Morales Fires 2 Bolivia Mining Officials

A state-employed miner walks away from a cloud of dust after a detonation of dynamite inside a facility in the city of Huanuni, some 290 kilometers south of capital La Paz, Bolivia on Friday, Oct. 6, 2006. The Bolivian government is sending 700 additional police to stop a clash between rival bands of miners over one of South America's richest tin mines. .(AP Photo/Dado Galdieri) (Dado Galdieri - AP)

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales fired two top mining officials late Friday after a clash between rival bands of miners over access to the country's richest tin deposit left at least 16 dead and more than 60 injured.

Reports of a halt to the fighting came after the government sent 700 police to control the mountainside where the mine is located.

Officials from the two mining groups also met with government ministers in La Paz. Presidential spokesman Alex Contreras said the meeting yielded a peace agreement, with both sides agreeing to allow humanitarian aid to enter the town.

It wasn't immediately known if the agreement would turn into a permanent cease-fire. A truce on Thursday night lasted long enough for both sides to bury their dead.

Morales said the changes were part of the his administration's learning process.

"In eight months we cannot solve all of our social problems," he said. "I recognize, self-critically, that we are all new at this _ ministers, vice ministers, president, vice president, all learning to serve the people better."

Morales, who took office in January as Bolivia's first indigenous president, responded to the violence by dismissing both the minister of mines, Walter Villarroel, and president of Bolivia's state-owned mining company Comibol, Antonio Rebollo.

In their place, he swore in Guillermo Dalence Salinas as the new minister, and Hugo Miranda as the new head of the mining company.

The violence began Thursday morning, when hundreds of miners belonging to independent cooperatives stormed the state-owned Huanuni mine, demanding more access to its tin deposits. State-employed miners counterattacked to regain control of the mine and the groups exchanged gunshots and dynamite.

The clash followed a breakdown in negotiations in the nearby city of Oruro in which the miners' cooperatives rejected a government proposal dividing Huanuni's veins of tin between the two groups.

The cooperatives strongly backed Morales' election last year, and the administration has already granted them access to a portion of the Huanuni deposit on on the barren slopes of Posokoni Mountain.

Miners from both sides threw dynamite and homemade explosives at each other from ridge to ridge, sometimes separated by no more than 50 feet.