La Paz, Bolivia - The conflict between left-wing populist
President Evo Morales and five of the opposition-dominated provinces
of Bolivia escalated Wednesday.
Looters overpowered national police to invade major telephone and
television facilities in the large Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la
Sierra, a day after tax-collection offices were targeted, Bolivian
television ATB reported.
The actions are the latest in more than two weeks of protests
against the collection of taxes on natural gas production by the
Bolivian state, which is trying to raise funds to provide all
Bolivians over 60 a pension.
Santa Cruz province is one of five provinces opposing left-wing
populist President Evo Morales, with ongoing attempts at referendums
that would make them more autonomous and give them more control over
energy revenues. The number represents more than half of Bolivia's
nine provinces.
On Tuesday, demonstrators cut off gas exports to Brazil.
Supporters of the pro-autonomy movement in Santa Cruz
- some 900 kilometres east of La Paz - chased away police officers
and soldiers who were watching over the tax authority building.
Government Chief of Staff Alfredo Rada described events as 'the
start of a civilian coup d'état against democracy'.
The commander of the Eighth Division, General Marco Bracamonte,
said soldiers will use real weapons from now on, to command more
respect after being physically-attacked.
'We only look after the things that belong to the Bolivian state.
We are not protecting any given politician,' he stressed.
On Wednesday, protestors looted the telephone company ENTEL,
Bolivian television said. Mobile phone and Internet services were
cut off, and contact between Santa Cruz and the rest of Bolivia was
very difficult.
The regional facilities of the TV network Television Boliviana in
Santa Cruz were also looted. Their filming and editing equipment was
burned, and vandals set fire to a vehicle.
'Nothing else here is any use, and they took computers, mobile
phones, armchairs. And whatever they could not take away they ended
up burning in the street,' a reporter for the television network ATB
said.
In a separate development, militants of the Union Juvenil
Crucenista, a radical right-wing government opposition group, burned
a bridge in the Pailon area, linking the villages of San Julian and
Cuatro Canadas. The area is populated mostly by migrants from western
Bolivia, who generally back Morales.
Supporters of Morales are demanding a tougher stance from the
central state against violent groups in opposition-controlled
provinces.
In August, Morales survived a recall referendum with some 67 per
cent of the votes in favour of him staying.
He had requested the vote in a bid to consolidate his power after
a series of recall referenda pitting him against the country's
wealthy provinces over regional autonomy.
The Bolivian opposition has turned the pro-autonomy movement in
several of the country's regions into a tool to attack the
government, which has sought a redistribution of the country's
resources to improve the lot of the impoverished indigenous majority.
Morales was elected in late 2005 to become Bolivia's first Indio
president.
During a five-year mandate that is set to expire in 2011, he has
pushed through a new constitution and enacted a series of socialist
reforms to aid the poor native population in the mountainous west.
Since the beginning of the year, citizens in four provinces have
approved referenda, by large margins, for greater autonomy from the
national government, which would grant them control over key natural
resources, including natural gas.
Morales declared each vote unconstitutional and void, but was
unable to stop them from being held.
Bolivia has a population of 10 million. Around 60 per cent live in
poverty, most of them Indios.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story