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Morales says US help not needed to control coca crops

Bolivian President Evo Morales, wearing a wreath of coca leaves, fruit and flowers, walks through a field as soldiers eradicate coca plants in Asunta, Bolivia, on Saturday. PHOTO: AP

Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Saturday that Bolivia does not need US help to control its coca crop, stepping up his anti-Washington rhetoric days after rejecting a US request to fly an anti-drug plane over the South American nation’s territory.

Morales also compared US counter-drug efforts in the country, including Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) flights, to espionage.

“It’s important that the international community knows that here, we don’t need control of the United States on coca cultivation,” the president told a gathering of coca farmers. “We can control ourselves internally. We don’t need any spying from anybody.”

US embassy spokesman Eric Watnik said the DEA makes periodic requests to fly a plane transporting US and Bolivian anti-narcotics personnel around the country. The aircraft is not used for surveillance, he said.

Relations between Washington and La Paz have continued to deteriorate in recent weeks. Morales expelled the US ambassador last month, accusing him of supporting deadly protests organized by his conservative opposition. The former ambassador denies the allegations.

The US responded by ousting Bolivia’s ambassador and later placed the Andean country on an anti-narcotics blacklist, saying Morales has not sufficiently cooperated with international anti-drug efforts.

“We’ve certified Bolivia twice before under the Morales government, even though they have taken a very different approach to counter drugs, especially to eradication, than previous governments,” Thomas Shannon, the top US diplomat for Latin America, said on Thursday.

“But what we’ve noticed over the past couple of months,” he said, “was a declining political willingness to cooperate, and then a very precise attempt by the part of some of the government ministries to begin to lower the level of cooperation and try to break the linkages” between US and Bolivian anti-drug efforts.

Washington did not cut off anti-narcotics aid, but the decertification prompted US President George W. Bush to recommend suspending Bolivia’s special exemption from US tariffs under an Andean-wide act that Congress has just renewed for another year.

Bolivian business leaders say that losing the tariff exemptions would cost South America’s poorest country up to 20,000 jobs.

Bolivia is the world’s third largest producer of coca — the base ingredient in cocaine — after Colombia and Peru. The Andean trade preferences have also benefited the latter two countries and Ecuador.
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