MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ecuador president removed

Lawmakers in Ecuador voted Wednesday to remove embattled President Lucio Gutierrez from office after a week of escalating street protests demanding his ouster, and they swore in Vice President Alfredo Palacio to replace him.

Gutiérrez, the third president to be toppled amid popular unrest in eight years, was replaced by his vice-president after a day of escalating clashes between opposing protesters in which two people were reported killed.

A military helicopter flew him out of the presidential palace after a special session made up of opposition legislators in the 100-seat unicameral Congress took less than an hour to reach the decision by a vote of 62-0 for "abandoning his post."

Brazil's Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued in Brasilia later that Gutiérrez was in the Brazilian Embassy in Quito.

Television images earlier showed hundreds of people forcing their way onto the military landing strip at the airport and blocking a twin-engine plane from taking off. A helicopter parked nearby looked like the one seen at the palace.

Congress named Vice-President Alfredo Palacio to serve out the rest of Gutiérrez's four-year term that expires in January 2007, but the move drew immediate counter-protests.

??The arrogance has ended. The dictatorship has ended,'' Palacio yelled to the crowd that briefly trapped him in the building where he was sworn in and demanded that he dissolve Parliament and call early elections. Earlier, he pledged in a local television interview not to ??pardon or forget the people who violated the Constitution.''

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 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," Palacio said before eventually leaving the building.

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 Gutiérrez's arrest for two deaths on Tuesday and yesterday during the demonstrations.

Opposition congressmen, who accused Gutíerrez 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.

The armed forces, traditional arbiters of power, abandoned Gutiérrez, 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. Palacio later met with top military brass.

Thousands of Gutiérrez supporters armed with machetes and guns had driven on buses into the capital yesterday, but were met by crowds of anti-government protesters who tried to block their path downtown