Pubdate: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 Source: New York Times (NY) Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Author: Clifford Krauss A BOLIVIAN LEGISLATOR WHO JUST SAYS `YES' TO COCA LAUCA ENE, Bolivia -- Like congressmen all over the world, Evo Morales hugs babies and makes fist-thumping speeches. But that's where the similarities end. For starters, this congressman chews coca leaves in public. In fact, as Morales returned to his district recently, he was not at all embarrassed to be photographed caressing the coca bushes that grow on his property. During his election campaign last year, he ran on the slogan "Vote for coca!" He won 70 percent of the vote in a field of 10, which is perhaps not particularly surprising since his district, the tropical region of Chapare, produces 85 percent of the refined cocaine produced in Bolivia every year. At age 38, Morales is the spokesman for six of the seven coca grower unions in Bolivia, and he is the single most powerful politician standing in the way of efforts by the United Nations and the U.S. and Bolivian governments to fight the Bolivian cocaine trade. Since President Hugo Banzer Suarez announced in January his intention to eradicate the coca industry in Chapare by the year 2002, Morales has been leading road blockades and accusing the president and his family of being international traffickers themselves -- charges that he has failed to substantiate but that have won him screaming newspaper headlines and considerable national television exposure. "We'll see who wins in 2002," Morales said, while discussing future protest strategy with the deputy mayor of the town of Villa Catorce over an ample helping of stewed chicken and rice. "If in 2002 there is no coca in Chapare, Banzer wins. If our people are still growing coca, I win." Cocky is a good word to describe the Bolivian legislator. He applauded and laughed when his colleagues made speeches against him in the halls of Congress recently, and he exchanged hearty greetings with policemen who man road blocks in his district. When he plays soccer, he likes to wear the number 10, the number worn by Diego Armando Maradona, the great Argentine star. Still single, he was quoted in a 1995 Bolivian newspaper interview that one day he wanted to be married in a church made of coca leaves. "He's an egotist, but when he enters the room he demands attention," said Oscar Torrico Alvarado, a center-left congressman from neighboring Cochabamba. Morales is controversial, to say the least, although a Dutch human rights group nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for protecting the rights of peasants who say they are doing nothing more than growing a crop that has been grown in the Andean region for hundreds of years. After Morales openly called on coca growers to defend their lands against army and police units, the government blamed him personally for the killing of three police officers and the wounding of 15 others in a string of ambushes staged since April. He has also been blamed for a rash of threats members of his organization have made to coca growers who have signed agreements with the government to stop growing their illegal crops, a charge that he only partly disputes. "Any threats have been spontaneous," he said. The government party is trying to strip him of the legal immunity from prosecution that he is granted automatically by being a federal legislator. But a majority in the Chamber of Deputies opposed the move to sanction him in large part because it would set a precedent that could someday backfire on a sizable number of congressmen with questionable ethics. Meanwhile, Bolivian law enforcement agencies are trying to find out if he has any ties with international drug traffickers, but U.S. and Bolivian officials concede that they have come up nothing solid so far. "He's a very capable union leader and he knows how to inspire and prepare young people," said Brig. Gen. Walter Cespedes Ramallo, the top Bolivian army commander in Chapare. "But he has to know that to support coca cultivation in Chapare he is defending the interests of the narcotraffickers." Traveling with Morales through his district is an object lesson on how coca permeates the politics and economics of the area that votes for him so resoundingly. Touring his district in sandals and blue jeans, he got out of his van to talk to a woman drying coca leaves on her front yard in the town of Villa Catorce as she complained about the increasing number of peasant associations in the region who were abandoning the crop for fear of government reprisals. "These are our problems," he said, nodding his head glumly. But then, shaking off his own concerns that the unity of the coca growers may be cracking under government pressure, he added, "These are not really unions - -- they have no members." The main event of the day was a coca growers union meeting in this sweltering town of wooden shacks set on stilts. As he arrived, the growers were listening to radio reports of an ambush of a government eradication team that left one policeman dead and three wounded. "Did we lose any people?" he asked. During the meeting a young woman flanked by her children began crying uncontrollably about the loss of income her family would suffer if the government campaign was effective. Sitting behind a pile of coca leaves, Morales responded, "It's time to stop crying and start organizing!" Then he went into a blistering attack on the government. "They speak of sedition and treat us like guerrillas," he said. "Banzer is using Chapare to distract the rest of the country from all the other problems the nation faces." Discussing the attempts by his opponents in Congress to strip him of his immunity, he steamed, "Congress is the first mafia of the state. All they know how to do is lie and steal." The 300 union members cheered, and many took copious notes to take back to their locals. Like many of the people of Chapare, Morales originally came from the highlands to find a more prosperous life. He came from a poor subsistence farm family, worked in bakery and took up the trumpet as an adolescent, and even became a professional for awhile. His band specialized in playing the tinku and diabladas, traditional Indian fight and protest music. He never finished high school, and then entered the army. His life-defining epiphany, he said, came in 1978, when he took part in a military action against a march by coca growers protesting a military coup. "When ordered to shoot, I shot over the heads of the protesters," he recalled. "I saw that the biggest defenders of democracy were the cocaleros." Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company - ---