Bolivia police work to broker truce in miner clash

HUANUNI, Bolivia, Oct 7 (Reuters) Rival groups of Bolivian miners battled with dynamite while officials worked to reimpose a truce and sent in hundreds of police to quell the deadly fighting at one of the world's largest tin mines.

At least 14 people died as state-employed miners and members of independent mining cooperatives attacked each other at the Huanuni mine in the desolate, dusty Andes of western Bolivia. More than 60 people were injured.

The violence poses a new challenge to leftist President Evo Morales, leaving him caught between two groups whose political support helped lift him to power last year.

It also triggered calls from opposition lawmakers demanding the resignation of Morales' mining minister and a top presidential aide.

Hundreds of riot police carrying batons and shields arrived at the impoverished town of Huanuni, southeast of La Paz, yesterday as the rival groups hurled dynamite at each other after a Thursday-night truce broke down.

Police and government and church officials were negotiating with both sides. ''We're carrying out a job of persuasion,'' said National Police Commissioner Isaac Pimentel.

Earlier yesterday, hundreds of independent miners in hard hats, many crouched in the rocky hillsides overlooking Huanuni, tossed lit dynamite sticks at rival workers.

Some packed dynamite into tires, which they rolled down to explode near state-employed miners guarding mine entrances.

The government announced it was deploying more than 700 additional police officers but said they would not carry lethal weapons.

Analysts and traders said tin prices could jump sharply as supplies are squeezed by the violence in Bolivia and in Indonesia, where riots broke out after police closed down four illegal smelters this week.

WORKERS FIGHT The violence flared when independent miners wielding dynamite attempted to storm the mine on Thursday, fighting for the right to work more areas of the mine.

State-employed workers complain that while they earn a monthly wage, contract workers are paid according to the amount of ore they extract, frequently earning more than mine staff.

''They are sucking the mine dry,'' said Eliaterio Ancasi, 54, a worker at the state-controlled mining company COMIBOL.

''Within a month many of them have a car, while most of the state workers don't even have a wheelbarrow.'' Some 1,200 state-employed miners and 4,000 independent miners work at Huanuni, which produces 10,000 tonnes of tin a year, slightly more than half of Bolivia's total production.

Bolivian National Ombudsman Waldo Albarracin and the head of the country's Assembly for Human Rights Guillermo Vilela said they were working to persuade both sides to return to the negotiating table.

''We're working to achieve some commitment to end the violence, then we'll try to talk about the deeper problems,'' Albarracin told reporters.

Once a pillar of the economy in South America's poorest country, the mining industry shriveled during the 1980s as pits were closed and workers let go amid an economic crisis and sagging international prices for minerals.

As prices rebounded and climbed in the 1990s, the laid off miners started working the idle mines themselves and eventually formed powerful independent cooperatives now fighting for more control over Bolivia's rich minerals.

Morales has said he wants to revive the industry but has not announced a formal plan to do so.

REUTERS DKS RAI0538