BUENOS AIRES — Since the mid-19th century, Latin America has suffered fewer interstate wars and undergone less state creation than any other region of the world. The continent has been a relatively quiet periphery because its countries tend neither to fight each other nor to divide from within. Bolivia, however, may be poised to buck the latter trend.
A referendum on autonomy that was approved in May in Bolivia's eastern province of Santa Cruz has generated fear about the region's eventual secession. This relatively rich, opposition- controlled, ethnically mixed, and more conservative province, blessed with fertile lowlands and hydrocarbons, voted for autonomy by a wide margin.
The most outspoken antigovernment forces in Santa Cruz seem to be itching for partition. And recent referendums in the Amazonian provinces of Beni and Pando appeared to have exacerbated this sense of potential national fracturing.