cannabisnews.com: Election May Doom Bolivia Drug War Election May Doom Bolivia Drug War Posted by CN Staff on June 30, 2002 at 11:14:25 PT By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder Newspapers Source: Indianapolis Star Bolivia's remarkable victories in the drug war might be at risk in presidential elections today. Bolivia, which once led the world in cultivating the plant from which cocaine is made, has eradicated 85 to 95 percent of its coca production in the past four years. But political turmoil threatens to undermine the controversial anti-coca efforts. Opinion polls suggest that no candidate is likely to win a majority of the vote. If that's the case, Congress will have to pick a president, and a weak coalition government probably would result. That would be a severe blow to Washington's war on drugs. Political turmoil in Peru has allowed the cocaine trade there to rebound, and despite millions in U.S. military aid, coca king Colombia has failed to defeat the Marxist rebels, who control drug zones there.Bolivia has uprooted almost 90,000 acres of coca in the southern Chapare (Chah-pah-REH) region, and since 1998 has taken 230 to 300 tons of cocaine out of the world drug trade.But the hearty coca bush, which is harvested four times a year, could bounce back faster than crabgrass if Bolivia's new government lacks the will and the muscle to continue the unpopular campaign against it.The current government tried last November to discourage coca farmers from replanting by decreeing that possessing or transporting coca is a crime. But violent protests nullified the decree, and U.S. eradication experts in Chapare said 95 percent of the bushes that now were being eradicated were newly planted.Bolivia's next government might not be willing or able to continue the battle. Eradicating the coca trade in Chapare cost farmers in South America's poorest country $400 million in illicit earnings, and the leading presidential candidates are trying to avoid alienating the country's Indian and mixed-race majority.In an interview, Manfred Reyes Villa, the presidential front-runner, drew a careful distinction between growing coca, which Indians use for medicinal purposes, and producing cocaine."In my government we will have a frontal attack on cocaine, not coca. Coca is a traditional, cultural theme, but we will fight against drug trafficking," Reyes Villa said.Note: Political turmoil could end country's unpopular fight to end coca farming in the southern region.Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)Author: Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder NewspapersPublished: June 30, 2002Copyright: 2002 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.Contact: stareditor starnews.comWebsite: http://www.starnews.com/Related Articles:U.S. Role in Coca War Draws Fire http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13198.shtmlIn Bolivia's Drug War, Success Has Price http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8874.shtmlBolivia Wiping Out Coca, at a Price http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7421.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #3 posted by Zero_G on July 01, 2002 at 10:53:58 PT Where is the outrage? Oh, and in course, the entire rest of the world... [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Zero_G on July 01, 2002 at 10:45:48 PT The Good Ole' U.S. of A. Is up to it's old tricks. Here in the pre-fouth of july bar-b-que, yawn days of summer, that bastion and protector of democracy in the free (with a price) world, is turning that idea on it's head.Let's just review the record. The coup in Venezuela, supported (some would say fomented in) Washington and the US press, leaning on the electorates in Bolivia and Palestine, pulled out of the ABM and Kyoto treaties, decimated the EPA, (check out today's story about superfund sites) trampled on states rights of all things, and is now holding the U.N. hostage over the international criminal court. Oh, and did I leave out Enron, Halliburton, Xerox, Arthur Anderson, World.com....This from an administration that used dirty tricks and a stacked court to steal an election, from an almost as worthless opposition.Where is the outrage? Except here of course - I'm venting.Required reading:When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. read the rest here: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/declare.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by john wayne on June 30, 2002 at 13:30:40 PT BOLIVIA: INTERFERENCE IN ELECTIONS BY USA http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/28/31329.html [ Post Comment ] Post Comment