[Marxism] Associated Press on Bolivia's confrontation

[Carlos Petroni]

         Bolivia: Warrying miners groups declare truce


By DAN KEANE, Associated Press WriterFri Oct  6, 12:34 AM ET

Rival miners' groups agreed to a truce late Thursday after a day of clashes over
access to one of South America's richest tin mines left at least nine people dead
and 40 injured, a senior official said.
The fight pitted independent miners allied with President Evo Morales against
those employed by Bolivia's state mining company.
Hundreds of miners belonging to independent cooperatives stormed the
state-owned Huanuni mine, demanding more access to its tin deposits.
State-employed miners counterattacked to regain control of the mine and the
groups exchanged gunshots and threw sticks of dynamite.
Public Defender Waldo Albarricin announced late Thursday that the two groups
had agreed to stop fighting so both sides could bury their dead.
"The peace agreement comes at the will of workers on both sides," said
Albarricin, adding that meetings between the camps will continue Friday morning
 to negotiate a more permanent agreement.
"What should have been a blessing for the country, to possess such natural
riches, today has become a curse," said Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera in
a national address Thursday evening.
Linera said nine people had been killed and at least 40 injured.
               
        A team of Bolivia's top ministers arrived in the mining town of Huanuni, 180 miles
 south of the capital of La Paz, in hopes of negotiating an end to the conflict.
The Bolivian government has declined to mobilize the military in response to the
 conflict.
"We are still not deploying public forces, and will do so only when it becomes
necessary," Morales' chief of staff, Juan Ramon Quintana, told a news
 conference.
But some angry miners accused Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, of
withholding troops to avoid a confrontation with the independent mining
cooperatives that played a key role in the populist movement that helped him win
 election last December.
"If they will not send the army, then they should send us boxes for our dead,"
said Pedro Montes, secretary-general of the Central Obrero Boliviano, a
 nationwide union representing the state-employed miners.
Among the dead were men and one woman representing both groups, as well as
 a local bus driver, according to media reports.
Morales was elected in December with a mandate to help Bolivia's poor
indigenous majority see a larger share of the revenues from the land-locked
 nations' extensive mineral and natural gas deposits.
The cooperatives strongly backed Morales' campaign last year, and the presiden
 has since granted them some concessions at Huanuni.




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