MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Growing violence in Bolivia ahead of Sunday's recall vote

Clashes between striking Bolivian miners and the police which left at least two people dead and dozens injured forced the cancelling of a regional summit with Argentina's Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and host Evo Morales.

Miners from Bolivia's largest tin mine, Huanuni, are striking over pensions and violence erupted when police clashed with miners who had blocked the road that links the capital La Paz with the city of Oruro, according to Interior Minister Alfredo Rada. The indefinite strike is part of a larger drive by Bolivia's largest labor federation, COB, for bigger pensions and a lowering of the retirement age. Huanuni has been a flashpoint for labor strife. In April, miners staged a 12-day pay strike, and output was halted for several weeks in late 2006 after violent clashes with dynamite sticks between rival groups of miners killed 18 people and injured dozens. The miners conflict happens just a few days off from a recall vote on Sunday that could force Morales and regional governors (mostly from the opposition) out of office, and Rada said the mine protests were politically motivated. "These protests have a political undertone, they want the referendum to fail," he emphasized. Elsewhere in the country, anti-government protesters tried to storm the main airport in natural gas-rich Tarija region which was precisely where the visiting Argentine and Venezuelan presidents were expected. Hugo Chavez and Cristina Fernandez had been due to meet Morales in Tarija on Tuesday afternoon for energy talks, but Bolivia's presidential office said the meeting had been canceled because of the demonstrations.