BOLIVIA:BOLIVIAN OFFICIALS and regional leaders said yesterday they had made progress in talks aimed at resolving a crisis that has risked escalating into civil war.
Both sides said they had made advances in the dispute between the central government and regional opposition politicians over regional autonomy, the distribution of revenues from natural gas and the new constitution being sought by Evo Morales, Bolivian president and the country's first indigenous head of state.
After several hours of talks with Bolivian vice-president Álvaro Garcia on Sunday, both sides agreed to wait until Mr Morales returned from Chile, where he was attending a summit of South American leaders last night seeking a joint solution to the crisis.
"I can say we are in the good tracks," said Mario Cossio, rebel governor of Tarija, who is leading talks from the opposition side. "Dialogue is always the first option."
Yet, even as tension seemed to be dissipating in Bolivia's energy-rich east, there were reports of isolated violence.
On Sunday, Branko Marinkovic, a local opposition leader radically opposed to Mr Morales, ordered his followers to lift the widespread - and sometimes violent - road blockades that have left the energy-rich farming area short of gas, oil and food supplies.
The violence followed almost three weeks of roadblocks in the southeast, where protesters stormed government buildings and seized gas fields near pipelines that carry gas to Brazil and Argentina. Mr Morales, who described the violence as a "civil coup" attempt sparked by rebel authorities opposed to his socialist reforms, declared a state of emergency and sent the military into the northern jungle farming region of Pando.
A dramatic upsurge of violence there left an estimated 30 people dead, but the situation now seems to be under control.
Last week Mr Morales expelled the US ambassador to Bolivia, saying Washington was inciting division.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez followed suit by expelling the US ambassador to Caracas.
Carlos Dabdoub, an opposition leader from Santa Cruz, described the dispute as "an ideological fight".
- (Financial Times service)