BOLIVIA'S TRIAL BY FIRE

Washington and Morales Tangle Over the Coca Leaf and the Drug Trade

After winning a landslide election victory on Dec. 18, Bolivian
President-elect Evo Morales announced plans to fully legalize the
production of coca leaves and change the rules of the U.S.-led war on
drugs in his country. White House officials are wary of any deviation
from its anti-narcotics plan in Latin America, a strategy they claim
has been successful. However, U.S. government statistics and reports
from analysts in Bolivia tell a different story.

A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office
explains that, "While the U.S. has poured 6 billion dollars into the
drug war in the Andes over the past five years the number of drug
users in the U.S. has remained roughly constant."

In an interview on National Public Radio, Nicholas Burns, the State
Department's undersecretary for political affairs, said the
administration hopes "that the new government of Evo Morales in
Bolivia does not change course, does not somehow assert that it's fine
to grow coca and fine to sell it."

For centuries, coca has been used in the Andean region for medicinal
purposes; it relieves hunger, sickness and fatigue. It's also an
ingredient in Coca-Cola, cough syrups, wines, chewing gum, and diet
pills. The U.S. Embassy's website for Bolivia suggests chewing coca
leaves to alleviate altitude sickness.

Georg Ann Potter worked from 1999 to 2002 as an advisor to Morales,
and since then has been the main advisor to the Coordination of the
Six Women Federations of the Chapare. Potter explained that although
Morales plans to continue a hard line approach against the drug trade,
the current policies of the U.S. war on drugs need to change.

"One billion dollars has been spent [on alternative crop development]
over the last 20 years and there is little to show for it," she said.
"Forced eradication resulted in many dead, more wounded, armed forces
thieving and raping."