[Marxism] Bolivia: Compromise agreement allows progress

[Walter Lippmann]

In addition to the political arrangments which Latin America's
first indigenoug president has made, there are a few other items
of consequence on his table. First, the struggle against drought
and beyond that the struggle with cocaine. PL's report tells us
about the first, IKN's about the second. Washington's termination
of the trade prefernces with Bolivia, announced a month ago and
implemented a few days ago have gone largely remarked in the U.S. 
media. Perhaps it's because, when compared with the situation in
Colombia, as IKN reports, it's a difference they'd rather note 
have close public attention paid to. In addition, AFP presents
additional details on the struggle against cocaine in Bolivia.

In these struggles, Evo Morales deserves our fullest support.

ECONOMIST on Colombia: Not that hard, when any body will do.
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12522940


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
===================================================================


Bolivia Declares Drought Emergency

La Paz, Nov 1(Prensa Latina) The municipal governments of 17 southern
Bolivian territories are taking measures Saturday as part of the
emergency state decreed due to an intense drought.

In accordance with Water Minister Rene Orellana, the executive has
assigned two million dollars to drill new wells and help with other
needs of the regions of Tarija, Chuquisaca and Santa Cruz.

Those resources, he said, would come from international cooperation
and would be administered through the Social Prevention Fund.

The government will intervene quickly in the region of Chaco to
cooperate with people affected in a combined action between the
Ministry of Defense and its Vice Ministry of Civil Defense, he added.

For his part, the director of Attention to Disasters and Emergencies,
General Freddy Blanco, stated that the Emergency Operation Center was
activated.

The last reports claimed that 7,000 families were affected by the
lack of water, said Blanco.

A report of the Direction of Emergencies and Aid of the Vice Ministry
of Civil Defense and Cooperation to Integral Development, pointed out
that during the months of September and October, there was a greater
incidence of drought, affecting cattle breeding and agriculture.

The weather report of the National Service of Meteorology and
Hydrology indicates that there is a deficit of precipitation in 70
percent of the highland, valleys and in Chaco.

iom tac ga

PL-3

11/1/08

The Government of Evo Morales and the Fight Against Cocaine

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2008/11/government-of-evo-morales-and-fight.html

Today at Chimoré, Cochabamba, Evo inspected the troops that have
cleared 5000ha of coca plantations from Bolivian soil this year and
announced he was kicking out the DEA

The US government is trying to paint the Bolivia of Evo Morales as
some sort of friend to the Cocaine business and enemy of....well
everything, really. So riddle me this one:

Bolivia's Special Force to Fight Cocaine (FELCN) is the body in
charge of fighting drug trafficking. Here's a list of its cocaine
seizure tonnages for the first 10 months of the years 2005 to 2008:

2005: 11.3 metric tonnes (MT) of cocaine/coca paste seized by FELCN

2006: 14.0 metric tonnes (MT) of cocaine/coca paste seized by FELCN

2007: 14.8 metric tonnes (MT) of cocaine/coca paste seized by FELCN

2008: 25.5 metric tonnes (MT) of cocaine/coca paste seized by FELCN

This isn't some list of made-up numbers. We are talking documented
seizures by a bunch of brave police officers that are up against very
organized armed gangs.

Next productive acreage:

2000: 14,000 hectares

.

.

2004: 27,700 hectares

2005: 25,400 hectares

2006: 27,500 hectares

2007: 25,000 hectares

2008: 22,000 hectares

These are the official numbers, but it's widely assumed that in
Bolivia there are around 5,000 extra hectares to add to each year's
total. This means that, according to the International Crisis Group's
2008 report "Latin American Drugs I: Losing the Fight" (a copy
available from Otto on request) there is around 100MT of potential
cocaine production in Bolivia in 2008, if you subtract the 12,000
hectares of coca that is grown for traditional uses such as chewing,
infusions and ceremonies.

This means that, roughly, Bolivia is producing around 100MT of
cocaine and 25.5MT of it gets seized, which compares, for example,
with Peru's potential production of 300MT, its probable production of
196MT (according to the UN) and its 25MT of cocaine seizures this
year. Don't even get me started on the world's number one player
Colombia, responsible for over 60% of the world's cocaine (maybe 750
to 800MT right now, of which only a tiny fraction gets seized).

Ready for the big finale? Evo Morales became President of Bolivia on
January 22nd 2006. Yep, that's right; since Doctor Morales assumed
the presidency cocaine production acreage has dropped by 20% and
cocaine seizures have more than doubled. We do hear from the UN that
absolute cocaine production rose 5% in Bolivia last year, even though
hectares under cultivation dropped. This because the narcos are using
more intensive farming techniques and hybrids that produce more
alkaloids. However in the same period Colombia's cocaine production
rose by no less than 27%! And remember, this is the country that the
USA has donated U$6.7Bn to for its "Plan Colombia" war on drugs this
decade (Colombia now has 50% more area under cultivation since 2000).
But back to Bolivia, and if cocaine production goes up about 5MT in a
year and cocaine seizures go up by 10.7MT in the same period, doesn't
that mean Evo Morales is winning the war on drugs in his little
patch?

No wonder Evo is kicking out the DEA; wherever they go drug
production increases, and wherever they leave it goes down. For
another example, check out the enormous drop in heroin production in
the far eastern golden triangle in the brief period when the Taliban
had control, and look at the production figures since the DEA got
back into town.

I wonder why...........
===================================================================

Morales halts US anti-drug efforts in Bolivia 
14 hours ago

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hq_vqrJ3osGsMyOTY_m1t4_MvneA

LA PAZ (AFP) — President Evo Morales has said he is suspending the
work of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia, accusing
it of having encouraged political unrest that killed 19 people in
September.

The US government rejected the accusations as "absurd" and warned
that an end to US-Bolivian cooperation would only result in increased
violence and drug trafficking.

"From today all the activities of the US DEA are suspended
indefinitely," the Bolivian leader said in the coca-growing region of
Chimore, in the central province of Chapare, where he was evaluating
efforts to combat drug trafficking.

"Personnel from the DEA supported activities of the unsuccessful coup
d'etat in Bolivia," Morales said, referring to fighting in five of
the country's nine departments in September that resulted in 19
deaths.

Morales said DEA agents had been "conducting political espionage to
fund criminal groups" who aimed at "attacks on the lives of
(government) officials, and the president himself."

He also directly accused DEA officials of disrupting government
activities during the unrest in September by "funding civic leaders
with the aim of sabotaging airports in eastern Bolivia ... to prevent
visits from (government) officials."

"We have the obligation to defend the dignity and sovereignty of the
Bolivian people," Morales said at the airport in Chimore, where an
anti-drug base funded in the 1990s by the United States is located.

Morales did not say whether he would order DEA staff to leave
Bolivia, as coca-growers have asked him to do. The growers had
already forced officials of the US Agency for International
Development to halt their operations in two provinces where the aid
agency was seeking to help growers find alternatives to raising coca.

"We reject the accusation that DEA or any other part of the US
government supported the opposition or conspired against the Bolivian
government," US State Department spokesman Karl Duckworth told AFP.

"These accusations are false and absurd and we deny them. We value
our relationship with the Bolivian security forces in combatting
narcotics production and trafficking," he said.

"Should US cooperation be ended, more narcotics will be produced and
shipped from Bolivia. The corrupting effects, violence and tragedy
which will result will mainly harm Bolivia as well as the principal
consumers of Bolivian cocaine in the neighboring Latin American
countries, Europe and West Africa."

The US embassy in Bolivia has also denied that DEA and USAID were
conducting political work in the country.

In Washington, the DEA reacted swiftly to the Morales announcement.

"It's an unfortunate situation and an unfortunate decision on his
part," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney told AFP.

He added that there had been dialogue for the past three months with
Bolivian officials over the future of the agency's work in the
country, and acknowledged that the DEA was initially asked to leave a
forward operating base.

Courtney would not be drawn on whether DEA believed Morales ordered
the suspension as a result of Washington placing Bolivia on a
blacklist of drug-transit or drug-producing countries in
mid-September for failing to live up to their obligations to battle
the narcotics trade.

"We have had a great working relationship with our counterparts there
for over 30 years," he said.

President George W. Bush had written in a finding released September
16 that Bolivia joined Myanmar and Venezuela, which were already on
the list in 2007, as countries that "failed demonstrably" in that
regard.

Just five days before Bush put Bolivia on the blacklist, Morales had
ordered the expulsion of the US ambassador, Philip Goldberg, after
accusing him of encouraging division in the country by backing
opposition figures.

In a briefing before leaving La Paz, Goldberg warned that Bolivia,
which receives 100 million dollars a year in US aid to anti-drug
efforts, could expect "serious consequences" for starting a
diplomatic row with the United States.

Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, has served as the
leader of the Bolivian coca-growers union. The coca plant, from which
cocaine is derived, has many uses in traditional Andean culture.


=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================