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World News
Interview: Bolivia to sideline U.S. in anti-cocaine war
By Simon Gardner and Eduardo Garcia
Aug 13, 2008, 10:07
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LA PAZ (Reuters) - Frustrated by the way the United States
spends money to fight cocaine production in Bolivia, the government has
decided to take over the program, the country's anti-drug tsar said on
Tuesday.
"We're planning to nationalize the war against drug
trafficking," Felipe Caceres told Reuters. "We will still welcome
cooperation in the future, but the Bolivian government will decide how
that money will be spent."
"It's a question of sovereignty, of
dignity," added Caceres, President Evo Morales' deputy minister of
social defense and controlled substances.
Caceres, who like
Morales owns a plot for growing coca, the raw material used to make
cocaine, advocates cultivation of the plant for traditional uses such
as making tea and fighting altitude sickness and hunger.
But as
South America's poorest country distances itself from its colonial past
with Morales' reforms and seeks to break away from U.S. influence, the
government also wants to be the leading voice in the domestic war
against narcotics.
Bolivia is the world No.3 cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru.
The United States has contributed about $25 million to interdiction
efforts this year. It also funds programs to encourage coca farmers to
switch to alternative crops like peppers, bananas, citrus fruits and
coffee.
"The policy of the U.S. government means that of all
the money that should go into helping improve conditions for coca
farmers, 85 percent of it goes into vehicles, salaries, they live in
hotels with swimming pools ... it goes into their pockets," Caceres
said.
"We are not rejecting U.S. aid. But the aid is not going
to the coca farmers, who are prepared to produce other products and
leave the coca leaf behind," he added. "At the moment, the U.S.
cooperation is autonomous. ... We want to reverse that situation."
Caceres said Bolivia was looking to other potential partners like Russia for hardware like helicopters.
"We welcome the idea that the Bolivian authorities will be willing and
able to put forward funds from Bolivia to also deal with this issue,"
said David T. Johnson, visiting from the U.S. Bureau of International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, after meeting Morales.
"Our data shows that approximately 88 percent of our funding goes
directly to assist Bolivian authorities and working to deal with
counter-narcotics issues."
COCA CULTIVATION GROWING
Morales has adopted a "zero cocaine, but not zero coca" policy, which
gives tens of thousands of farmers permission to grow their own coca
plot for legal uses, which the United States has described as
"permissive."
According to the United Nations, Bolivia allows
the cultivation of 12,000 hectares (nearly 30,000 acres) of coca for
traditional uses, though output is nearly 29,000 hectares (71,660
acres), or approximately 104 tonnes of coca a year. That compares with
48,600 hectares (120,000 acres) farmed in the mid-1990s.
Caceres estimates that 65 percent of coca production is for
traditional, legal uses. The balance goes into the cocaine trade.
Morales believes that 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) is an appropriate
production level. Caceres says it will take at least five years to
reduce the national crop to that amount.
He says demand for
Bolivian cocaine has surged, with much of it destined for Latin
American countries and Europe. But he says much of the cocaine
confiscated in Bolivia is from Peru, bound for Brazil, the United
States and Europe.
Coca is prevalent in Bolivia. It is sold at
street markets by women in bowler hats and colorful shawls. Indigenous
people in the Andes often have a wad of coca bulging in their cheek
like chewing tobacco. Witch doctors use the leaves to tell fortunes. In
the building where Caceres' office is located, pictures of dark green
coca leaves and a poster advertising a coca festival adorn the walls.
Caceres would like Bolivia to find ways to export coca legally.
"There are 14 alkaloids in the coca leaf. Only one of them is cocaine.
If we take cocaine out of coca, then we can export it. That is the
plan."
(link to source)
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