Alarmed by change, Bolivia's elite mull civil war

History repeating itself
"The number of dead is less important than the humiliation (Santa Cruz) suffered at the hands of a pack of hounds blinded by alcohol and irrationality," Santa Cruz historian Alcides Parejas said in an e-mail interview.

It still echoes a half-century later as Indian immigrants — largely Morales supporters — arrive in search of work, driving Santa Cruz state's population from 2 million in 2001 to an estimated 2.5 million today.

Morales stoked the whites' fears last month when he hosted a parade of Indians alongside Bolivian soldiers at a Santa Cruz air base.

Clear signs of tension
The tension sometimes spills into the streets.

The Cruceno Youth Union, an ally of Roda's group, was accused of organizing a pre-dawn raid in August on a largely Indian market. In footage shown on national television, drunken young men smashed car windows and threatened vendors with racial taunts. A car carrying fleeing thugs ran down and injured a vendor.

Union members deny any involvement. But the boys hanging around their ramshackle clubhouse twirl big sticks and baseball bats, and don't hide their distaste for pro-Morales newcomers.

"Either they adapt to Santa Cruz, or they return to their own territory," Union member Victor Hugo Vhistrox told The Associated Press.

Some fear the pistol-wavers' dreams will come true if common ground isn't found.

"We've arrived at a moment that we don't know exactly how to face," says Carlos Valverde, a Santa Cruz TV commentator and fierce Morales critic. Valverde belonged to the Falange as a teenager in the 1950s when his father was one of its leaders, but doesn't endorse violence.

"The fear I have is that one day we'll arrive at the cliff," he says, "and we'll arrive with such force that some will fall over the edge. And then it'll all go to hell."

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