The leaders of Venezuela and Argentina canceled a trip to Bolivia on Tuesday after two people were killed and many were injured during protests across the country before a recall vote facing Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Dozens of protesters tried to storm the main airport in Tarija in southern Bolivia, forcing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez to call off a trip to the area, which is rich in natural gas, for energy talks with Morales.
The deaths and injuries occurred in clashes between police and workers near Bolivia’s largest tin mine, Huanuni, where miners are demanding higher pensions.
The government said both the Huanuni miners’ and the anti-Morales protests were attempts by the opposition to weaken the president before a recall vote on Sunday that will either ratify him or force him out of office.
“These people are the enemies of our homeland,” Morales told a cheering crowd at a rally in the southern town of Villamontes, shortly after Chavez called him to cancel the scheduled visit.
“And because 150 to 200 people cause trouble at [Tarija] airport ... what are we losing? Bolivia is losing out on signing [energy] contracts,” he said, as supporters waved banners that read “Yes, Evo will stay” and set off fireworks.
Morales said his opponents were “scared” ahead of the recall vote and Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said the protests had political undertones.
Road blocks, opposition hunger strikes and other protests have been mounting, forcing Morales to cancel plans to travel to Sucre, the constitutional capital, this week to give his customary National Day speech.
Eight of Bolivia’s nine provincial governors, elected at the same time as Morales in 2005, also face the recall vote on Sunday.
One governor took office recently and does not.
In Tarija, police used tear gas to break up dozens of protesters at the airport, shouting slogans against Chavez, who had been scheduled to land there with Fernandez.
The military closed the airport after the protest.
“This suspension [of the summit] was decided due to these acts of violence, provocation and intolerance promoted by bands of fascist, conservative retrograde groups,” Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia said.
Chavez, Latin America’s most vocal leftist leader, is a major ally of Morales, pouring aid into Bolivia and pledging investment in its rich natural gas fields.
Chavez and Morales had planned to launch a project to produce natural gas derivatives.
“We don’t want Evo, he’s a traitor,” Leticia Morales said at the airport protest. She said Morales and Chavez “are crazy and we don’t want that kind of government in our country.”
“They said they are going to sign an energy agreement, but it’s a political show in support of Morales,” local opposition leader Reynaldo Bayard said.
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