Bolivia–United States Relations - Narcotics Issues

Narcotics Issues

After decades of rule under a military dictatorship, with only glimmers of moments when civilians governed, democratic rule was reestablished with the election of Hernan Suazo in 1982. Following Suazo’s election, layoffs within the tin mining industry led to migration to Bolivia’s Chapare region, where migrants relied upon coca farming for subsistence and organized its trade. The Six Coca Growers’ Federations, a unit composed of agrarian unions, governed and maintained the region in the absence of a state presence. As the Chapare region was being settled, the US reinstituted the aid that had been cut during the military coup of 1980. Included in the aid was funding for drug control as well as $4 million for the creation and maintenance of UMOPAR, a rural drug police unit.

Coca is a sacred medicine to the Aymara people of the Andes, who use coca tea as a stimulant to provide energy at high altitudes, to relieve headaches and to alleviate menstrual pain. This causes tension with the USA, which is trying to solve their internal problems with cocaine abuse (cocaine is a highly concentrated form of an active ingredient of coca.) In June 2002, the United States ambassador Manuel Rocha condemned Evo Morales in a speech, warning Bolivian voters that if they elected someone who wanted Bolivia to become a major cocaine exporter again, the future of U.S. aid would be endangered. The speech was widely credited with generating a huge boost of more than ten points for Morales in the ensuing elections, who came within two points of winning the national presidential vote. Morales called Rocha his "campaign chief."

The US State Department hi points out that control of illegal narcotics is a major issue in the bilateral relationship. For centuries, Bolivian coca leaf has been chewed and used in traditional rituals, but in the 1970s and 1980s the emergence of the drug trade led to a rapid expansion of coca cultivation used to make cocaine, particularly in the tropical Chapare region in the Department of Cochabamba (not a traditional coca growing area). in 1986, the US used its own troops in Operation Blast Furnace, “the first major antidrug operation on foreign soil to publicly involve US military forces”). US officials claimed that such military action was needed to close cocaine laboratories, block cocaine trade routes, and seize cargo planes suspected of transporting cocaine. US presence in the country sparked protest against its violation of Bolivia’s sovereignty. In 1988, a new law, Law 1008, recognized only 12,000 hectares in the Yungas as sufficient to meet the licit demand of coca. Law 1008 also explicitly stated that coca grown in the Chapare was not required to meet traditional demand for chewing or for tea, and the law called for the eradication, over time, of all "excess" coca.

To accomplish that goal, successive Bolivian governments instituted programs offering cash compensation to coca farmers who eradicated voluntarily, and the government began developing and promoting suitable alternative crops for peasants to grow. Beginning in 1997, the government launched a more effective policy of physically uprooting the illegal coca plants, and Bolivia's illegal coca production fell over the next 4 years by up to 90%. This plan, referred to as Plan Dignidad, was launched by President Hugo Banzer. Based on the concept of "shared responsibility with the international community, Plan Dignidad’s “four pillars of action” included “alternative development, prevention and rehabilitation, eradication, and interdiction”. Alternative development would have provided new opportunities for coca farmers so that they wouldn’t depend on income made from coca crops and could stop cultivating it altogether.

This "forced" eradication remains controversial, however, and well-organized coca growers unions have blocked roads, harassed police eradicators, and occasionally used violence to protest the policy. In response, previous government security forces have used force. In 1998, the Joint Task Force (JTF), a combined unit of police and military, stationed members in the Chapare region. In 2001, the paramilitary Expeditionary Task Force (ETF) was created with funding from the US embassy. Although ETF troops were civilians, the commanding officers were Bolivian military officials. The use of security forces and the failure of government to negotiate and/or keep agreements with coca growers resulted in human rights abuses. Instead of being tried in civilian court under Bolivian constitutional law, human rights abuse cases were tried in military tribunals if they were tried at all. In some cases confrontations between security forces and coca growers or distributors have resulted in injuries and fatalities, raising human rights concerns. The Morales government has embarked on a policy of voluntary eradication and social control. Although violent confrontations between police and coca growers/distributors have decreased under the new approach, its long-term efficacy remains to be proven.

Bolivia plans to expand, at least for a limited time, legal coca production to 20,000 hectares and stresses development of legal commercial uses for coca leaf. Although the U.S. prefers long-term limits that track more closely with current estimated legal domestic demand of around 4,000 to 6,000 hectares, it will continues to support counter-narcotics efforts in Bolivia as the 20,000 hectare proposal is still significantly below current cultivation, which has oscillated between about 23,000 and 28,000 hectares since 2001.

The United States also heavily supports parallel efforts to interdict the smuggling of coca leaves, cocaine, and precursor chemicals. The U.S. Government has, in large measure, financed alternative development programs and the counter-narcotics police effort. The U.S. recertified Bolivia as not having "failed demonstrably" in 2007 to cooperate on counter-narcotics issues, finding Bolivia's interdiction efforts strongly positive, though against a backdrop of steadily rising production and trafficking of cocaine. Recent Bolivian governments have supported U.S. Government counter-narcotics programs.

The amount of Bolivian cocaine reaching the U.S. market is negligible. The New York Times speculates that U.S. aid for coca eradication may be designed more to give U.S. officials a rare window into Mr. Morales’s government. However, even the limited cooperation between the two governments is under growing stress. Radical members of the Morales government have demanded expulsion of American aid workers. In June 2008, 20,000 protesters marched to the American Embassy in La Paz, clashing with the police and threatening to burn the building down. Evo Morales later praised the demonstrators.