Here's a little background:

Bolivia's autonomy referendums signal rightist backlash

On Sunday, the Amazonian states of Beni and Pando voted overwhelmingly in favor of more autonomy from the socialist government of Evo Morales.
Link to the article

Now, this makes four of the five lowland provinces which have now all voted OVERWHELMINGLY for Autonomy: Pando, Beni, Santa Cruz, and now Tarija. The only (partially) lowlands province not yet voting for autonomy is CHUQUISACA, which is split.

Here's A Provincial Map of Bolivia

Most of Bolivia's oil (some, but primarily gas) production is all based in the lowlands, and that's where the real money is. Bolivia's socialist government of Bolivia's first indigenous president, Evo Morales has been making a concerted attempt to move most of the revenue obtained from the developing hydrocarbon based industries into his Socialist oriented projects, most of which are not in the lowlands areas where the hydrocarbons are being obtained. So this is more than just a right/left issue, it's actually more of who in Bolivia is going to benefit from the growing hydrocarbons revenues.

Problem is, this is affecting all sorts of other players. You have good ole Hugo Chavez stirring up the pot on behalf of his good buddy Evo Morales, but the people he is causing pain for are in places like Argentina and Brazil who are neighbors to Bolivia, and who are the primary natural gas customers of Bolivia.

Argentina on the South (directly adjacent to Tarjia province, who has the approx. 85% of the gas reserves, and Santa Cruz has virtually all the rest (10.6%+/-), which is also directly adjacent to Brazil).

Here's another wikipedia link

It's looking like the uplanders vrs. the lowlanders, with the Socialists being upland, and the opposition being down low.

This is partially why both Brazil and Argentina both aren't quite so "open arms" with Hugh Chavez. Story goes that when Evo Morales nationalized the Natural Gas business in 2006, the Bolivian government arbitrarily broke a number of existing contracts for natural gas, and much of this occurred at the urging of Hugo Chavez. Don't make friends doing stuff like that, and the paybacks can be hell. Evo looks to be finding that reality out right about now.

Anyway, this will be a fun one to watch, and in our own back yard.