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Clash Adds To Bolivia, U.S. Divide

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The Associated Press

Published: September 28, 2008

PORVENIR, Bolivia - A deadly clash this month on a jungle highway has become the newest and bloodiest symbol of Bolivia's political crisis pitting President Evo Morales against an autonomy movement in the eastern lowlands that is bitterly resisting his leftist reforms.

The Sept. 11 shootout capped rioting across half of Bolivia, violence that Morales alleges was inspired by opposition governors and supported by the United States - a charge denied by U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg as he was expelled from the natural gas-rich country this month.

Morales says a second Bolivian region has asked the United States to withdraw its aid programs as diplomatic relations between the countries continue to sour. This year, Bolivian farmers asked USAID to leave the coca-growing Chapare region.

Morales, pushing for socialist reforms based on traditional Bolivian indigenous values, says groups organized by his political opponents machine-gunned 16 of his supporters in the Sept. 11 confrontation.

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