Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jan 2006
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2006 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: Jack Chang, Washington Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Evo+Morales
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Bolivia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/coca

BOLIVIA MAY SPURN U.S. ANTI-DRUG PROGRAM

New President Pledges to Legalize Coca Production

LA PAZ, Bolivia - As former coca grower Evo Morales prepares to take
the oath of office as Bolivia's new president on Sunday, a battle over
the U.S.-funded anti-drug 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, 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's illegal in most of
the country. Morales, 46, promised during the campaign that he'd
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."

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

Such a move could endanger an average of $150 million in annual U.S.
foreign and anti-drug 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' 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
Chapare lowlands.

Although coca is a pressing U.S. concern in Bolivia, American
officials have said that they'll 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. Production grew nearly 8 percent
from 2004 to 2005. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake