guy never got that far at all, he’s under arrest and in some jail tonight still in Ecuador

This blogger here has a fantastic roundup of events in Spanish. Hat tip: VenezuelaToday

Daniel in Yaracuy, Venezuela, has some excellent analysis about the deal there, it’s well worth reading here.

Luis at El Opinador Compulsivo in Argentina (a great blog) quotes a correspondent friend in Ecuador who confides to them that this is just the same old rubbish one sees in Ecuador. It’s in Spanish. Read it here.
My report is compiled from news wire stories and Bloomberg’s breaking headlines not on the Web yet. They’ve since done a 14-take story here.

LONELY PLANET has some hilarious threads between backpackers offering advice to each other about ‘Regime Change Situations.’ They also note that the airports and borders are closed, presumably to prevent Gutierrez and his sidekick El Loco from getting out. Also, the buses are not running. That said, there isn’ t that much alarm and most of the Old Ecuador Hands have seen this rubbish before. They say don’t worry, it’ll be gone before anyone knows it. The place gets back to normal pretty quickly. Read it here, here, and here.

Here is my earlier Ecuador News Roundup from the past couple days.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the news story.