The tension in Cochabamba is increasing.  Reyes Villa wants to officially announce a referendum on autonomy for the region.  The followers of Evo Morales are against it.

Opposing Factions.  Farmers loyal to the party of Evo Morales, the Movement for Socialism, and a group of young people calling themselves ‘Young people for Democracy’, supporters of the governor of Cochabamba, Manfred Reyes Villa ( an ardent opponent of Morales), have clashed furiously in every angle of the city using sticks and showering stones upon each other.  The disturbances have caused two deaths and more than a hundred wounded.  According to the manager of the council, Omar Fernandez, however, there will be another death but the news has not yet been confirmed.  Several offices of the governor have been set on fire.  The tension remains very high and appeals for a dialogue between the two parties have been arriving from politicians and religious leaders.

The facts.  For several days the city of Cochabamba has been at the centre of continued demonstrations by farmers, for the major part, ‘Cocaleros’ called together by the Movement for Socialism, to put pressure on the local governor, Manfred Reyes Villa (who has been constrained to  abandon the city escorted by police) to renounce his institutional responsibility after he had several times expressed his intention to want to call a new referendum which could allow the district of Cochabamba to become autonomous, a goal shared by other Bolivian regional governors.
The situation began to degenerate when last Monday, the police of Cochabamba, who are paid by Reyes, fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the farmers in an attempt to disperse them while they tried to occupy the offices of the prefecture.  Thirty five people, among them women and children, were wounded.

Iron Will.  Reyes won’t go back on his position.  He has confirmed this several times.  The governor of Cochabamba, together with the other governors who oppose La Paz, has confirmed his intention to go ahead with the referendum on autonomy.  Not just that.  With a smile to the journalists present, he confirmed that he will not resign from his post as regional governor.
There is more.  Reyes Villa accuses the Bolivian president, Evo Morales of being the director of the violence and of the attacks on the governor’s offices.  The other governors present at the meeting, José Luis Paredes (La paz), Rubén Costas (Santa Cruz), Ernesto Suárez (Beni), Mario Cossio (Tarija) and Leopoldo Fernandez (Pando), accuse the government of nurturing the scenes of violence of the last few days.
The declaration by the ex vice-president, Hugo Cardenas, worried by the possibility of a civil war is also alarming.  He says that the lack of political dialogue between the two sides is the cause of this violence in the country.
Waldo Albarracín, representing the Bolivian Catholic Church,  went to Cochabamba in person to see the situation for himself and has also made an appeal for dialogue between the parties until peace is achieved.