Pubdate: Thu, 14 Nov 2002
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2002 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Authors: Tina Hodges,  Kathryn Ledebur

BOLIVIANS PAY DEARLY FOR U.S. WAR ON DRUGS

Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada meets today with President 
Bush in Washington, D.C. The perennial U.S. determination to fight drugs by 
ripping up coca plants will certainly drive the meeting. As representatives 
of NGOs who monitor drug policy in Bolivia, we hope that the presidents 
face up to some uncomfortable facts.

U.S. international drug-control policy is ineffective. Over the last 
decade, despite spending more than $25 billion on drug-control programs 
overseas, more illicit drugs are available in the United States, and at 
cheaper prices, than ever before. Plan Colombia was so profoundly 
unsuccessful that coca cultivation in the Andean region increased 21 
percent during the plan's first year.

PLENTY OF COCAINE HERE

Yet U.S. officials seem to hold out hope for the supply-side strategy of 
combating drugs despite the admonitions of market economics and studies 
commissioned by their very own agencies. Searching for a model of success, 
the U.S. officials cling to the Bolivian experience. True enough, Bolivians 
eradicated 70 percent of their coca over the last few years. Yet that coca 
was quickly replaced by new crops in Colombia and Peru and replanted crops 
in Bolivia, leading to an overall increase in production.

Unfortunately, the eradication in Bolivia, achieved at high cost to 
Bolivians, has not prevented cocaine from falling into the hands of 
Americans. And unfortunately, the alternative development programs, well 
intentioned as they may be, have not provided former coca farmers with 
sufficient family income for food and other necessities.

The collateral damage of the U.S.-backed war on drugs in Bolivia is 
painfully evident. Thousands of Bolivians accused of drug offenses languish 
in overcrowded jails, many spending years incarcerated before even being 
granted a trial. In confrontations between September 2001 and this 
February, 10 coca growers and four members of the security forces were 
killed, and at least 350 protesters were injured or detained. Bolivian 
security forces funded by the United States shot and killed coca federation 
leader Casimiro Huanca as he led a peaceful protest against the lack of 
markets for alternative development produce.

While the United States continues to fund the security forces in Chapare, 
Bolivia's coca-growing region, neither the United States nor Bolivia has 
shown sufficient desire to prevent abuses. For example, the officer in 
charge of the troops that killed Huanca was given the puny sentence of 76 
hours of house arrest. In a stunning acceptance of these abuses, the U.S. 
Embassy official in charge of narcotics affairs stated in a BBC interview 
that these types of abuses will occur and that he was unsure whether the 
recent abuses constituted "gross" human-rights violations.

Sanchez de Lozada has suggested a willingness to demilitarize Chapare and 
return law enforcement to the police. Although there are many obstacles, 
the damage of the drug war can be mitigated by taking these steps:

* Establish a dialogue between Chapare residents and the government.

* Demilitarize the region.

* Improve alternative development programs via sound planning, consultation 
with Bolivian communities and adequate marketing for products.

* Shift U.S. resources away from ineffective source-country eradication to 
the proven, cost-effective method: treating drug addiction at home.

Tina Hodges is a program assistant at the Washington Office on Latin 
America in Washington, D.C., and Kathryn Ledebur is director of the Andean 
Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom