Bolivia Asks U.S. Envoy to Go Home

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Sept. 10 -- Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales on Wednesday asked U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg to leave the South American country after accusing him of instigating protests against his government.

"The ambassador of the United States is conspiring against democracy and wants Bolivia to break apart," Morales said in a speech at the presidential palace in La Paz, the country's administrative capital.

Morales, an ally of Venezuela's anti-American President Hugo Chávez, said he had asked his foreign affairs minister to send a letter to the U.S. Embassy asking Goldberg to "urgently return to his country."

Morales did not say what proof he had that the ambassador was behind the most recent protests, which have led to a shutdown of a key natural gas pipeline to Brazil.

State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid called the accusations "baseless," adding that the U.S. Embassy in La Paz had received no official request for Goldberg to leave.

From News Services