Morales threatens to use force to stop autonomy bid by provincial leaders

BOLIVIA: Bolivian President Evo Morales warned again he would use military force if needed to stop a bid by the leaders of four provinces to become fully autonomous and said efforts to divide the country were treason.

"Dividing the country is a treason against the Bolivian people ... The fatherland is untouchable and the armed forces will defend it," the leftist leader said during a speech to army officers in La Paz.

He was responding to increased demands for autonomy from the governors of four eastern regions, the wealthiest part of the country where opposition is strong to Morales' policies including his plan to redistribute idle land to peasant farmers. He also threatened on Saturday to use military force to quell any attempt to divide the country.

Bolivia, South America's poorest country, is roughly divided along ethnic and economic lines, with the eastern lowlands home to more European-descended people and rich in natural gas resources, while the indigenous-dominated western highlands are relatively poorer and strongly back Morales.

"The four legitimately autonomous regions of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz and Tarija, represented by their democratically elected governors ... have initiated the implementation of fully autonomous regions," Beni's Gov. Ernesto Suarez announced at a news conference on Monday.

According to a June referendum, a majority of people in these regions want their local leaders to have more control over political and economic affairs. Morales said his programs - such as nationalization of the country's energy industry and giving the indigenous majority a voice in a new constitution - were promises he made during his presidential campaign.

Morales is the first leader to come from Bolivia's Indian majority. He won elections in 2005. Following sometimes violent pro-autonomy demonstrations in Santa Cruz last week, local leaders have called for a public meeting for Friday to decide their next step.

Leaders of the regions of Pando, Tarija and Beni are organizing similar meetings.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people are still on hunger strike to protest voting rules at the assembly rewriting the constitution, which they say give Morales' Movement Toward Socialism party total control over the future legal charter.

Protesters accuse the leftist leader of trying to deprive the pro-autonomy opposition of a say in the assembly and of trying to polarize the country along ethnic lines.

"They cannot impose one race above another, they cannot set a confrontation of the black against the white... that is happening in this country, and that is indeed putting democracy at risk," hunger striker Eliodoro Torrico told Reuters.

Santa Cruz, Tuesday, Reuters