Death Toll In Bolivia Unrest Reaches 18

by Gh0s7 | September 13, 2008 at 12:56 pm | 102 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

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The Associated Press out of La Paz, Bolivia is reporting that violence between pro-government and anti-government protesters has led to the death of 18 people. The AP says the Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the opposition of using foreign thugs against protesters in the violence that has killed 18 people so far.

"A larger tragedy has to be avoided," said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a strong ally of Bolivia's leftist president, confirming he would attend the meeting.

Interior Minister Alfredo Rada has told a radio station that at least eight bodies were found on a river bank near Porvenir, close to where eight other bodies were found on Thursday. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry has confirmed the toll to the media, and added that a team of prosecutors and doctors were heading to Porvenir. Porvenir is located about 20 miles from the town of Cobija, which is the capital of the northern state of Pando. On Friday, Bolivian President Evo Morales ordered martial law in Pando, after the discovery of the eight bodies on Thursday. Morales described the gun battle in the province of Pando that led him to impose martial law the next day.

Officials accused the opposition governor of Pando, Leopoldo Fernandez, of bearing responsibility for the "massacre" by arming workers in his office. He said he suspected the rural workers had been gunned down in cold blood and not in clashes as Fernandez had asserted.

Bolivian President Evo Morales has said that he would not hesitate to extend the state of siege to the other three pro-autonomy provinces in eastern Bolivia if necessary.

At Saturday's news conference, Morales said "Brazilian and Peruvian assassins under the command of the governor of Pando" took part in what he said was an ambush of government supporters.

In an attempt to defuse the violence, over a new constitutino and land reform that would possibly tear the nation apart, Chile has called for an emergency meeting of South American leaders to take place on Monday.