Talks aimed at settling a long-running conflict in Bolivia between President Evo Morales and rebel governors that blew up into deadly unrest last week were under way yesterday, as soldiers battled to restore order.
The meeting between Vice President Alvaro Garcia and Tarija state Governor Mario Cossio, who was also representing the four other governors in the opposition coalition, started late on Sunday.
A summit between South American presidents concerned over the strife in Bolivia was also to be held in Chile yesterday.
Both sides in Bolivia waved an olive branch after six days of street violence that left at least 18 people dead and 100 wounded in the northern state of Pando.
Troops sent to that state, which was put under martial law by Morales on Friday, were facing off with armed anti-government protesters in the main city of Cobija.
They were also hunting the state governor, Leopoldo Fernandez, to arrest him for rejecting the martial law order, and for allegedly having a hand in the deaths of 16 of those killed. The government said the dead, mostly peasants who supported Morales, had been gunned down in an ambush.
Opposition leaders in the state of Santa Cruz said on Sunday they had ordered an end to roadblocks that had been set up in protest against the government, and which had caused a penury of fuel in the state, as a gesture of “goodwill for dialogue.”
Garcia responded by saying the government was “amply predisposed” to negotiate.
The governors have rejected socialist reforms Morales is seeking to impose, including rewriting the Constitution to break up big land holdings to give parcels to poor Bolivian Indians and to redistribute the country’s revenues from lucrative gas fields.
The conflict has pitted the indigenous majority, which includes Morales, against the white or mixed population inhabiting the eastern lowlands.
Morales has been defiant, vowing as recently as Saturday to “emerge victorious” with his reforms or die trying. He also accused the rebel governors of Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca of “plotting a fascist, racist coup” against him.
Garcia said Morales would not take part in the negotiations, but would step in at the end to sign any resulting deal.
The internal problems of Bolivia took place against a parallel diplomatic row with the US.
On Sunday, the US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, left the country under an expulsion order by Morales, who had accused him of supporting the opposition and encouraging a division of the country.
Before flying out, he told reporters in La Paz that Bolivia could expect “serious consequences” in return, beyond the expulsion of the Bolivian ambassador, which had already been announced.
Morales, Goldberg said, had “not correctly evaluated” the effects of his order, and he highlighted the US-led fight against cocaine production in Bolivia, which receives US$100 million a year in US aid.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS