A crisis that threatens to split Bolivia has worsened, with the government freezing the accounts of the eastern province of Santa Cruz just days before the territory holds a referendum on whether to declare autonomy.
The move, announced by Economy Minister Luis Alberto Arce late Thursday, deepens tensions between Santa Cruz's opposition governor and the leftwing administration of President Evo Morales.
Morales has said he views the province's plans for the May 4 referendum as an illegal separatist bid, and has vowed to ignore any autonomy declaration.
But three more lowlying provinces in the landlocked South American nation -- made up of nine provinces in total -- have said they, too, will follow suit with their own pushes for autonomy in South America's poorest country.
The four autonomy-seeking territories account for 65 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
The crisis was triggered by Morales's plans to overhaul Bolivia's constitution to redistribute much of the wealth of the eastern provinces to the poorer Andean highlands.
The conflict has taken on an ethnic context, pitting the poor indigenous majority of the mountainous area against the richer, ethnically mixed descendants in the lower provinces.
Morales is Bolivia's first indigenous president, in South America's only majority indigenous country. Bolivia's main indigenous groups are ethnic Aymara and Quechua.
Arce said the government froze the accounts holding tax revenue for Santa Cruz because the province disconnected itself from a nationwide government computer system that tracked municipal spending and receipts.
The government also accused the US ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, of siding with the rebel provinces.
"Ambassador Philip Goldberg has unveiled an agenda more political than diplomatic in Bolivia, and this agenda is linked to opponents of the current government," Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said.
The US embassy responded with a statement saying it supported the "unity and democracy" of Bolivia.
Morales is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose has long nettled Washington with his attempts to align other Latin American states with his far-left positions inspired by the communist Cuban government.
Earlier this week, Chavez hosted a hastily called summit with Morales, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage to make a joint declaration of support for the Bolivian leader.
