Civil war talk stokes Bolivian fears

Miguel Roda fires four shots into the palm trees and imagines a civil war.

"We will spill our last drop of blood, comrades!" he shouts to a few dozen supporters gathered in a city plaza. "We will defend Santa Cruz inch by inch, street by street and town by town!"

The enemy, to this black-bereted, revolver-toting Bolivian, is his leftist president, Evo Morales. Roda's dream: to revive the Bolivian Socialist Falange, an ultranationalist party that was strong in the 1950s and then dormant for decades.

Civil war may seem unthinkable, but in Santa Cruz, a lowland city and anti-Morales stronghold, the appearance of Roda's fringe group reflects the alarm gripping the white elite. Morales' reforms are popular among his fellow highland Indians, but take dead aim at the frontier capitalism practiced in Santa Cruz state.

Old regional and racial rivalries, many Bolivians believe, are deepening the split.

"The elite feel absolutely violated by the changes taking place in Bolivian society," says Jose Mirtenbaum, a sociologist at Gabriel Rene Moreno University in Santa Cruz. "The situation here is very emotional, and very irrational. But as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."