Pubdate: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 Source: Scotsman (UK) Contact: Website: http://www.scotsman.com/ Author: Alex Blair CASUALTY OF THE DRUGS WAR How did a top English anthropologist and novelist end up in a Bolivian prison? "Woman. You have dressed in men's clothes and led auch looseness and immorality that it is an afront to God and man," charged the priest before sentencing Aleizon Ailix Ayndra, the heroine of Alison Spedding's 'Road And The Hills' trilogy, to jail "until the day you die". Rarely has an author so colourfully prophesied her own downfall as Spedding, a leading 36-year-old British novelist and anthropologist who faces up to 25 years in a Bolivian prison accused of drug trafficking. "She's an androgynous character for whom the imprisonment is more tortous than most," says Denise Arnold, a friend of Spedding's in La Paz, Bolivia's capital. As creator of the semi-autobiographical Amazonian warrior who dresses as a man, raises an army and falls in love with Lord Ailixond, conqueror of half the world, it is a form of hell only she could have dreamt of. "Most of the women are in for drugs. If they're found with one gram of hash on them or trafficking 500kg they get the same deal," says Arnold. "But the real proplem is the prison's 'cure of feminisation' The women are all made to scrub floors, cook food for the officers and play netball which, of course, Alison hates. She's not even been allowed a computer, because it's not considered feminine." For two weeks Spedding was held in a tiny windowless room, living on one bowl of soup a day at the antinarcotics headquarters. Having had an ectopic pregnancy shortly beforehand, her immune system was not as strong as it might have been and she quickly fell ill with numerous diseases, including typhoid and samonella. Repeated requests from the British police effected her eventual removal to the women's prison but under Bolivian law a person may be detained indefinitely before being officially charged and Spedding's trial date has been postponed twice. It is unlikely that another will be set before October. Now in La Paz women's prison, she shares a cramped cell with six prisoners and their babies, A telephone is available but it rarely works, washing facilities are a public cold water tap, food is meagre and inmates must rely on friends and relations for extra rations. "Students bring her the food she likes but she really misses cheese, which is expensive," says her mother, Maureen Raybauld, from Windlesham, Surrey, who is visiting Bolivia this week. Although doors are unlocked and there is relative freedom within the prison, the atmosphere is institutional, like a Victorian boarding school without holidays, according to Arnold. "They tell stories for privileges and aren't allowed any sexual rights either. In the men's prison, they have football matches, prostitutes on call and wives may visit once or twice a month to grant their marital rights." Spedding, as the academic prefers to be known, is doing her best to continue working. On a battered second-hand typewriter she writes as often as possihle - her request for a torch, so she could work after lights-out, was refused but she is permitted to sit in the kitchen, as long as she provides a lightbulb. Late at nlight is the only real opportunity for peace amid the maelstrom of prison life. Students visit daily for tutorials, as do friends and the British vice-consul, Debbie Aliaga, but there is still no sign of the 36 notebooks, back-up computer diskettes and two computers which police confiscated in a raid on her flat in a poor Aymara Indian district of La Paz on 30 March. Spedding was due to fly home to Britain the next day to discuss the publication of her book 'Money Like Water' and had withdrawn UKP1,500 travel money from the bank. After a tip-off from a police informer, officers searched her flat and unearthed two kilos of cannabis, which they claimed she was going to sell to students, and charged her with drug-trafficking. Two Aymara Indians, Flora and her daughter Miriam, whom Spedding has been supporting through university, were also arrested. Despite showing five years' pay-slips from San Andres University, where she was a lecturer, plus tax receipts, the police claimed the money in her flat and the computers were bought with illegal earnings. Spedding has always vehemently denied the allegations and while admitting to using marijuana herself, says she would never have sold it to her students, as it would amount to professional misconduct. "For a start, she had tenure in two posts," says her mother "She was hoping for another, so she would never have jeopardised that. Not many lecturers can boast that kind of security Britain, and Bolivia is her life." Leonardo Arteaga, her third lawyer so far, has said he hopes for a five-year sentence when her case eventually comes to trial, with possible parole after two and a half years, instead of the maximum 25. But her case is an especially hot diplomatic potato for hoth Britain and Bolivia. Initially, the Foreign Office suggested that after official negotiation a transfer to a British jail might be possible It would have been an ideal solution for both sides: senior academics and writers all over the world are campaigning for the release of the writer and Bolivia would rather be rid of the eccentric academic who dresses in Aymara Indian costume and stirs up support for local farmers cultivating coca. But for Spedding, the prospect of serving her time in Holloway, London, instead of her adopted home, is not an option. By all accounts. Spedding is a remarkable woman, admired unanimously for her dedication to Aymara Indians and their culture. "She is among the top Andean scholars in the world - innovative and eccentric," says Professor Joanna Overing of St Andrews University, describing her address to academics in Kyoto, Japan, in traditional 'pollera' skirt, black bowler hat and blonde pigtails. "But she's eccentric, and the Bolivians don't understand that her work is to live with peasants to understand their way of life." Born in Belper, Derhyshire, the eldest of three girls, Spedding first studied social anthropology at King's College, Cambridge, before travelling around Latin Arnerica and China and returning for a doctorate at the London School of Economics, She is remembered fondly for bucking the system, a libertarian unwilling even then to kow-tow to social mores. "I believe that all should be free to live, drink, eat, dress and sleep as it pleases them, so long as they do not seek to impose their ways on others," declares her heroine, Ayndra, in the 'Road And The Hills' trilogy, which was writen and published when she was a student. "It was quite clear That the subversive and engaging central character was based on herself as as we met," says Jane Johnson, a HarpeyCollins editor who has been leading the campaign for Spedding's release. An inveterate traveller, Spedding settled in Bolivia in 1989. Four years later, she wrote 'Wachu Wachu', a study of the cultivation of coca and its role in the Andean identity. Her arrest has prompted numerous conspiracy theories about the authorities wanting to expose her as a Marxist or put a stop to the sociology lessons she had been giving to guerilla inmates at the maximum-security Chonchocoro prison. But most believe there are two factors behind the Bolivian government's move to spirit her away: Law 1008 and pressure from the international commnnity to crack down on coca production. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has embarked on a war against narcotics cultivation and trafficking, under the leadership of the so-called drugs tsar Robert Gelbard. He was in Bolivia when the US sent troops to wipe out the cocaine industry, he pushed to cut off aid to Colombia because of its failure to deal with the drugs barons and was behind ending trade with Burma over its opium business. Backed overtly by the West, Bolivia's last government introduced Law 1008, for which the possession of all drugs carries a sentence of 25 years. In addition, the government argues that unless it destroys all coca crops, Bolivia will face international condemnation and sanctions, which it can ill afford. Coca farmers, supported by Spedding and others, believe the destruction of coca will force them off their land and into ruin. In the early years of this century, before the growth of Protestant missionary and temperance societies in the US, drugs were legal. With a profit margin of 20,000 per cent, many believe the battle against them will always be impossible. Despite high-profile raids, shoot-outs and seizures on the high-seas, notables such as the Nobel Prizewinner Milton Friedman and the former secretary of state, George Schultz, now agree the drug war has been lost. No such admission helps Spedding. The US will continue its drugs blitz and in the meantime Bolivia must seem obedient to the crusade. However the campaign for her release will continue, as academics fear otherwise the great loss of an intellectual who has dared to live and breathe her work. "That eccentricity must be protected," says Joanna Overing. In the 'Road And The Hills' trilogy, Aleizon Ailix Ayndra escapes prison by mugging a prison worker and stealing her clothes - fans will be watching to see if life imitates art again. - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett