Word: santas
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Though paramilitary groups are common inside South American neighbors like Peru and Colombia, they are not in Bolivia. Opposition leader and Santa Cruz Prefect Ruben Costas suggested Thursday's events might be a government stunt orchestrated by Morales, who has declared assassination plots against him on several occasions during his presidency but had yet to offer proof. "Anyone can see that this is a crude staging, a show," Costas said in a press conference, adding it could also be the government's way of deflecting attention away from a bomb that exploded outside the Santa Cruz house of a Roman...
...state in Bolivia. At the same time, anti-indigenous racism is widespread in Bolivia's east. Right-wing opposition groups were responsible for violent attacks on indigenous citizens last year before January's constitutional referendum, which gave Bolivia's majority indigenous more political power but had many worried that Santa Cruz and other resource-rich eastern provinces might try to secede from the poorer highlands, where the capital, La Paz, is located. Morales himself went on a five-day hunger strike last week to get Bolivia's Congress to pass an electoral law that gives the indigenous more legislative seats...
...hotel allegedly belonged to had been stalking the caravans of high-ranking government officials and plotting assassination attempts. Vice Minister of the Interior Marcos Farfan said the documents indicated that two members of the group were present when Morales handed out land titles to indigenous Guarani in Santa Cruz province last month - and that they'd supposedly abandoned a scheme to plant a bomb at a recent Morales recent cabinet meeting near Lake Titicaca. More ominously, said Garcia, "we also found documents that speak of future preliminary preparations for an assassination of the President and Vice President." (Check...
...Friday, Morales said unequivocally, "They were going to kill me." He added, "These are international mercenaries" aligned with Bolivia's right-wing opposition. Whether or not the men are linked to the conservative opposition - whose members adamantly denied any ties - officials say a flag of the Nacion Camba - a Santa Cruz-based fascist group - was reportedly found among the weapons. According to security officials, one of the three men killed at the hotel was alleged to be a Romanian; one was from Ireland. One of the wounded, say officials, is a former member of the Bolivian military who trained...
...wing, anti-Washington agenda (including his nationalization of Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves) as well as his alliance with fellow Latin radicals like Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro. Last year, in fact, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador after accusing him of supporting his right-wing foes in Santa Cruz. Last week, he remarked that armed groups in that province were "instruments of the empire," his code for the U.S. But while he complained on Thursday of "outside interference" in Bolivian affairs, he pulled back from fingering Washington, saying he didn't yet know who was financing the alleged...