A million pairs of hands were raised with the cry of 'Autonomia, Si ' at this peaceful gathering in Santa Cruz, the largest city in Bolivia. It was intended as a signal to the Government in La Paz the capital, 350 miles / 560kms distant by air, that the people of this tropical region were demanding the right to decide their own direction. The organisers called the gathering a cabildo translated simply as a meeting of the people and representatives of the regional government. In terms of history the crowd must have been one of the largest ever recorded in South America perhaps equalling the million or more in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil who called for Direitas Já towards the end of military rule in the early 1980s or the multitude in Argentina weeping outside the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires when Evita Perón died.

A REMARKABLE PICTURE. Crowds pack every available street and space as history is in the making although how it may end has still to be decided. Bolivia is a land divided into the Andean mountain highlands long known for their minerals and a tropical lowland region with more territory and huge resources. The distant horizon is part of the great Amazon basin which at one time was filled with forests. Near Santa Cruz the vegetation has been largely cleared making way for agriculture and many hundreds of small settlements.

Cultural differences have existed between the highland and lowland populations stretching back 500 years to Inca times and even before that. But today with better communications, a rapid growth of the economy in the lowlands and especially with the enormous size of Santa Cruz the differences have become marked. Santa Cruz has grown from a town of approximately 35,000 in 1950 to well over a million in 2006. Migration from the highlands has been largely responsible for the amazing growth and the economy has been fuelled by agriculture and hydrocarbons such as natural gas. The question of how each region will be governed in the future has to be decided and meanwhile Santa Cruz continues to grow and prosper

A gas extraction operation in the forests to the east of Santa Cruz