ANALYSIS: As Morales' Star Rises, U.S. Influence Wanes in Bolivia

ANALYSIS: As Morales' Star Rises, U.S. Influence Wanes in Bolivia
Niko Kyriakou | OneWorld US | Fri., Dec. 23, 2005
Websource: http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/124667/1/

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 23 (OneWorld) - Newly elected Bolivian President Evo Morales plans to decriminalize coca production, nationalize energy production, and challenge long-standing neo-liberal economic policies--and there may be little Washington can do about it.

While many U.S. officials do not like Morales' plans or his anti-U.S. rhetoric, which has become increasingly popular among Latin Americans, the superpower may find that its leverage over the poorest country in South America is not what it once was.

Unlike the regional dominance wielded by the U.S. in the 1970s and 80s, the Latin American playing field now includes hefty Bolivian allies like Venezuela, which has much of the technological savvy to modernize Bolivia's energy sector, and MERCOSUR, the South American trade group, which can provide Bolivia a safety valve to U.S. economic pressures.

In an overwhelming electoral victory that surprised most observers, Morales avoided a run-off and won the Bolivian presidency Sunday, capturing about 54.3 percent of votes cast, according to official tallies from 93 percent of polling stations.

Bolivia's first Indian president and long-time nuisance in Washington's side was backed heavily by indigenous groups, who make up about 60 percent of the country and three quarters of whom live in poverty, according to a 2005 World Bank report.

As Bolivia's largest foreign-aid donor, giving some $200 million per year, the U.S. wields significant clout in the country. But the U.S. may be reluctant to use aid revocation as a bargaining chip against Morales.

Bolivia is the world's third-largest coca producer. About half of U.S. aid goes towards combating drug trafficking, according to the Centre for International Policy (CIP), a policy the White House wants to maintain.

For years, the U.S. government has pursued aggressive coca interdiction and fumigation programs in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, and has even trained a 700-man counter-narco terror unit called the Special Operations Force in Bolivia.

Coca is the base ingredient in cocaine, but Morales says that it is primarily used for industrial and personal purposes--like tea and medicine.

One of the most contentious issues between the U.S. government and Morales, a coca farmer and former head of the country's coca-growers federation, is his plan to increase the area used for legal coca production, currently at 29,000 acres.

Officials say that increased coca production will counteract years of eradication efforts, which have significantly reduced Bolivia's production of coca.

Showing moderation, Morales has acknowledged Washington's stance, and said that he wants to involve the U.S. in more aggressive anti-trafficking efforts, but he has not backed down from his plans to increase production.

A U.S. move away from an eradication strategy and towards stiffer coca interdiction and institution building would count as a major shift in the so-called "war on drugs," and Washington may fear that a redirected policy would force a domino effect on other eradication programs in Latin America, says Adam Isacson, a drug war expert at the Centre for International Policy (CIP) in Washington.

If the U.S. chooses not to change its stance towards coca production, it may have no choice but to tolerate Bolivia's increased legal production.

Traditionally, another common pressure point used by Washington in regional negotiations has been trade. But removing trade benefits, withdrawing aid, and even lobbying for trade and aid restrictions in world bodies like the World Bank and the IMF are no longer as easy or effective in Latin America as they once were.

For example, under current U.S. law, the U.S. must develop drug-related trade restrictions in joint consultation with the Organization of American States (OAS), and can only apply for restrictions if countries refuse to fight drug trafficking, says Mark Schneider, special adviser on Latin America for the International Crisis Group.

"The key from the standpoint of U.S. law is whether the country in question is cooperating in efforts to 'combat illegal drug trafficking.' Obviously the phrase can be interpreted narrowly or expansively," Schneider told OneWorld.

This legal distinction is blurred by the fact that Morales recently said he plans to work closely with the U.S. to fight trafficking, although he added that trafficking has been used as a "false pretext for the United States to install military bases [in Bolivia]."

Furthermore, trade levers, like withdrawing the country from the U.S. State Department's list of countries "certified" to receive privileged trade relations, don't carry the regional clout they once did.

"Once they decertify it has enormous impact on every other industry. Anything Bolivia would do outside of oil and gas would be affected. But, they [Bolivia] could turn to China," says Ted McDonald, anthropologist at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

But even closer to home, the U.S. is no longer the only economic powerhouse Bolivia could turn to.

On Monday, MERCOSUR, a South American trading zone that generates $1 trillion in goods, invited Bolivia to become a full member in the trade group, up from associate membership.

A final reason U.S. officials may not want to push full sanctions against Bolivia is because that would mean a cut-off of funding for domestic "pro-democracy" programs, which funnel funding to opposition political groups in Bolivia, according to Sanho Tree, fellow and director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. refrained from pushing for total sanctions in Venezuela--the country with the largest natural gas reserves in Latin America--for this very reason, said Tree.

Bolivia has the continent's second-largest natural gas reserves. How Morales handles that industry, which has already been the source of much strife within Bolivia, could say a lot about the U.S.'s influence in the country.

Not long ago, the U.S. was the only regional power with the technical expertise to develop Bolivia's energy sector, a point it might have used to influence the small country. But much of the work can now be done by Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil producer.

"Venezuela and PDVSA [the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company] could be strategic partners to face up to the multinational companies that have looted Bolivia's natural resources," Morales said recently.

While Morales, a former union chief who led movements that helped oust two former presidents, shows signs of both radicalism and pragmatism, most observers say his real views will become apparent through his actions, not his words.

"More people are concerned with the overall shift to the left and very strong rise in anti-Americanism. People are focusing entirely too much on his one-liners towards the U.S.," Harvard's McDonald said.

But rather than looking for complex alliances and intrigue with Fidel Castro and Chavez, McDonald says, more important is what is going on inside Bolivia.

Morales' rhetoric "reflects part of sentiment across the hemisphere," McDonald said, adding that Morales is "quite pragmatic" and will have to compromise to meet his goal of governing equitably.
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Interview: Morales' Plans for Bolivia (In These Times Magazine)
December 18, 2005: By America Vera-Zavala
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2438/

Evo Morales is a polarizing figure in Latin American politics: a proudly left-leaning indigenous activist who defends the traditional rights of peasants to grow coca and describes the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas as "colonization." While opponents have labelled him a "narco-trade unionist," the charismatic Morales enjoys widespread popular support. As In These Times went to press, he was expected to win the special December 18 Bolivian presidential election. His election would place him in power alongside other Latin American leaders who are critical of America's neoliberal economic agenda: Hugo Chavez of Venezula, Lula de Silva of Brazil and, of course, Fidel Castro in Cuba.

Morales' upbringing shaped his political philosophy. The son of coca farmers, he was raised in the barren altiplano region, where he worked as a coca farmer and llama herder before rising to power as the national leader of the coca-growers union. In 1995, he founded MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), an indigenous-based political party that calls for the nationalization of industry, legalization of the coca leaf (the main ingredient of cocaine) and fairer distribution of national resources. Morales ran for president in 2002 on the MAS ticket, losing to the heavily favored Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada by two percentage points.

A major plank in his current platform is to convene a "constituent assembly," that would re-write the country's Constitution with input from the indigenous groups that make up approximately 62 percent of the population, but who only won the right to vote in 1952. Morales is an Aymara Indian, and many observers note that MAS has successfully brought together two strands of the left--the indigenous and the liberal--in one party.

The political climate in Bolivia is tense. This presidential election comes after June protests against an oil export deal that forced the resignation of then-President Carlos Mesa. These protests were only the most recent: In 2000, protests in the city of Cochabamba stopped the IMF-mandated privatization of the public water system, and in 2003 protests erupted in La Paz over a tax increase aimed at the poor. If Morales wins less than 50 percent of the popular vote, the election will be decided by a congressional vote in January, and critics say that he has moved to the center in an attempt to win. But when In These Times spoke with Morales in early November, he was sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt, and his resolve to equalize access to the country's resources was clear.

What is the most important issue that you plan to address as president?

The most important thing is to create public well-being, to combat poverty and take care of our natural resources. To form a government is to form a family that will work together to eliminate poverty. In this project the state has to be a central actor, generating development, housing, sports and so on.

The state has to be the motor: We will nationalise the forests and the petroleum and natural gas reserves. In several cases the management of the companies has been disastrous. To develop the country, we have to get rid of the colonial and neoliberal model. We want to tax the transnationals in a fair way, and redistribute the money to the small- and medium-size enterprises, where the job opportunities and ideas are. To get this on its way, we want to create a development bank. The properties of big land owners will have to be redistributed; we'll respect the productive land, but the unproductive land must be handed out to landless peasants--this will start a true process of economic redistribution. We also want to industrialize and give people more access to technology.

We want to govern with our indigenous ancestors' models: That means a different concept of participation, community work and honesty.

How important is the Constituent Assembly?

The Constituent Assembly is our number one priority and main proposal in the campaign. The majority of people in this country--people from more than 30 indigenous groups--did not participate in the foundation of Bolivia in 1825. We have to re-found Bolivia in order to end the colonial state, to live united in diversity, to put all our resources under state control, and to make people participate and give them the right to make decisions.

If I become president, I have to swear to respect the laws--and if the laws are neoliberal, I can't do that. Our constitution says that Bolivia is a multiethnic democratic country, but that is only in theory. If we win we have to change the country, not only in theory but in reality.

What will the process of transforming political representation look like?

We would like to have elections for the Constituent Assembly six months after these [December] elections. Bolivians will elect three people from each district, which would constitute a parliament of around 200 members. Then the assembly will have to work for some months, after which their proposals will be voted on in a public referendum.

But we have to see how this goes. The minority in this country are not going to give up the baby bottle easily.

What are you going to do about Bolivia's external debt?

We will ask for the total [forgiveness] of the debt, negotiating with the World Bank and the IMF. We are looking into the possibility of presenting a demand that Bolivia be compensated for genocide and 500 years of oppression and violations of human rights. It would be a historic thing to do, especially for an indigenous government.

How about the world outside Bolivia? What do you think about what is happening in Latin America right now?

I respect Cuba a lot. When it comes to Che Guevara, our only difference is the armed struggle--I don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution.

There are many progressive leaders in Latin America right now; presidents like Fidel and Chavez, but also Kirchner [in Argentina], Lula and Tabarez Vasquez [in Uruguay]. The social movements are very strong and interesting and they move from union struggle, to local, to national struggle. If the 19th century belonged to Europe and the 20th century to the United States, the 21st century will belong to America, to Latin America. I have a vision of integration, like the European Union, with a single market and a single currency and with the corporations subordinate to the state.

I am sure that America would be better off without the United States and the IMF controlling all of its resources.

Right now [in Bolivia], people power exists in theory, but not in practice. That has to change. If I become president Bolivia will support ALBA [Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas], the alternative to FTAA that was launched by Venezuela. Of course, everyone would like free trade but as long as the world is so unfair, free trade is not combating poverty but combating the poor.

What is your political history?

I have gone from social struggle, to trade union struggle, to local politics and then to national politics. I am candidate for president because the people want me to be. We are the most militant force against neoliberal politics. The trade union I was heading [the Federation of Coca Farmers] is in daily direct confrontation with the United States, which controls our country under the pretext of fighting against drug trafficking.

What many people don't understand is that the coca leaf is an important part of our culture. Zero cocaine cannot mean that zero people work with the coca leaf. Right now we have an international campaign to take the coca leaf off the United Nations list of drugs; the coca leaf is not a drug, it is a healthy herb.

What is your strategy to avoid confrontation with the United States?

They have to respect us, to respect the outcome of the elections. Recently, Bush has said that he will recognize the elections if they are fair.

Condoleezza Rice has said that she is "very worried" about you being president of Bolivia. What is your reaction to that?

That is part of intrusive U.S. politics: their constant threats, repression and lies. The White House says that I'm a drug trafficker who belongs to the mafia, that I receive money from Fidel and Chávez. Ridiculous! Luckily, the Bolivian people don't believe them.

Is there a risk that they will try to declare the elections unconstitutional if you win?

I have to concentrate on the campaign and trust what the constitutional court has said: that the elections are constitutional.

Websource:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2438/

Info. on America Vera-Zavala is a Swedish journalist who writes regularly on economics and participatory democracy.
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Bolivia's Charge to the Left (Institute for Policy Studies)
December 16, 2005 edition | By Mark Engler and Nadia Martinez
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1216/p09s01-coop.html

NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON – With presidential elections in Bolivia on Sunday, Washington is buzzing with talk that another Latin American country may be "lost."

Evo Morales, a former president of Bolivia's coca-growers' union and the leader of the Movement Toward Socialism party, is the current front-runner, according to the latest polls. If he wins the election, Mr. Morales will be the latest head of state to join the ranks of the region's burgeoning New Left, already comprised of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. For the Bush administration and conservative pundits, this would qualify as an unmitigated catastrophe.

Bolivia, however, is far from lost. By proposing a new path to development, a Morales administration would offer genuine hope of alleviating endemic hardship and inequality in South America's poorest country. And if spreading democracy is truly the goal of US foreign policy, the United States should welcome such new approaches rather than demanding that other nations elect officials subservient to the views that currently prevail in the White House.

The Bush administration's consistent mistake in dealing with Latin America has been to equate freedom with the pursuit of a rigid program of its preferredeconomic policies. It has valued "free" markets over democratic independence. This stance, not a novel one for US administrations, has repeatedly generated tensions with such progressive leaders as Argentina's Néstor Kirchner, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Uruguay's Tabaré Vázquez. The administration's most prominent antagonist in the region, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, needs only to point to the White House's early celebration - if not active support - of an antidemocratic coup against him in 2002 to illustrate the thinness of Bush's prodemocracy rhetoric.

In Bolivia, democracy is now set to collide with the economic policies Washington prefers. American oil and gas companies doing business there reaped substantial profits from privatizing the country's gas industry in the early 1990s, and they had high hopes of being able to increase their windfalls by exporting Bolivia's gas to the energy-hungry US market. Corporate gains did not trickle down to Bolivia's poor, however, and massive protests against privatization have forced the resignation of two presidents in two years. They have also made a political star of Morales, a candidate who promises to redirect gas industry profits toward Bolivia's social needs.

The Bush administration has watched Morales's rise to prominence with a sense of quiet hysteria. Morales has been slandered by conservatives who label him a drug trafficker, a charge that has never been substantiated. He and other coca farmers point out that although coca is used to produce cocaine, the natural plant leaves have ancestral importance for Bolivia's indigenous people. State Department officials regard him as a puppet of Mr. Chávez and Fidel Castro. If their regular stream of insults has been muted of late, it is only because the administration is aware that its past criticism has boosted Morales's popularity in a region where Washington's policies are viewed with skepticism.

There's no reason to fear a Morales victory. While he is committed to pushing for a political program that will benefit Bolivia's poor and indigenous majority, Morales has shown consistent respect for the democratic process.

Since US-sponsored coca eradication efforts in Bolivia and elsewhere have had little to no effect on cocaine use in the US, a Morales victory should be occasion for Washington to reevaluate its failed drug war rather than to propagate alarmist rhetoric.

In terms of economic policy, Latin American leaders have increasingly concluded that the fiscal austerity and market reforms implemented in past decades under direction from the US, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have only exacerbated inequality. Despite an abundance of natural resources, over two-thirds of Bolivians live in poverty, and nearly half subsist on less than one dollar per day.

According to the World Bank, extreme poverty increased 5.8 percent between 1999 and 2002, and the gap between the rich and poor grew wider. Across the continent, per capita income hardly inched upward during the 1980s and '90s, when policies of corporate globalization held sway, while it had surged in previous decades.

It remains to be seen if Latin America's New Left will be able to reverse this situation by fashioning bold solutions to poverty in Bolivia and beyond. Certainly, it deserves the chance to try. In this context, demonizing Morales will not advance our true national interests of promoting freedom and human development. But cheering an independent and democratic Bolivia just might.

• Mark Engler is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. Nadia Martinez coordinates the Americas program for the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies. Research assistance was provided by Kate Griffiths.

Websource: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1216/p09s01-coop.html
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Bolivian Protestors End Water Privatization (Cultural Survival)
© By Alana Libow | January 14, 2005 | Weekly Indigenous News
http://209.200.101.189/publications/win/win-article.cfm?id=2556&highlight=Bolivia
La Paz's busy street stopped by water and gas protests {pix @ website}

In El Alto, Bolivia, Aymara and others who count among Latin America's most destitute have told the Bolivian government that a price should not be placed on clean water.

On Friday the Federation of El Alto Neighborhoods, locally known as the Fejuve, accepted Supreme Decree 27973 terminating the Bolivian government's contract with the private water company Aguas del Illimani, and declared a pause to the public protests that started on January 10.

"This defeat of Aguas del Illimani is a triumph for the inhabitants of the city of El Alto," said Fejuve Executive Abel Mamani, according to La Opinion. "After many years of Aguas del Illimani sucking the blood out of the Alteño population, finally, we are kicking Aguas del Illimani out."

The Supreme Decree, ordered by the Superintendent of Basic Sanitation, guaranteed service that will supply drinkable water and a sewage system for the cities of La Paz and El Alto, reported La Opinion.

Last week, Alteños were at an impasse with the Bolivian government and Aguas del Illimani, the Bolivian subsidiary of the French water baron, Suez. Located 14,000 feet above sea level and 10 miles north of La Paz, El Alto came to a standstill as rural peasants and urban vendors congregated to demand their rights to clean water at a decent price.

Yolanda Saliz, an Aymara woman and second-year client of Pro Mujer, an international microfinance organization, affirmed that the right to water is a human right, "because there is no life without water."

In 1997, the World Bank declared that it would stop providing Bolivia with international development grants unless the government of Bolivia privatized the water supply of La Paz and El Alto. Consequently, Alteños have found themselves fiscally constrained by the new contract that controls their water distribution.

Aguas del Illimani has raised the cost of connecting water and sewage systems to homes in El Alto to more than US$445 per year, a 35 percent increase since it took over. Most Alteños make an average of $750 per year.

Gilda Reyes, a new client of Pro Mujer, expressed frustration that her monthly water payment of 44 Bolivianos (roughly US$5.50) is higher than it ought to be, "since we are only using it for basic nourishment and to wash our clothes."

The water protests strategically commenced on the five-year anniversary of Cochabamba's public uprising against another water baron, the Betchel Corporation of San Francisco. Following World Bank advice, the Bolivian government gave Betchel control of water utilities on which over half a million people subsisted. The revolt in Cochabamba ended in multiple deaths, injuries, and the filing by Betchel of a $25 million legal action against Bolivia that, according to The Democracy Center, was later dropped because of intense international pressure.

In order to avoid a repeat of the Cochabamba events in El Alto, current Bolivian President Carlos Mesa and his government indicated in Los Tiempos on Wednesday that they would end the contract with Aguas del Illimani.

After suffering years of political deception the president's word did not satisfy Alteños. Fejuve, along with Trabajadores Central Obrera Regional de El Alto (Central Regional Workers of El Alto), unionists, and Aymara from rural and urban areas continued their blockades, strikes, and protests until Mesa promulgated Supreme Decree 27973 with a defined date that guaranteed the termination of the contract with Aguas del Illimani set forth by Bolivian law.

Related Link:
The Man-Eating Mines of Potosi |
April 30, 2001 | Cultural Survival Quarterly | Issue 25.1
http://209.200.101.189/publications/csq/csq-article.cfm?id=681

RELATED ARTICLE:
The Cocaine Industry in Bolivia - Its Impact on the Peasantry
By Healy, Kevin | December 31, 1985 | Cultural Survival Quarterly | Issue 9.4
http://209.200.101.189/publications/csq/csq-article.cfm?id=479

For the indigenous people of Andean Bolivia who have been growing and consuming the coca leaf for several thousand years, the rising demand for cocaine in the United States is rapidly restructuring their economic and social relations. In recent years, underground, illegal economic activities have emerged on a grand scale. Surpassing most other legal economic endeavors, these underground activities are distorting patterns of economic development and the social well-being of the Andean peasant majority.

While Bolivia produces approximately 40 to 45 percent of the world's supply of coca leaf and coca paste, the Chapare tropical rain forest area in the Department of Cochabamba alone supplies 70 percent of the nation's coca leaf crop. Farmers from the highlands who migrated here cleared tens of thousands of hectares of forested lands to grow the plant on small plots.

Coca-paste making and international trafficking, however, traditionally has been the domain of elites such as the cattle ranchers of the Beni Department, the agro-business groups within the Department of Santa Cruz and a small group within the Bolivian military. But in 1982, when a major military drug trafficking group lost national power and a civilian, democratic government took office, the Cochabamba peasants began making coca paste because of its incomparable profits and wages.

The growing international demand for cocaine has stimulated increased coca leaf production in Bolivia by these small farmers. The United States Drug Enforcement Agency estimates the flow of cocaine into the United States has climbed from 35 metric tons in 1981 to 85 metric tons in 1985. Bolivian coca leaf production likewise jumped from 35 metric tons to 120 metric tons between 1978 and 1985 according to official Bolivian government figures.

Meanwhile, elites have continued their coca-paste production and some have turned to the production of pure cocaine, which Colombians previously controlled. These groups enjoy greater political protection than the peasants and have the capital and other resources to engage in direct international cocaine trafficking.

Economic Depression Stimulates Production

Bolivia's economic depression and a severe drought in the mountain provinces during the 1982-83 growing season, has made the coca/cocaine trade attractive. Caught in an international debt-repayment squeeze, Bolivia's gross national production since 1980 has fallen by 17 percent, its per capita consumption by 30 percent and its per capita income by 20 percent. During this same period, unemployment doubled. In addition, inflation went from 297 percent in 1982 to 328 percent in 1983. In 1984 it soared to 2,800 percent and then to about 10,000 percent during 1985 (Central Bank of Bolivia). Small farmers in all regions of Bolivia continue to suffer declining terms of trade from such inflation - a trend that began in the late '60s.

Against this background, it might appear that the flow of economic benefits from the coca/cocaine trade has been unambiguously positive. The 35,000 producers of coca leaves in the Chapare region can each net up to $9,000 annually from the production of 2.2 acres. The next most profitable crop in this area, citrus, earns producers only $500 from the same size plot. In addition, small farmers benefit from the coca leaf's unusual characteristics which make it a "wonder crop." Fine-tuned over a millennium in the Andean ecosystem, coca grows relatively well on poor soil, has comparably few problems with blight and pests, four to five harvests annually and a life expectancy of 18 years. Its light weight and non-perishable qualities also make it ideal for low-cost, long-range mountain transport and its production requires no imported petro-chemical products or expensive institutional credit.

Highland peasants who do not own land in the Chapare are increasing migration to the area to earn wages in coca-leaf production activities and as pisadores. These workers stomp the coca leaves with their feet in the clandestine paste-making laboratories.

Wages for coca leaf production are higher than for any other cash crop in Bolivia, and wages for paste-making are greater even than wages earned in urban areas; they are also six to eight times higher than any other skilled or unskilled labor in the legal, rural economy.

Despite the increasing income for small farmers in the Chapare, the coca/cocaine boom is leading them and their country down an illusory development path. The coca trade has induced peasants to shift land from food production for such crops as rice, bananas, yucca, maize, citrus and pineapples to coca leaf production. This mono-cropping trend leads to greater dependency on purchased foodstuffs, raises food prices and creates shortages of these crops. This could, however, stimulate food production in other areas of Bolivia.

In the coca-growing and paste-making areas of the Chapare and upper Cochabamba Valley during 1984 and 1985, inflation has reached the highest levels in Bolivian history. In the Chapare town of Shinahota, the cost of a piece of bread has risen to $1.00 and the daily cost of living has ranged from $20 to $100 in recent years (Los Tiempos, July 18, 1985). The regional urban capital city of Cochabamba, once one of Bolivia's least expensive cities, is presently the most expensive.

Coca Trade Creates Labor Shortages in Highlands

In the Chapare, wage labor is displacing traditional forms of exchange that have provided stability, continuity and even equity to peasant communities. Reciprocal labor patterns and mutual support structures, characteristics of local Andean life, are breaking down, and there is a marked increase in the monetarization of the peasant economy (Flores, 1984). In the highland areas, such as the upper Cochabamba Valley and Norte de Potosi, there are reports of labor shortages for such crops as potatoes and maize, because so many peasants have fled to the proliferating "cocaine factories" to work as pisadores.

Coca Trade Destroys Environment

In the pursuit of quick profits the peasants' rush to produce coca leaves and coca paste also is taking its toll on the Cochabamba region's ecosystem (Flores, 1984). In the upper Cochabamba Valley, recent reports indicate that chemicals used in making coca paste sometimes are dumped into the streams and irrigation ditches contaminating agricultural lands and livestock. The basic quality of life remains poor, as well. Most communities in the Chapare still have no potable water, electricity and indoor plumbing (Flores, 1984). In Bolivia, these services are provided by the Ministry of Health and the regional public development corporations, who are not receiving revenues from the coca trade. Serious levels of infant mortality, malnutrition and gastrointestinal illnesses remain prevalent.

Coca Leaf Losing Traditional Cultural Value

While becoming a commodity exclusively for cash exchange and commercial gain, the coca leaf, the sacred plant of Andean society, is losing its traditional cultural value in the Chapare. For years its uses in religious rituals and daily exchange between family, friends and strangers have conveyed friendship and hospitality. Chewing the coca leaf, which contains a mild stimulant, provides energy for arduous tasks in agriculture and mining, and is a lightweight source of protein. In addition, 87 percent of the inhabitants of the small towns and rural communities in Bolivia use the coca leaf for health purposes. Used by itself, the coca leaf is known to provide some 40 remedies and in combination with other plants, some 30 other remedies.

But now the price of the coca leaf has risen so high, more than a million and a half Bolivian peasants can no longer easily afford it. In addition, the quality of the leaves in the licit local markets has declined.

While coca-leaf chewing is waning, smoking pitillo, coca paste mixed with tobacco, has become widespread among pisadores and poor peasant families. Drug traffickers often remunerate pisadores with pitillos, and because of the exposure in their own clandestine paste-making laboratories - a veritable homemade kitchen industry - families have also become consumers.

Coca paste has more impurities than the pure cocaine hydrochloride used in the United States and is presumed to cause many serious health effects. Bolivian medical researchers are investigating the health impact upon the pisadores, whose feet come into contact with kerosene over many hours. The researchers' preliminary reports are extremely alarming. While stomping on the leaves in a tedious and monotonous crushing process, the pisadores are often given alcoholic beverages, coca paste, a special meal and regional music, all of which are used "to increase their productivity."

Trade Breeds Corruption and Violence

The expanding drug trade has pulled the peasantry into illegal activity as pisadores and owners of makeshift cocaine factories, as well as smugglers of coca leaves and various processing chemicals such as kerosene and sulphuric acid. Peasant women have entered en masse into prostitution in the drug-making zones and into petty commerce with the processing chemicals. They also sometimes cook for the workers in the cocaine factories.

The repression against the drug trade in Bolivia falls disproportionately upon the peasants because of their lack of political and economic power. Drug-related arrests and detentions have led to overcrowding in the major detention centers. Meanwhile, the larger trafficking interest groups are seldom arrested or prosecuted because of their ability to curry favor with or pay off the Bolivian police, judges, prison guards and assorted local officials.

The coca/cocaine boom in Bolivia has stepped up violence in rural areas as well because of officials' efforts to repress the illegal trade and widespread arms trafficking. Arms have become necessary to protect the coca-paste factories and the transport of the same by the traffickers. In recent years 300 drug-related murders were reported in Bolivia (Los Tiempos, August 9, 1984).

The illegal cocaine processing and trafficking, while violating international treaties and national laws, breeds not only violence but corruption among the public institutions employing the local public officials, the police force and the military. It has also brought sinister criminal traffickers from Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela into the rural areas of Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and Beni in Bolivia.

Finally, as a consequence of burgeoning economic interests, the rapidly spreading coca/cocaine boom is causing considerable problems for leaders of local peasant unions. Bolivia has one of the most effective national indigenous social movements in Latin America, but cocaine-related rivalries, charges and countercharges, threaten to weaken the federation's cause and legitimacy.

Bolivia, a poor, debt-ridden country, is caught in the grip of an expanding drug economy and a mirage of economic development. Despite the substantial flow of dollars, jobs and income, it has been at the cost of major social and cultural changes. Similar to other so-called "boom" periods in Latin American history, the country's peasantry absorbs in diverse and perverse forms the major costs of these changes. Given Bolivia's increasing economic dependency in the world economy, it is unlikely that this trend will slow down or that conditions will improve in the near future - not at least until cocaine consumption in the United States declines substantially.

Another Link:
BOLIVIA: Indigenous leaders claim land rights at international conference
April 7, 2005 | Weekly Indigenous News
http://209.200.101.189/publications/win/win-article.cfm?id=2579

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