MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia: new round of negotiations in the making

The tension that prevailed all week in Bolivia slacked off Friday as protesters removed some highway blockades despite threats by unions to intensify their opposition to President Carlos Mesa administration.

Meantime Bolivia's ombudsman Waldo Albarracín and the president of the independent Human Rights Assembly Sacha Llorenty were desperately trying to organize a new summit between President Mesa and Evo Morales leader of the opposition and head of the Movement Toward Socialism, MAS.

Thursday evening union leaders and Mr. Morales followers anticipated further protests to bring the Bolivian economy to a standstill. However only the main highway crossing the country remained blocked in Cochabamba province, which happens to be the MAS leader stronghold. Actually more than twenty roadblocks consisting of felled trees and stones remain along the main highway through Cochabmaba province.

But in other areas, in the eastern province of Santa Cruz peasants lifted their 11-day-old blockade allowing an estimated a thousand vehicles - most of them cargo trucks and public buses - to get rolling again.

In the city of El Alto near La Paz, highways leading to Peru, Chile and the rest of the country were opened in spite of the ongoing conflict with France's Suez multinational corporation responsible for water and sewage services in the area.

The improvement of the situation on the roads system contrasts however, with the polarization in the political scenario, particularly over the controversial hydrocarbons bill under discussion in Congress.

The meeting, "a kind of political and social summit should be convened as soon as possible, no later than next Monday, Tuesday, before Congress resumes the oil bill debate", said Mr. Albarracín.

Apparently Cochabamba, Mr. Morales turf will be the meeting point to which President Mesa, Mr. Morales, business chambers, municipal delegates and other civil society representatives have been invited.

President Mesa idea favours leaving the current royalties on oil and natural gas at 18% and creating a new 32% additional flexible tax. However Mr. Morales and the opposition insist in a flat royalty equivalent to 50%, which Mr. Mesa says will definitively scare investors from the rich mineral resources of Bolivia.

A third alternative, proposed by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Mario Cossio apparently is the technical support for the new round of negotiations.