SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — South American presidents met urgently Monday hoping to prevent a political collapse in Bolivia, where the government planned to charge a rebellious eastern governor with genocide for allegedly ordering the machine-gunning of peasants. Bolivia's leftist president, Evo Morales, arrived at the hastily called summit having effectively lost control of half of his country. Anti-Morales protesters have blocked highways, taken over national government offices, closed border crossings and sabotaged pipelines, briefly forcing a cutoff of nearly half of Bolivia's natural gas exports to Brazil. The most serious challenge yet to Morales' presidency is being spurred by governors of Bolivia's autonomy-seeking lowland provinces, home to the nation's energy deposits and best farmland.The governors want a larger share of the nation's gas profits, and are demanding that Morales cancel the centerpiece of his 3-year tenure: a planned referendum on a new constitution that would give Bolivia's long-suppressed indigenous majority more power, let Morales run for a consecutive second term and transfer fallow terrain to landless peasants.
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