Tunderbar
Thu, Mar-08-07, 17:16
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/world/16-
859544.htm
Bolivia plans to export coca in face of treaty By Tyler
Bridges
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
LAUCA ENE, Bolivia - The steel girders and brick walls
going up on a muddy plot here wouldn't normally merit a
second glance.
But the building, a small factory that will allow Bolivia to
export coca tea and other coca-related products to Venezuela,
is putting President Evo Morales on a collision course with
Washington and the United Nations.
Morales sees the factory - and a second one being built
elsewhere in Bolivia - as putting money in the pockets of poor
coca growers while reducing the availability of the raw leaf
for drug traffickers to produce cocaine.
But the International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N. entity,
says Morales' plan violates a 1961 international anti-drug
agreement signed by both Bolivia and Venezuela.
"What Morales is saying is not in line with the 1961
Convention, and Bolivia knows this," Koli Kouame, the board's
secretary, said by telephone from its base in Vienna.
Asked whether exporting coca was legal, Morales told The Miami
Herald: "I don't have to ask permission from anyone to produce
coca products ... Just like in the past we used coca for the
benefits of humanity, now we'll industrialize it. We don't
have evil ends in mind."
To justify his actions, Morales cited two examples.
One is Coca-Cola's purchase of coca leaves from Peru. Kouame
said that's legal because Coca-Cola processes the leaves to
remove the alkaloid used for cocaine.
Morales also said South Africa imports coca from Peru. Kouame
said South Africa has not signed the 1961 Convention.
The issue of coca farming - legal if restricted in Bolivia,
where people have long chewed or brewed the leaves into tea
for health and cultural uses - has vexed Morales since he took
office one year ago.
The Bush administration has demanded that he continue his
predecessors' policy of eradicating illegal coca plants. But
forced eradication angers coca growers, who form the
president's most loyal constituency.
Indeed, Morales grew to prominence as the leader of a coca
growers' federation, a post he still retains.
Morales recently decreed that Bolivia could legally grow
20,000 hectares of coca, up from the previous legal limit of
12,000 hectares. One hectare equals 2.47 acres.
U.N. reports indicate, however, that actual cultivation is
25,000 hectares. The Bolivian government has acknowledged
that only about half goes to traditional, legal uses.
Morales' government hasn't fully explained how much coca will
go to the factory for export, but coca growers estimate no
more than 2,000 hectares per year. That would be only 10-15
percent of the excess, illegal production.
Jim Shultz, a U.S. citizen who runs a research-oriented
non-profit in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba that is
sympathetic to Morales, believes the U.S. government should
support a change in the 1961 Convention to allow Bolivia to
export coca products.
"U.S. policy has been to try to get coca growers to produce
bananas and pineapples, while using repression through forced
eradication," Shultz said. "It has never worked" because coca
generates at least double the income of any alternative.
"If Bolivia could soak up some of the crop for export, that
would seem to be a good thing."
Morales made the same point to The Miami Herald in an
interview Feb.
18.
"We want to have other products for coca so it won't go to the
illegal market," he said.
Enter Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, Washington's
biggest headache in South America and a generous Morales ally.
He has donated $250,000 to Bolivia to build the two factories
and agreed to import the coca tea, even though Venezuelans
have no tradition of drinking the brew.
U.S. officials fear that coca leaves, once exported, would be
turned into cocaine and that the new export market would only
encourage more cultivation of illegal coca.
The International Narcotics Control Board seems virtually
powerless to stop Bolivia from exporting coca products. Kouame
said the board could only punish Bolivia by barring it from
importing internationally controlled drugs such as morphine
and codeine. The board has never sanctioned a country since
1961, he added.
The factory in Lauca Ene, due to be finished in three months,
is in the Chapare, a lush area in the heart of Bolivia where
virtually all the coca produced is refined into cocaine, U.S.
and U.N. anti-drug officials say. The other factory will be in
the Yungas region, to the west, where coca has traditionally
been grown for legal uses.
"We've been asking for this for a long time," said Felipe
Munoz, who heads the Lauca Ene coca growers federation, as he
visited the factory site. "Other governments didn't listen to
us. Evo has."
He leaned against a partially-built brick wall.
"The U.S. government pressures us to reduce coca production,"
he added. "Hugo Chavez helps us without conditions."
***
TC
859544.htm
Bolivia plans to export coca in face of treaty By Tyler
Bridges
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
LAUCA ENE, Bolivia - The steel girders and brick walls
going up on a muddy plot here wouldn't normally merit a
second glance.
But the building, a small factory that will allow Bolivia to
export coca tea and other coca-related products to Venezuela,
is putting President Evo Morales on a collision course with
Washington and the United Nations.
Morales sees the factory - and a second one being built
elsewhere in Bolivia - as putting money in the pockets of poor
coca growers while reducing the availability of the raw leaf
for drug traffickers to produce cocaine.
But the International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N. entity,
says Morales' plan violates a 1961 international anti-drug
agreement signed by both Bolivia and Venezuela.
"What Morales is saying is not in line with the 1961
Convention, and Bolivia knows this," Koli Kouame, the board's
secretary, said by telephone from its base in Vienna.
Asked whether exporting coca was legal, Morales told The Miami
Herald: "I don't have to ask permission from anyone to produce
coca products ... Just like in the past we used coca for the
benefits of humanity, now we'll industrialize it. We don't
have evil ends in mind."
To justify his actions, Morales cited two examples.
One is Coca-Cola's purchase of coca leaves from Peru. Kouame
said that's legal because Coca-Cola processes the leaves to
remove the alkaloid used for cocaine.
Morales also said South Africa imports coca from Peru. Kouame
said South Africa has not signed the 1961 Convention.
The issue of coca farming - legal if restricted in Bolivia,
where people have long chewed or brewed the leaves into tea
for health and cultural uses - has vexed Morales since he took
office one year ago.
The Bush administration has demanded that he continue his
predecessors' policy of eradicating illegal coca plants. But
forced eradication angers coca growers, who form the
president's most loyal constituency.
Indeed, Morales grew to prominence as the leader of a coca
growers' federation, a post he still retains.
Morales recently decreed that Bolivia could legally grow
20,000 hectares of coca, up from the previous legal limit of
12,000 hectares. One hectare equals 2.47 acres.
U.N. reports indicate, however, that actual cultivation is
25,000 hectares. The Bolivian government has acknowledged
that only about half goes to traditional, legal uses.
Morales' government hasn't fully explained how much coca will
go to the factory for export, but coca growers estimate no
more than 2,000 hectares per year. That would be only 10-15
percent of the excess, illegal production.
Jim Shultz, a U.S. citizen who runs a research-oriented
non-profit in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba that is
sympathetic to Morales, believes the U.S. government should
support a change in the 1961 Convention to allow Bolivia to
export coca products.
"U.S. policy has been to try to get coca growers to produce
bananas and pineapples, while using repression through forced
eradication," Shultz said. "It has never worked" because coca
generates at least double the income of any alternative.
"If Bolivia could soak up some of the crop for export, that
would seem to be a good thing."
Morales made the same point to The Miami Herald in an
interview Feb.
18.
"We want to have other products for coca so it won't go to the
illegal market," he said.
Enter Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, Washington's
biggest headache in South America and a generous Morales ally.
He has donated $250,000 to Bolivia to build the two factories
and agreed to import the coca tea, even though Venezuelans
have no tradition of drinking the brew.
U.S. officials fear that coca leaves, once exported, would be
turned into cocaine and that the new export market would only
encourage more cultivation of illegal coca.
The International Narcotics Control Board seems virtually
powerless to stop Bolivia from exporting coca products. Kouame
said the board could only punish Bolivia by barring it from
importing internationally controlled drugs such as morphine
and codeine. The board has never sanctioned a country since
1961, he added.
The factory in Lauca Ene, due to be finished in three months,
is in the Chapare, a lush area in the heart of Bolivia where
virtually all the coca produced is refined into cocaine, U.S.
and U.N. anti-drug officials say. The other factory will be in
the Yungas region, to the west, where coca has traditionally
been grown for legal uses.
"We've been asking for this for a long time," said Felipe
Munoz, who heads the Lauca Ene coca growers federation, as he
visited the factory site. "Other governments didn't listen to
us. Evo has."
He leaned against a partially-built brick wall.
"The U.S. government pressures us to reduce coca production,"
he added. "Hugo Chavez helps us without conditions."
***
TC