BOLIVIA: Bolivian troops have arrested the opposition governor of a restive northern province blamed for a rash of killings, but President Evo Morales says he still hopes to agree shortly to formal talks with his political opponents.
Leopoldo Fernandez, the right-wing governor of Pando province in Bolivia's far north, was detained by troops yesterday in the city of Cobija and bundled onto an aircraft bound for La Paz.
The government accuses him of ordering a massacre of pro-Morales peasants last Thursday. At least 16 people are believed to have died.
Bolivia has looked increasingly volatile over the past week as supporters of opposition governors stepped up their agitation.
"We hope by the end of the day to have agreed on the points that have been discussed up until now," Mr Morales told a news conference at the presidential palace.
Bolivia's attorney general said on Monday he had opened an investigation into accusations of genocide against Mr Fernandez.
Meanwhile South American leaders, meeting in Santiago in Chile on Monday, called on the rebel governors to abandon their violent protests. "We condemn and reject any attempt at a civilian coup or rupture of institutional order," Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said. "We will not recognise any situation that comes from that sort of action."
- (Reuters)