Bolivia government, rivals seek way out of crisis

COBIJA, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivia's government and rightist rivals on Sunday sought to defuse a deep political crisis after deadly protests prompted martial law in one restive northern province where nearly 30 people were killed.

Mario Cossio, governor of natural gas-rich Tarija province, said he would travel to La Paz for a second round of talks with the government and urged President Evo Morales to take part personally. Morales' spokesman said he might.

Bolivia, an unstable country rich in natural gas at the heart of South America, has been rocked in the past week as supporters of rightist opposition governors stepped up their rejection of Morales' plans for deep socialist reforms. Morales has said his opponents want to oust him.

Opposition protest leader and wealthy pro-autonomy businessman Branko Marinkovic said his followers would end roadblocks that have crippled eastern Santa Cruz province to help foster negotiation.

"As a sign of good will, so that dialogue prospers and there is no more blood spilled in Bolivia, we will ask that road blocks in all provinces be lifted," Marinkovic said.

"We hope the government will also signal goodwill by ending this repression and genocide in the province of Pando."

Bolivian troops patrolled the small city of Cobija in the impoverished Amazon north before dawn on Sunday, as the death toll rose from days of clashes between government and opposition supporters.

Defense Minister Walker San Miguel said the army patrolled Cobija, capital of sparsely populated Pando province in the Amazon near Brazil, before dawn, two days after Morales declared martial law.

Morales is among a new generation of leftist leaders in Latin America allied with anti-Washington President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

TENSE CALM

Cobija was quiet at midday on Sunday with shops closed. Troops guarded the airport and a barracks. An aide to Pando's governor, a foe of Morales, denied the army was in control of Cobija.

Troops continued to find bodies from a Thursday fight in Pando between mostly pro-government peasant farmers and backers of Morales' rightist opponents.

"We are nearing the 30 mark," said Alfredo Rada, government minister for the province of 60,000 people.

Morales accused backers of Pando's opposition governor, Leopoldo Fernandez, of ordering a massacre and the government has vowed to arrest him.

Fernandez denied the charge. He said he had been talking to representatives of human rights groups, but accused the government of stopping them from visiting him.

"This is a clear sign that the government is not interested in anyone coming here who does not agree with their plans," he told local television. He said he was at home and had made the rounds of Cobija unimpeded in the morning.

Tarija's Cossio said the opposition governors also would ask Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to allow them to attend a presidential summit in Santiago on Monday of the Union of South American Nations to discuss Bolivia.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chavez were to attend.

Addressing a crowd of thousands in Cochabamba in the poor Andean nation's coca-growing heartland, Morales accused the right-wing governors of plotting against him and defied them by vowing to introduce divisive reforms.

"They are conspiring against us with a fascist, racist coup," Morales, Bolivia's first Indian leader, said as he pledged to adopt a new pro-indigenous constitution bitterly opposed by governors demanding autonomy.

The violence forced a temporary cut exports of natural gas to Argentina and Brazil, Bolivia's main source of revenue.

U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg was due to leave the country on Sunday after Morales banished him and accused him of conspiring with the opposition.

"President Morales' decision to reduce the level of our bilateral relations was a grave error which could have serious consequences," Goldberg said in a parting shot.

(Reporting by Simon Gardner, Eduardo Garcia, Carlos Quiroga and Raymond Colitt in Santa Cruz; Editing by Terry Wade and Bill Trott)