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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Morales struggles to control Bolivia |
| 2008-09-15 |
| President Evo Morales struggled to assert control over a badly fractured Bolivia on Sunday as separatist protesters set fire to a town hall and blockaded highways in opposition-controlled provinces, impeding gasoline and food distribution. At least 30 people have been killed in the poor Andean nation this week, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said. All the deaths occurred in Pando province, where Morales declared martial law on Friday, dispatching troops and accusing government foes of killing his supporters. Troops continued to arrive in Pando and were patrolling the streets of Cobija, the capital. "There are people who want to continue sowing pain across the region," presidential spokesman Ivan Canelas told reporters on Sunday. He said without providing details that highway blockades continued and that "an armed group" had set fire to the town hall in Filadelfia, a municipality near Cobija. The La Paz newspaper La Razon quoted the country's highways chief as saying blockades had halted transit on major roadways in the opposition-governed eastern provinces of Tarija, Beni and Santa Cruz. The AP could not immediately confirm the report. The gravest challenge to Morales in his nearly 3-year-old tenure as Bolivia's first indigenous president stems from his struggle with the four eastern lowland provinces where Bolivia's natural gas riches are concentrated and where his government has essentially lost control. The provinces are seeking greater autonomy from Morales' leftist government and are insisting he cancel a Dec. 7 referendum on a new constitution that would help him centralize power, run for a second consecutive term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants. Morales says the new charter is needed to empower Bolivia's indigenous majority. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 In other words, they object to his robbing them blind, for some reason. How wude of them. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-09-15 00:42 |