SHINAHOTA, Bolivia-During nearly 14 years as president, Evo Morales pampered the Chapare, the coca leaf-growing jungle region of central Bolivia where he got his start in politics. Mr. Morales expelled U.S. antidrug agents and promoted the health benefits of the coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, which is legal and chewed by many indigenous people. His socialist government built a paper mill, an airport, and a 25,000-seat soccer stadium in the region. In turn, the farmers gave Mr. Morales, the head of a federation of coca growers, their fervent support. [continues 902 words]
LA PAZ - The Bolivian government yesterday rejected a drug report that the White House released, stating that the US government "aims to undermine" the achievements of the country in its fight against narcotics. The Vice-Minister of Social Defence and Controlled Substances, Felipe Caceres, said yesterday that his country "does not recognize the authority of the US Government to certify or decertify the war on drugs" in Bolivia and assured that Evo Morales' government "only supports the UN anti-drug report." [continues 363 words]
A major international row with wideranging implications for global drugs policy has erupted over the right of Bolivia's indigenous Indian tribes to chew coca leaves, the principal ingredient in cocaine. On Friday, Bolivia obtained a special exemption from the 1961 single convention on narcotic drugs, the framework that governs international drugs policy, allowing its indigenous people to chew the leaves. Bolivia had argued that the convention was in opposition to its new constitution, adopted in 2009, which obliges it to "protect native and ancestral coca as cultural patrimony" and maintains that coca "in its natural state ... is not a narcotic". [continues 449 words]
TODOS SANTOS, Bolivia- There is nothing clandestine about Julian Rojas' coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, cataloged in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information, and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers' union. The same goes for the plots worked by Rojas' neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. [continues 504 words]
TODOS SANTOS, Bolivia - There is nothing clandestine about Julian Rojas's coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, cataloged in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers' union. The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas's neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. [continues 1344 words]
There is nothing clandestine about Julian Rojas's coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, catalogued in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information, and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers' union. The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas's neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine. [continues 1312 words]
Colombia's Success in Curbing the Drug Trade Has Created More Opportunities for Countries Hostile to the United States. What Happens When Coca Farmers and Their Allies Are in Charge?. In the dusty town of Villa Tunari in Bolivia's tropical coca-growing region, farmers used to barricade their roads against U.S.-backed drug police sent to prevent their leafy crop from becoming cocaine. These days, the police are gone, the coca is plentiful and locals close off roads for multiday block parties--not rumbles with law enforcement. [continues 2327 words]
Bolivia's government has decided to renounce the United Nations' anti-drug convention because it classifies coca leaf as an illegal drug, the Foreign Ministry said. The decision comes after a proposal by President Evo Morales to remove language obliging countries that have signed the convention to ban the chewing of coca leaves was rejected following US objections. Bolivian officials contend that coca leaf in its natural form is not a narcotic and forms an age-old part of Andean culture. Morales is still a coca growers' union leader who has campaigned for the leaf's traditional uses. [continues 100 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands have taken to the streets in Bolivia to chew coca leaf in support of the country's bid to remove an international prohibition on the age-old practice. The chief target of Wednesday's peaceful protest was the U.S. Embassy. Coca is a mild stimulant of high religious and social value in the Andes. It fights hunger and alleviates altitude sickness. But it is also the raw material of cocaine. Washington last week formally objected to Bolivia's proposal to remove a prohibition on coca chewing from the international Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Bolivia's U.N. Ambassador Pablo Solon says that Bolivia does not seek to remove coca from a list of controlled substances. [end]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia - Narco-trafficking cartels are migrating to the Andes region in Bolivia, where a diminished U.S. presence has allowed a boom in cocaine production and the opening of new drug routes, regional anti-drug officials say. Recent studies by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime show a steep rise in cocaine production in Bolivia and a smaller increase in Peru. They also show a drop in Colombian cocaine output, which is subject to increased anti-drug efforts by the U.S. and Colombian governments. [continues 786 words]
U.S. Says Drug Trade Is Booming as Morales's Plan to Encourage Legal Products From Leaves Backfires When Evo Morales, a former coca farmer, became president of Bolivia in 2006, he promised to restore the thumb-shaped green leaf to the place of respect it enjoyed in Inca times. Farmers could legally grow more of it, and his government would build factories to churn out coca shampoo and toothpaste. He would fight drugs under a policy of "zero cocaine, but not zero coca." [continues 833 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Cocaine production is on the rise in Bolivia, with Colombian and Mexican cartels hiring intermediaries to process the locally made coca paste there rather than exporting it, says Bolivia's top anti-drug officer. Cartels are contracting a growing number of middle men to process the paste into cocaine in Bolivia, saving time they would otherwise spend processing it themselves, anti-drug police chief Oscar Nina told The Associated Press on Thursday in an interview. "There is more interest and investment in purifying coca paste here and exporting it, rather than sending it to Colombia for purification" as in years past, Nina said. [continues 327 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday, ordered out by President Evo Morales even as Bolivian police reported that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise. Morales demanded the DEA's exit in November as part of a dispute between U.S. and Bolivian officials that included his expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Bush administration's decertification of Bolivia as ineffective in the drug war. The departure over recent weeks of three dozen agents ends the DEA's presence in Bolivia after more than three decades. Senior law enforcement officials said it was the first time a DEA operation had been ordered out of a country en masse. [continues 342 words]
The Last of the U.S. Drug Agents Leaves on President Evo Morales' Orders. The U.S. and Bolivia Are in a Bitter Dispute Over the South American Country's Anti-Drug Efforts. The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday after having been ordered out by President Evo Morales, even as Bolivian police report that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise. Morales demanded the DEA's exit in November as part of a bitter dispute between U.S. and Bolivian officials that included his expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Bush administration's decertification of Bolivia's anti-drug effort. [continues 565 words]
EL ALTO, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales seemed assured of an easy victory in a referendum on Sunday over a sweeping new Constitution aimed at empowering Bolivia's Indians. The vote capped three years of conflict-ridden efforts by Mr. Morales to overhaul a political system he had associated with centuries of indigenous subjugation. Citing preliminary vote counts, reports on national television said about 60 percent of voters had approved the new Constitution. If that margin holds or goes higher, it would strengthen Mr. Morales's mandate, political analysts here said. [continues 941 words]
The Measure Will Let President Morales Seek Another Term, and Give Land and Royalties From Resources to Indians. A new constitution that voters are expected to approve today would give more power to Bolivia's indigenous communities, promote agrarian reform and allow President Evo Morales to seek reelection to another term. But analysts warn that passage of the new constitution also could worsen Bolivia's polarization, throw its legal system into chaos, and discourage investment in the natural resources that are its main ticket to prosperity. [continues 688 words]
Bolivian President Evo Morales Accuses the DEA Employees of Spying and Helping Criminals to Attack Authorities. Bolivian President Evo Morales suspended operations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Saturday after accusing the agency of aiding "criminal groups" that oppose his rule. Morales' move was the latest sign of the deterioration in relations between his leftist government and Washington. "There were DEA agents who worked to conduct political espionage and to fund criminal groups so they could launch attacks on the lives of authorities, if not the president," Morales told reporters during a visit to the Chapare region, a major production zone for coca plants, from which cocaine is extracted. "We are obligated to defend Bolivian sovereignty." [continues 356 words]
President Evo Morales has announced he is suspending "indefinitely" the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia. Mr Morales accused the agency of having encouraged anti-government protests in the country in September. He did not say whether its staff would be asked to leave the country, as coca-growers have been pressing him to do. Bolivia's first indigenous president once served as the leader of the country's union of coca-growers. Relations between Bolivia and the US have been strained since Evo Morales won presidential elections in January 2006. [continues 226 words]
Says Government Being Undermined President Evo Morales suspended US antidrug operations in Bolivia yesterday as Washington's relations with his leftist government spiraled downward. Morales accused the US Drug Enforcement Administration of espionage and funding criminal groups trying to undermine his government. He announced the indefinite suspension while declaring that his government has eradicated more than 12,300 acres of illegally planted coca this year - the minimum required by a 1988 Bolivian law passed under US pressure. Coca is the raw material for cocaine, but use of the small green leaf in its less-potent natural form is common among Bolivians, who brew or chew it for its medicinal and nutritional properties. [continues 537 words]
Suspension of Preferences Raises Fears of Widespread Job Losses LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The decision by the Bush administration to suspend trade preferences that benefit Bolivia has left workers here worried about the potential for widespread layoffs at a time when the nation is struggling to cope with the international financial crisis. U.S. officials estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 Bolivians might lose their jobs as a result of the suspension of preferences, which are important for such Bolivian exports as textiles and jewelry. [continues 751 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- Days after President Evo Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Washington has added the country to its list of nations failing to fight illegal narcotics, a decision that could have economic consequences for the natural-gas-rich nation. The move could embolden U.S. lawmakers who oppose the renewal of Bolivia's trade preferences, which are due to expire in the coming months. Such an economic blow would add to Mr. Morales's problems. Mr. Morales is battling provincial governors who have declared autonomy in the nation's gas-rich farmlands. They accuse Mr. Morales of trying to impose a Cuba-styled regime by nationalizing industries and pushing a new constitution that redefines property, centralizes power and grants rights based on ethnicity. [continues 340 words]
President Evo Morales Accuses Ambassador Philip Goldberg of Fostering Divisions in the Fractured Andean Nation. BUENOS AIRES -- Bolivian President Evo Morales ordered the expulsion Wednesday of the U.S. ambassador to his country, accusing him of fostering divisions in the deeply fractured Andean nation. The move comes as tensions rise and violence increases in states opposed to the leftist policies of Morales. The president has regularly accused Washington and its ambassador of plotting against him. "The one who conspires against democracy and above all seeks the division of Bolivia is the ambassador of the United States," Morales said during a speech at the presidential palace. [continues 410 words]
CHIMORE, Bolivia -- The refrain here in the Chapare jungle about Americans is short but powerful: "Long Live Coca, Death to the Yanquis!" So when President Evo Morales recently came to the area, raising his fist and shouting those words before his supporters, the irony was not lost on an elite wing of the Bolivian military that survives on American support. "We depend on the Americans for everything: our bonuses, our training, our vehicles, even our boots," Lt. Col. Jose German Cuevas, the commander of a Bolivian special forces unit that hunts down cocaine traffickers, said at a military base here in central Bolivia. [continues 1674 words]
There hasn't yet been a tin or copper war, but there once was a nitrate war, and in the past decade Bolivia has seen both a water war and a gas war-the latest struggles over the nation's only real riches, the lucrative resources granted by God and geology. In this country nearly twice the size of France, where Amazonian jungles butt against 12,000-foot plateaus, the winners have always come from elsewhere. The Inca royalty of Cuzco (in modern-day Peru) took power from the local Aymara; the Spanish took gold and silver; the British took tin; recently, multinationals Bechtel and Suez tried to privatize the water supplies of Cochabamba and El Alto, while other foreign companies fought for control of Bolivia's prodigious supply of natural gas; cartels continue to take the coca and its profits. [continues 903 words]
NS marks Indigenous Resistance Day with an article from Bolivian Campaigner Amancay Colque, who explains why the Evo Morales government is in confrontation with the 'establishment' October 12th traditionally was celebrated as the anniversary of Columbus' "discovery" of the Americas. For the indigenous peoples of the continent, this "discovery" meant hundreds of years of genocide and misery. Now the day has been reclaimed as the "Day of Indigenous Resistance" in Venezuela and Bolivia, two countries with presidents of indigenous descent who are refusing to toe Washington's line. [continues 668 words]
Government Says Most of the Crop Being Used Legally Farmers Hope They Have a Friend in President, Who Was Once a Grower SHINAHOTA, Bolivia -- Vitalia Merida grows as much coca as Bolivian law allows -- four-tenths of an acre, or a "cato," as the measure is known here. And that's the problem. Because she obeys the legal limit, she's stuck in dire poverty. The average yield from her field, hidden far back from a direct road, brings in $70 to $100 a month. [continues 551 words]
Bolivia Says the Crop Has Cultural Roots. The U.S. Sees a Drug Boom. CARANAVI, BOLIVIA -- In the past, Bolivian cocaine labs tended to be primitive, makeshift affairs where peasants known as pisa-cocas stomped on coca leaves to produce coca paste. But recent busts of relatively sophisticated cocaine-refining laboratories in the country's jungles have set off alarms about rising drug production here. Many of the labs have links to Colombian narcotics traffickers, officials say. "We're seeing more Colombian and other international traffickers turning up in Bolivia, and that's troubling," said Brad Hittle, an official with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "These are people with a lot of experience, money, connections and know-how." [continues 1115 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia --Always Coca-Cola? Not if Bolivia's coca growers have their way. The farmers want the word "Coca" dropped by the U.S. soft drink company, arguing that the potent shrub belongs to the cultural heritage of this Andean nation, where the coca leaf infuses everyday life and is sacred to many. A commission of coca industry representatives advising an assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the Atlanta, Ga.-based company to take "Coca" out of its name and asking the United Nations to decriminalize the leaf. [continues 320 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- President Bush's new budget calls for deep cuts in the leading U.S. program to fight drug trafficking in the Andean region, amid growing clashes over drug policy between Washington and leftist governments in Venezuela and Bolivia. The cuts to the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI) affect every country in the region except Colombia. They have been criticized by governments in the area, as well as by U.S. counternarcotics officials and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. "It would be the largest across-the-board reduction in aid since the war on drugs began," said one U.S. diplomatic official, who asked not to be named. The ACI was designed to help local efforts to reduce the flow of illegal drugs, which surged in the late 1980s when cocaine production skyrocketed and powerful drug cartels emerged. [continues 605 words]
The Aid Will Boost Efforts To Develop Legal Commercial Products From The Crop Used To Make Cocaine CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has found a novel way to dispense foreign aid: by promising to underwrite coca production in Bolivia. Officials here confirmed Wednesday that Venezuela would buy whatever legal products Bolivia could make from coca leaf, as part of that central Andean nation's attempt to wean farmers from the cocaine industry. Chavez's promise could finance the production of about 4,000 tons of coca in Bolivia, Venezuelan officials say. [continues 453 words]
Friction Between Morales and Washington Threatens Program That Aids Farmers TOMOYO, Bolivia -- When Jacinto Garnica talks about farm management, Spanish creeps into his native Quechua language. The Bolivian Indian is dealing with new concepts for which his ancient Inca vocabulary has no words: "credit," "financing," "marketing." He and his neighbors don't just talk the talk. Their community has embraced an innovative U.S.-backed aid program that tutors the farmers in free-market capitalism -- and is greatly improving their living standards. But politics could keep the experiment from spreading to other desperately poor regions of Bolivia: Socialist President Evo Morales is determined to centralize control of the country's economic activity, making Washington reluctant to keep sending aid to a nation that is embracing policies at odds with U.S. policy. [continues 752 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- Indigenous coca farmers who helped put President Evo Morales in power are violently resisting even the token eradication efforts demanded by the United States to avoid Bolivia's decertification as a country cooperating against drug trafficking. Dissatisfied with new laws permitting peasant farmers to grow up to half an acre of coca for traditional use, the farmers are backing demands for increased acreage with road blocks and gunfights that so far have killed two growers and wounded two police officers. [continues 596 words]
It took Bolivia 470 years after the Spanish conquest for an indigenous person to return to govern its territory. In that period of nearly five centuries, what has happened in this country and in this continent? What is happening now? The answer to the latter question is that something has awoken, something that resembles the light of a new dawn. For many people in the continents of the Americas the election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia represents further testimony that the geopolitical development of Latin America is heading in a new direction. [continues 1071 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- Counternarcotics officials say the number of cocaine laboratories in Bolivia has almost doubled in the seven months since Evo Morales, a former coca grower and organizer of coca-farming syndicates, was elected president. Mr. Morales, whose country faces sharp economic penalties if the United States does not recertify it as a fully cooperating partner in the war on drugs next year, insists Bolivia is committed to battling the international traffic in narcotics. Critics say new programs allowing farmers to cultivate small plots of coca are contributing to the rise in cocaine production. Coca production is a traditional way of life for Bolivia's Indian peasantry, who chew the raw leaves as a mild stimulant. Legal analysts say the government has violated international agreements with decrees that allow the free sale of coca and the auction of confiscated leaf shipments. "Evo has democratized narco-traffic," said Omar Barrientos, a Bolivian lawyer and consultant to the U.S. State Department on drug policy. "He has taken it from the big mafias and placed it with small producers, which makes it more difficult to control." The CIA's counternarcotics center estimates that Bolivian coca plantations have grown 8 percent in the past year. More disturbing are reports from Bolivia's U.S.-sponsored counternarcotics force that cocaine laboratory activity has almost doubled since Mr. Morales took office. The Special Force to Fight Crime and Narcotraffic (FELCN) said more than 2,000 cocaine laboratories making paste or refined powder were uncovered during the first half of this year. A total of 2,575 laboratories were discovered during all of last year. Bolivian authorities downplay the figures. [continues 360 words]
President Focuses on Eradicating Means of Making Drug, and Not on Coca Farming Puerto Villarroel, Bolivia -- As Bolivian soldiers torch a pit filled with chemicals and coca leaves used to make cocaine, a fireball shoots toward a jungle canopy. The anti-narcotic task force destroys seven such holes daily in a region known as the Chapare. Since Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, assumed power in January, he has continued his nation's war on drugs in the Chapare near Bolivia's third-largest city, Cochabamba. But he also has antagonized the United States by shifting the focus away from the subsistence farmers who grow coca leaf -- the raw ingredient of cocaine -- to destroying pits and laboratories and confiscating chemicals needed to manufacture cocaine. Coca has been the lifeline for many Chapare farmers, many of whom had been tin miners until the collapse of metal prices in the 1980s. [continues 905 words]
Under New President, Coca Eradication In Bolivia Is Cut Back LA PAZ, Bolivia - The smell filling the grimy whitewashed rooms of the market in the Villa Fatima district overlooking this Andean capital evokes the sweetness of cut grass, only it's more pungent, nearly intoxicating. Sacks of freshly harvested coca leaves are stacked all around, awaiting buyers. It's all legal, this trade in the leaves that produce cocaine. There's lots more coca leaf around than there has been in years, no surprise given that new President Evo Morales was recently re-elected head of Bolivia's coca growers' federation. [continues 866 words]
The smell permeating the grimy whitewashed rooms of the market in the Villa Fatima district overlooking this Andean capital evokes the sweetness of cut grass -- only it's more pungent, nearly intoxicating. Sacks of freshly harvested coca leaves are stacked all around, awaiting buyers. It's all legal -- this trade in the leaves that produce cocaine. There's lots more coca leaf around than there has been in years, no surprise given that fledgling President Evo Morales was recently re-elected head of Bolivia's coca growers' federation. [continues 902 words]
Is Coca the New Hemp? The wine, a bit on the sweet side, is supposedly a remedy against Parkinson's disease and impotence and, according to the label, it is especially suitable for "athletes and singers." In small doses, that is, because the wine is pressed from coca leaves, enhancing the effect of the alcohol. If you get drunk, you don't have to worry about how you're going to feel the next day because "coca wine doesn't cause a hangover," says Melby Paz. [continues 1561 words]
Bolivia is leading a Latin American campaign to legalise coca plants despite them being vilified by the United States as the source of the world's cocaine industry. Under the slogan "coca is not cocaine", politicians, consumers and growers across the Andes are promoting the leaf's qualities and calling for coca-based tea, yoghurt, bread, toothpaste, shampoo and soap to be mass produced and exported. Its fans claim it helps digestion, provides more vital vitamins, nutrients and fibre than most vegetables and can even combat obesity. [continues 359 words]
Bolivia stepped up a long-running battle with Washington this week by taking its campaign to legalise coca plants to the United Nations in a bid to persuade the international community that the leaf should no longer be banned because of its links to the illegal drugs trade. The tiny Andean nation, headed by newly elected populist President Evo Morales, is determined to prove that coca can be the source of legitimate products for export and not just the raw material for cocaine. [continues 333 words]
VALPARAISO, Chile - Condoleezza Rice knew coca would top the agenda in her meeting with Bolivia's new president, but she likely wasn't expecting to get the real thing. At the end of their 25-minute meeting, President Evo Morales presented the US secretary of state with an Andean guitar that bore a coca-leaf inlay. "The gift was well received. We will just have to check with our customs to see what rules apply. We certainly hope we can bring it back (to Washington)," said a senior State Department official who attended the meeting. [continues 102 words]
Bolivian President Evo Morales Faces a Difficult Balancing Act As He Tries to Satisfy the Demands of Coca Growers and U.S.-Led Countries That Want to Reduce Production CHIPIRIRI, Bolivia - Desiderio Merida stopped drying a pile of green coca leaves as he expressed concern about Bolivia's new President Evo Morales. "I can't explain why Evo has asked them to remain," said Merida, referring to the recent decisions by Morales, a former coca growers' leader, to reject calls for the expulsion of U.S. antidrug agents from this region and to oppose a change that would increase legal production of the leaf. [continues 993 words]
WASHINGTON -- In a major concession to new Bolivian President Evo Morales, the Bush administration has agreed to reconsider its counter-drug programs there. The United States is even hinting that it might allow more coca farming. Concerned that more coca could mean more cocaine, Washington has so far balked at easing Bolivia's 30,000-acre limit on legal production of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. The cap is bitterly opposed by many poor Bolivian farmers who helped elect Morales to the presidency. Thomas Shannon, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said a European Union study of the potential legal coca market would help determine whether there was room for more coca plantations. "We think that based on current legal limits, based on what the European Union study is going to come up with, it will be possible for us to have a conversation, a dialogue with Bolivia about what a legal harvest could be," he told The Miami Herald. [continues 92 words]
U.S. Fears Decriminalizing Cultivation Will Cause Surge In Drug Trafficking VILLA TUNARI Just weeks ago, Bolivian army troops swooped down on Seberino Marquina's farm and, one by one, ripped his coca bushes from the ground. "The commander said, 'Cut this,' and they did," Marquina, 54, said on his small piece of the Chapare, a coca-growing region the size of New Jersey in central Bolivia. But after President Evo Morales's inauguration on Jan. 22, the troops assigned to eradicate coca leaves as part of the U.S.-financed war on drugs instead spend their days lolling at isolated roadside bases, trying to keep cool under the blazing sun. [continues 564 words]
VILLA TUNARI, Bolivia -- Just weeks ago, Bolivian Army troops swooped down on Seberino Marquina's farm and, one by one, ripped his coca bushes from the ground. "The commander said, 'Cut this,' and they did," Mr. Marquina, 54, said, waving his machete on his small piece of the Chapare, a coca-growing region the size of New Jersey in central Bolivia. But after President Evo Morales's inauguration on Jan. 22, the army conscripts assigned to eradicate coca leaves here as part of the United States-financed war on drugs instead spend their days lolling at isolated roadside bases, trying to keep cool under the blazing sun. "We're waiting for orders from the president," said Capt. Cesar Cautin, the commander of a group of 60 soldiers. [continues 1526 words]
SHINAHOTA, Bolivia - President Evo Morales on Saturday appointed a coca leaf grower to lead the country's fight against drugs. Morales announced the appointment of Felipe Caceres, a co-founder of his Movement Toward Socialism party, during a trip to the heart of Bolivia's coca-growing region. "A coca farmer is going to be in charge of the fight against drugs," Morales said, wearing a hat of woven coca leaves. He drew loud applause from hundreds of people, many of them coca farmers, gathered in this lush jungle town. [continues 254 words]
Bolivia's new left-wing government has put a coca grower in charge of the fight against drug trafficking. Felipe Caceres was appointed deputy minister for social defence by President Evo Morales - who was once a coca grower himself. Mr Caceres is a former mayor of a town in the coca-growing region of Chapare, and owns a small coca farm there. Coca is used to make cocaine, but also has widespread ceremonial and medical uses in Bolivia. Mr Caceres told the BBC he opposes US-backed efforts to eradicate crops across the country. [continues 141 words]
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. [continues 379 words]
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. [continues 716 words]
Evo Morales' First Day As President Of Bolivia Included Meeting Leaders Of Cuba And Venezuela And The Swearing-In Of A Leftist Cabinet. LA PAZ, Bolivia - Newly inaugurated Bolivian President Evo Morales began his historic, five-year term Monday by meeting with leaders from Cuba and Venezuela, two of Latin America's harshest critics of U.S. policy, before swearing in a Cabinet largely made up of political radicals. His Cabinet choices included a former housekeeper turned union activist as justice minister and a hardline advocate of nationalization as energy minister. [continues 571 words]
Inside Bolivia
