Fresh violence in Bolivia stokes civil war fears

LA PAZ - Deadly clashes in Bolivia Thursday stoked fears of further widespread unrest and possibly even civil war, amid a furore over the expulsion of the US ambassador to the country.

At least eight people were killed and a dozen people wounded in violent clashes between pro- and anti-government protesters in the north-eastern town of Cobija, officials said.

It was the third day of street violence in parts of the country.

The United States, meanwhile, responded with fury to President Evo Morales's ordering the departure of the US ambassador by ordering Bolivia's envoy to Washington to also leave.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez immediately announced he was sending the US ambassador to his country packing in a show of solidarity with Morales.

The conflagration in Bolivia was a worsening of a months-long political standoff between Morales, who has been pushing through socialist reforms since becoming president in 2006, and conservative governors in the east opposed to his reforms.

Morales, the first indigenous president of majority-indigenous Bolivia, has sought to distribute resources more equally in the poorest country in South America.

The conflict has racial overtones as relatively prosperous regions of the eastern lowlands, where more people are of European descent and mixed-race, are keen to hold on to local resources they see as being pulled away by the impoverished indigenous highlands.

Morales's spokesman, Ivan Canelas, said Wednesday the conditions opened the way to "a sort of civil war."

In Santa Cruz and Tarija, two hotspots for violence this week, with government offices ransacked, the situation was relatively calm, although precarious.

Wednesday, the central market area in Tarija saw right-wing youth groups linked to opposition governors defying Morales clashing with indigenous groups. Around 100 people were hurt.

In Santa Cruz, police overnight dispersed similar fights over control of the city's coach (bus) terminal.

In southeast Bolivia, a gas pipeline was blown up Wednesday in what the head of the state energy company YPSL, Santos Ramirez, called a "terrorist attack" by anti-government protesters.

Authorities at the private Franco-Brazilian Transierra company said supply to Brazil had been seriously affected.

On a visit to Brasilia, Bolivia's Finance Minister Luis Alberto Arce said Bolivia was facing a "civilian coup attempt" referring to the protests targeting gas exports. Natural gas is Bolivia's main saleable natural resource.

The Brazilian presidential advisor on international affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, responded by saying Brazil "will not tolerate" any moves to oust Morales.

Brazil "will not recognise any government taking the place, or trying to take the place, of the legitimate, constitutional government of Bolivia," he said.

Morales's domestic troubles were shadowed by the diplomatic row between Bolivia and the United States, with whom Morales has long had an antagonistic relationship.

The US State Department angrily dismissed Morales accusation that US ambassador Philip Goldberg was encouraging a break-up of Bolivia through support of opposition groups.

"President Morales's action is a grave error that has seriously damaged the bilateral relationship," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, reading a statement.

The row was playing out against a wider challenge to US influence in Latin America that is, in part, linked to Russia's ties to leftwing nations in the region.

Wednesday, Chavez confirmed that two Russian strategic bombers had landed in his country. On Thursday he described them as "a warning" to the United States.

The United States also has been miffed by Nicaragua's recent decision to recognise two rebel Georgian provinces.

A visit by the US secretary of commerce to that Central American country was cancelled because "circumstances have changed," US ambassador to Nicaragua Robert Callahan said Tuesday.