Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jan 2006
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2006 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Jack Chang, Inquirer Foreign Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Evo+Morales
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bolivia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/coca

MORALES LIKELY TO CUT TIES TO U.S. ANTIDRUG EFFORTS

The Ex-Farmer Says He'll Fight Cocaine but Protect Coca Production

LA PAZ, Bolivia - As former coca grower Evo Morales prepares to take
the oath of office as Bolivia's new president today, a battle over
U.S.-funded antidrug efforts in this impoverished, cocaine-producing
country is taking shape.

Morales has promised to fight production of the drug but protect the
cultivation of its main ingredient, the coca leaf, which traditionally
is chewed to increase stamina and suppress hunger in the high-altitude
Andean country.

Coca is widely grown in Bolivia, even though it is illegal in most of
the country. Morales, 46, a former leader of the coca-growers union,
promised during the campaign that he would decriminalize coca growing.
"We say no to 'zero coca,' but we are promoting 'zero cocaine,' "
Morales said Thursday. "We are going to try to interdict the
narco-traffickers."

End to cooperation One of Morales' top coca advisers, Dionicio
Nunez, goes further, saying the new government will likely end
cooperation with U.S. antidrug forces, which have been in the country
since the late 1980s.

Such a move could endanger about $150 million in annual U.S. foreign
and antidrug aid to Bolivia, much of it contingent on U.S. officials
certifying that the country is doing its part to stop cocaine production.

Also at stake is Bolivia's application for $598 million in aid from
the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account, which is intended to help needy
countries that the U.S. government thinks are on the right
developmental path.

"We are going to ask the United States to leave," said Nunez, a
former congressman with Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement
Toward Socialism) party and a leader of the country's coca growers.
"We are no longer going to accept the requirements that the United
States has placed on us."

The new government also will likely end the forced eradication of coca
leaf, Nunez said. The program has been carried out largely in the
tropical Chapare lowlands.

Cautious U.S. approach Although coca is a pressing U.S. concern in
Bolivia, American officials have said that they will wait until after
Morales acts. The Aymara Indian, who will be Bolivia's first
indigenous president, also has confronted the United States on trade
and management of its natural gas resources.

The cause of coca, which growers call "the sacred leaf," is one of
survival, despite U.S. efforts to promote other crops, such as bananas
and palm hearts, in the Chapare, said farmer Eulalio Camacho Zuares.

"Many will starve without coca," Camacho Zuares said. "There will be
no peace without coca."

The country is the world's third biggest producer of coca, behind
Colombia and Peru, with about 65,500 acres under cultivation,
according to 2005 U.S. estimates. Coca production grew by nearly 8
percent from 2004 to 2005.

Some U.S. experts are skeptical that Morales will fight drug
production because of his longtime ties to coca growers, who prize the
crop for its high market prices.

"Let's give [Morales] the benefit of the doubt and say coca growers
are coca growers and have no ties to narco-trafficking. That still
doesn't account for the free flow of drugs that's crossing northern
Bolivia and a whole series of organized crimes taking place in the
region," said Eduardo Gamarra, the director of the Latin American and
Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami.

Bolivian government officials long have charged that growers know how
coca leaf is used to produce cocaine in regions such as the Chapare,
even if they are not producing the drug themselves.

Last year, Bolivian antidrug police discovered more than 4,000
maceration pits, where coca leaf is mixed with sulfuric acid and other
chemicals and stomped into paste, the first step in cocaine
production. Most of the pits were found in remote spots of the Chapare.

Bolivian police also seized more than 12 tons of cocaine last year,
mostly in the Chapare, a 36 percent increase from the year before.

"There are a lot of factories in the jungle, and lots of small groups
involved in producing cocaine," said Gen. Luis Caballero, the head of
Bolivia's antidrug forces. Nunez rejected such criticisms, saying
coca growers were producing only enough of the crop to chew and brew
as tea.

"The government has always accused us of being narco-traffickers, but
it has never been proved," he said. "We are not traffickers. We are
peasants."

Activist Kathryn Ledebur of the Bolivia-based Andean Information
Network said U.S. anti-coca efforts, which include advising Bolivian
troops and supplying helicopters and aircraft, have failed and should
be revised.

"They have not reduced coca cultivation and only created tons of
social conflict," she said. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake