The Bolivian President, Hugo Banzer, has pledged to eradicate all significant amounts of coca crops in his country by the end of the year. Mr Banzer, who had talks in Washington with the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, thanked the United States for financial support to develop alternative crops. However he also said he will not negotiate with the coca-leaf growers, who have been protesting against the government's eradication programme saying it undermines their livelihood. On Monday protestors clashed with police in the capital, La Paz, after their two-week march which began in the central coca-growing region of Chapare. [end]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Bolivian President Hugo Banzer told Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) Tuesday he believes that all significant amounts of cocaine will be eradicated from his country by the end of 2001. Powell congratulated Banzer on his success in fighting illegal drugs and expressed appreciation for the sacrifices Bolivians have made in this effort. An account of their 30-minute meeting was provided by State Department spokesman Philip Rekker. Reeker said Powell encouraged Banzer to continue the anti-drug campaign. [end]
More Than 10 Years Of Battles To Eradicate The Drug Crops Have Failed To Establish Viable Alternatives Leon Montano sits on his porch in the still of the evening. Thick banana tree groves surround his ramshackle farmhouse near Chimore, in the Chapare region of Bolivia. "Much of this used to be coca," he says as a black pig saunters into the yard. "Then the soldiers came and chopped it all down." Mr Montano has few regrets. He recalls the decades when cocaine ruled the region. [continues 766 words]
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia This Andean mountain nation in South America is about to accomplish the unthinkable: eradicating commercial coca production in a country that once was a major narcotics supplier to the United States. Bolivian troops have uprooted the last 1,500 acres of coca plants in Bolivia's southern Chapare region and are launching an offensive in the north to effectively rid the nation by the end of 2002 of the plant from which cocaine is manufactured, government officials said. [continues 741 words]
CHIMORE, Bolivia -- Coca was king for years here in Bolivia's steaming Chapare jungle. From the 1970s on, the leaf used to make cocaine brought thousands of peasants to this tropical basin 200 miles southeast of La Paz in the shadow of the Andes. Their crops vaulted Bolivia to the rank of the world's second-largest producer of raw and partially processed coca, making the country a hub of the regional drug trade. But U.S.-supported Bolivian soldiers and military police last month completed an extraordinarily aggressive -- and successful -- three-year campaign to eradicate coca in the Chapare. As a result, Bolivia has fallen off the list of major drug-producing countries for the first time in almost a half-century. U.S. and Bolivian officials are calling what happened here the largest victory in the drug war so far, a model for other countries. [continues 1557 words]
Country Once Leading Supplier Of Narcotics To United States SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- This Andean mountain nation in South America is about to accomplish the unthinkable: eradicating commercial coca production in a country that once was a major narcotics supplier to the United States. Bolivian troops have uprooted the last 1,500 acres of coca plants in Bolivia's southern Chapare region and are launching an offensive in the north to effectively rid the nation by the end of 2002 of the plant from which cocaine is manufactured, government officials said. [continues 840 words]
CHIMORE, Bolivia -- Declaring a victory in the drug war, the Bolivian government says a U.S.-financed campaign has wiped out coca farming in the Chapare region, once a major world producer of coca. But farmers who were persuaded to give up coca in favor of legal crops say the victory may be short-lived if they don't receive financial aid. They called on the United States to help by buying more of their bananas, oranges, and pineapples. "You all have to open up your markets," said 30-year-old Beningo Cossio, a coca farmer turned honey producer, referring to the United States. "Our products are only being sold locally and that's not enough." [continues 417 words]
Declaring a victory in the drug war, the Bolivian government says a U.S.-financed campaign has wiped out coca farming in the Chapare region, once a major world producer of coca. But farmers who were persuaded to give up coca in favor of legal crops say the victory may be short-lived if they don't receive financial aid. They called on the United States to help by buying more of their bananas, oranges, and pineapples. "You all have to open up your markets," said 30-year-old Beningo Cossio, a coca farmer turned honey producer, referring to the United States. "Our products are only being sold locally and that's not enough." [continues 526 words]
With U.S. Aid, Bolivian Farmers Turn From Coca To Legal CHIMORE, Bolivia -- Declaring a victory in the drug war, the Bolivian government says a U.S.-financed campaign has wiped out coca farming in the Chapare region, once a major world producer of coca. But farmers who were persuaded to give up coca in favor of legal crops say the victory may be short-lived if they don't receive financial aid. They called on the United States to help by buying more of their bananas, oranges, and pineapples. [continues 266 words]
The Bolivian president, Hugo Banzer, has opened a two-day international conference on the illegal drugs trade in the eastern city of Santa Cruz. Delegations from Europe, the United States and Latin America will share ideas on combatting drug-trafficking. As the conference began, Mr Banzer announced that after an intensive three-and-a-half year offensive, all illegal coca plantations in the Chapare region had been eradicated. The government said only two-thousand hectares of illegal coca plantations remained in Bolivia, down from forty-five-thousand when Mr Banzer took office in 1997. [end]
Farmers Battle Government's Campaign To Eradicate Cash Crop Although President Hugo Banzer says coca leaf in his nation's main growing area has been virtually eliminated, residents of the region vow to keep growing the lucrative plant. In a New Year's address, Banzer said his government's goal of "zero coca" in the jungle-covered Chapare region of central Bolivia had been reached. "We need much more than applause," Banzer said. "It is time the world took stock of the work we have done." [continues 1048 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) -- Bolivia blamed "drug terrorists" for the shooting death of a policeman on Thursday in the coca growing Chapare region, where eradication efforts are nearly complete. Police officer Abad Espinoza Quinteros was "shot in the face and head" at 6:30 a.m. (1030 GMT) in the Ismael Montes region about 370 miles (600 kilometers) east of La Paz when his patrol was on its way to root out coca plants in the troubled lowland area. "We're on the right path for the defense of all Bolivians, we're fighting the drug traffickers and this violence will not turn us back," Government Minister Guillermo Fortun said. [continues 168 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia--William Aponte, my tour guide, was waiting. He has plenty of time these days. Ten years, to be exact. That's how long a judge gave him for drug trafficking. He's serving his sentence at San Pedro Prison, across from the Plaza Sucre in downtown La Paz. San Pedro's convicts pay their own expenses. Aponte leads tours to get by. Anyone with 51 bolivianos (about $8) and a twisted sense of adventure can see his home. [continues 717 words]
SHINAHOTA, Bolivia -- Drug-smuggling planes used to land in the middle of the street in this farming town at the height of the cocaine boom in the mid-1980s. That was when Roberto Suarez, the local kingpin, was so rich he offered to pay off Bolivia's entire national debt. But after three years of a government coca eradication campaign, cocaine is virtually a thing of the past here. Now the future is full of suntan lotion and long drives off the tee. [continues 684 words]
SHINAHOTA, Bolivia -- Drug smuggling planes used to land in the middle of the street in this farming town at the height of the cocaine boom in the mid-1980's. Roberto Suarez, the local kingpin, was so rich he offered to pay off Bolivia's entire national debt. But after three years of a government coca eradication campaign, cocaine is virtually a thing of the past here. Now the future is full of suntan lotion and long drives off the tee. At least that is the idea of Oscar Bakir, a telecommunications executive who thinks Shinahota could be the next Disney World or Riviera. [continues 740 words]
Leonardo Marca is down to his last acre of coca, and he has no intention of giving it up without a fight. When soldiers took machetes to his fields in Chipiriri, Bolivia, two years ago, he begged them to leave him something to support his family. Perhaps it was the big military tattoo on one arm, left over from his army days, that persuaded them to spare him a single patch covered by a thick jungle canopy. "I know they are coming back," said Marca, 43, a man of sheepish manner but fiery words. "The government says it will take our land and send us to jail if we persist in growing coca. We will have no alternative but to defend ourselves, like in Colombia." [continues 837 words]
Peter McFarren, the longtime Associated Press correspondent in Bolivia, recently took a step that has nothing to do with his journalistic duties: Lobbying the government. McFarren made a presentation to the Bolivian senate, on behalf of the Bolivian Hydro-Resources Corp., for a $78 million water project. The result, the AP confirmed yesterday, is that McFarren has resigned. McFarren's extracurricular efforts were disclosed by journalist Al Giordano, a former Boston Phoenix writer who recently launched NarcoNews.com. "Imagine if a congressional correspondent for a major Washington daily was found lobbying the U.S. Congress on behalf of a private industry project," he said. "The problem is, U.S. correspondents in Latin America receive very little scrutiny." [continues 888 words]
CHIPIRIRI, Bolivia, - Leonardo Marca is down to his last acre of coca, and he has no intention of giving it up without a fight. When soldiers took machetes to his fields two years ago, he begged them to leave him something to support his family. Perhaps it was the big military tattoo on one arm, left over from his army days, that persuaded the soldiers then to spare him all that is left now, a single patch covered by a thick jungle canopy. [continues 1188 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Only in Bolivia can one find a museum dedicated to the much-maligned and misunderstood coca leaf, holy of holies in ancient Andean religions but also the reviled raw material used to make cocaine. Much like the hidden coca patches dotting South America's subtropical lowlands, the International Coca Institute's museum is nestled in a barely noticeable backyard of a busy La Paz open market in the San Sebastian district. Finding its Web site (www.coca-museum.magicplace.com) might prove to be easier. [continues 748 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Oct. 6 - The Bolivian government today agreed to a broad range of demands by Indian peasant leaders, buckling under the pressure of three weeks of road blockades that paralyzed the economy, caused food shortages and threatened to force the resignation of President Hugo Banzer. The government gave in to the most important demands of the Aymara-speaking peasants after Indian leaders threatened to surround La Paz and starve the capital in a replay of an Indian rebellion in 1781. [continues 821 words]
Inside Bolivia
