Bolivia govt struggles with police, native protests

Tensions mounted in Bolivia as President Evo Morales\'s government struggled to reach a deal with striking police and indigenous protestors prepared to march on the capital La Paz. Despite the resumption of negotiations, hundreds of uniformed police demonstrated for a sixth day in front of the gates of the heavily-guarded palace, where Morales was working in the morning, a palace official told AFP. At the same time, public workers aligned with Morales gathered at a square in the outskirts of La Paz in a rally for the president. \"I wish that they didn\'t call for this act of public support because regrettably there are going to be confrontations and the situation is going to get worse,\" warned Guadalupe Cardenas, leader of a police wives\' group. The situation in the capital was due to become even more volatile on Wednesday with the arrival of 1,000 indigenous natives, completing a long march from the Amazon to protest a highway through their ancestra homeland. The natives had delayed their entry into La Paz to fend off accusations from the Morales government that they were only coming in to back the police mutiny, which has been officially portrayed as a budding \"coup d\'etat.\" \"Tomorrow (Wednesday), from nine in the morning, we will take up the road again heading for the seat of government,\" said indigenous leader Bertha Bejarano at their encampment 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of the capital. \"The government ought to find a solution for the problems with the police and should not confuse their action with our march,\" Bejarano said. Sticking to the government position that police are trying to set the stage for a coup, Communications Minister Amanda Davila declared on public radio that the police mutiny \"is not just any kind of movement.\" \"They have the power of weaponry, of tear gas, and of all the tools\" that are now being turned against the state, he said, citing alleged explosive attacks on Congress and on a radio station as evidence. In another sign of the growing tensions, the governors of eight of Bolivia\'s nine departments, all except Santa Cruz, put out statements of support for Morales, apparently prompted by his officials. \"We reject and condemn the aims and objectives of conspirators and rebel groups that are causing violence and whose actions are aimed at destabilizing the democratic process by promoting a coup,\" said the governor of La Paz department, Cesar Cocarico. As police representatives, meanwhile, entered a new round of talks with three federal ministers, groups of public teachers joined hundreds of police -- normally their adversaries -- to protest in La Paz\'s main square. The police strike presents a significant challenge to Morales as it follows months of social unrest from miners, doctors, indigenous people and other groups frustrated with their low standard of living. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) regional bloc, Jose Miguel Insulza, declared Tuesday his growing concern over events in La Paz and called for a prompt solution. \"The strike by the armed body charged with guarding the public order generates, in and of itself, a sensation of uncertainty,\" Insulza said in a written statement issued in Washington. \"But when a legitimate union demand appears to become confused with destabilizing political objectives, that should worry us much more,\" he added. Insulza had \"known evidence of messages exchanged between people close to the strike, that utter threats against government ministers and make allusion to a possible coup,\" the statement said. A clutch of wives, mothers and widows of low-ranking police officers, camped out on cardboard and straw mats in front of the riot police headquarters, provide a visible symbol of the strike movement defying the Morales government. \"We sleep here, in the street, we have some blankets; it is very cold at night and all my bones are bad,\" Francisca, the wife of a police sergeant, told AFP shyly. \"My husband earns 1,200 bolivianos (172 dollars a month). Before I earned good money as a maid but now my hands are too bad and I can no longer work,\" said the mother of six children aged between six and 20. The police want a minimum pay hike to 2,000 bolivianos ($287), from the current average of $195 a month. They also are demanding full pay upon retirement, a police ombudsman and the overturning of a law that bans them from publicly expressing their opinion.