LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Concerned with the opposition in Bolivia, United States will create a support group of nations for the Bolivian government, local news sources report.
According to leading Bolivian newspaper La Razon, the first meeting will be in Washington on Jan. 16, three days after the Summit of the Americas meeting in Monterrey, Mexico.
Diplomatic sources in Bolivia told La Razon 15 nations were invited to the meeting, among them Brazil, Argentina and even Japan. Representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will also attend.
The group will reportedly provide financial, technical and political support to Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, who assumed the reigns of the troubled, poverty-stricken nation after ongoing protests forced Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to step down in October.
"Goni," as he is known locally, was accused of corruption and catering to foreign interests at the expense of Bolivia's own.
While Mesa's ascension to power was heralded as a triumph for Bolivia's poor and indigenous people, there has been growing support for opposition leaders in recent months.
The most worrisome one for the United States is Evo Morales, a socialist and leader of Bolivia's coca growers, providers of the raw material to produce cocaine. Morales lost a run-off election against Goni in 2002.
The United States maintains that Morales was the driving force behind the protests that unseated the former president and is funded by Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. Morales denies the allegations.
