Pubdate: Wed, 19 Feb 2003
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Contact:  2002 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas
Website: http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162
Author: Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

BOLIVIA MAY SOFTEN STANCE AGAINST COCA-GROWING

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Bolivia's government is preparing to ease its 
unpopular effort to eradicate coca and allow farmers to grow the raw 
material from which cocaine is made.

The move, which could come within a week, would be a sharp reversal of 
Washington's only success in curbing drug production in South America's 
Andean region. U.S. officials fear that any increase in legal coca 
production would also be an opening to greater illicit sales. The United 
States has given Bolivia more than $1.3 billion in counter-narcotics and 
development aid since 1993.

However, embattled Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada promised as 
a campaigner to review the coca-eradication policy, and his leading 
opponents are pro-coca.

Separately, the presidential Cabinet resigned Tuesday. It was unclear when 
Sanchez de Losada would replace them.

Government negotiators and coca growers came to a tentative agreement on 
coca-growing last week in Cochabamba, even as 29 people died in clashes 
between troops and striking police and protesters.

The proposed coca deal, which Sanchez de Lozada is reviewing, would allow 
roughly 15,000 Bolivian farmers in Bolivia's tropical Chapare region to 
grow a catu of coca -- about a fifth of an acre -- during a six-month 
period equal to two harvests, said Bolivian anti-drug czar Ernesto 
Justiniano. During the six-month period, a study would be undertaken to 
determine how much demand there is for legal uses of coca.

Many Bolivians chew coca legally as a stimulant, appetite suppressant or to 
cope with exertion at high altitudes. Bolivia now allows about 30,000 acres 
of legal coca in the Yungas region outside La Paz to meet that need.

The United States insists that no more coca-growing can be justified.

Bolivia is the only South American success story in the U.S.-led war on 
drugs. Since 1998, it has eradicated more than 148,000 acres of coca, 
reducing illicit cocaine production from 234 tons a year to less than 8 
tons annually.

The president wants peace with the cocaleros, as Bolivia's coca-growing 
alliance is known. The cocaleros increasingly are forming armed 
self-defense groups to fight back against U.S.-trained Bolivian soldiers 
who use U.S. satellite technology to identify and forcibly uproot illicit coca.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager