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03/31/2006:

"Bolivia's wealthy lowlands threaten to split"

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales is in danger of losing control of Bolivia's wealthy eastern lowlands, where opposition to his socialist agenda is growing and local authorities are demanding autonomy from the central government based at La Paz in the impoverished western highlands.

Ninety percent of Bolivia's hydrocarbon reserves are located between Santa Cruz and Tarija, where Mario Cossio, the newly elected governor, has been seeking support from neighboring Paraguay and Argentina to declare a separate state.

"The east will inevitably move toward independence within a year," said Arturo Mendivil, a lawyer and popular radio host in Santa Cruz, Bolivia's largest urban center, with a population of 1.5 million.

The Quechua and Aymara Indian communities that dominate the western Andes and form the bedrock of Mr. Morales' support still harbor an egalitarian culture and welcome the socialist economic policies of Bolivia's first Indian president, the lawyer said.

White immigrants have mixed more easily with native Indian Guaranis in the eastern plains and forests, by contrast, "creating a European-style entrepreneurial society that has turned Santa Cruz into a corporate center and economic powerhouse," said local historian Miguel Angel Sandoval.

Racial and ethnic divisions are another source of friction. Santa Cruz beauty queen Gabriela Oviedo caused an uproar when, as Miss Bolivia 2004, she told journalists in Miami that "not all Bolivians are dark, short and poor. In Santa Cruz, we are tall, fair-skinned and educated."
wpherald.com