DRUG WAR FACES NEW STRUGGLE

The Head Of The Coca Growers' Union In Bolivia Gains Unexpected Clout
After Placing Second In Presidential Elections.

The United States' war on drugs is facing a major setback after
national elections in Bolivia.

The head of the powerful coca growers' union, Evo Morales, who led
sometimes-violent protests against U.S.-financed eradication of coca
crops, finished a surprising second in the presidential vote.

His political coalition, the Movement to Socialism, or MAS, which
enjoys strong support from the country's peasant majority, also
emerged as the second-largest political force in the new Congress.

"This reflects the end of U.S. counter-drug policy in Bolivia," said
Eduardo Gamarra, the Bolivian-born head of Latin American studies at
Florida International University in Miami. "The election results give
new legitimacy to the coca growers."

At election campaign rallies, Morales regularly chewed coca leaves --
the raw material from which cocaine is processed -- while his
supporters burned U.S. flags. The 42-year-old union leader vowed to
kick the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration out of Bolivia, if he
won.

U.S. officials have branded Morales, the son of Aymara Indian peasant
farmers, as antidemocratic and an apologist for terrorism.

For centuries, Bolivia's indigenous peoples have grown coca to stave
off altitude sickness and hunger. But drug barons also exploited the
crop to supply the cocaine market. Until major crop eradication in the
1990s, Bolivia was the world's second-largest producer of coca after
Peru.

In recent years, Bolivian coca production has dropped dramatically
under the so-called "Dignity Plan," designed to restore the country's
good name internationally.

Crops were all but wiped out, except for a small legal quota used in
local consumption, such as traditional non-narcotic coca-leaf tea.

But the failure of alternative crop substitution programs and the
resistance of nationalist indigenous leaders has recently led to a
resurgence in production.

Analysts say the latest election represents a historic breakthrough
for the country's indigenous peoples, who make up more than 70 percent
of the country's 8-million population.

Traditionally alienated from mainstream politics, indigenous groups
for the first time will have a powerful say in Congress.

"The indigenous peoples have realized they can elect their own," said
Gamarra, who compared it to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Bolivia is South America's poorest country. Some 60 percent of the
population lives in poverty, including about 90 percent in heavily
indigenous rural areas.

Until a 1952 revolution, Indians worked as virtual slaves in mines and
large plantations, owned by the country's elite establishment of
Spanish and European descent. The revolution gave Indians the vote, as
well as legal title to land, but they continued to be pawns of the
political parties.

While many indigenous people blame their status on the country's
elite, many also accuse the U.S. war on drugs of destroying their only
means of livelihood.

"I wouldn't have survived without coca, nor for that matter would have
Bolivia," Morales said recently. "When the United States says it will
eradicate coca, it wants an excuse to dominate us."

Even so, analysts say he has the United States partly to thank for his
political success. Morales had been trailing badly in pre-election
polls, with barely 10 percent of the vote.

But his popularity soared after the U.S. ambassador, Manuel Rocha,
appeared to question his legitimacy, saying his election might result
in the U.S. Congress cutting off vital financial aid.

The State Department's top official for Latin America, Otto Reich,
went further this week, saying U.S. aid would also be jeopardized if
Morales was included in any future government coalition.

"We do not believe we could have normal relations with someone who
espouses these kinds of policies," Reich told reporters Thursday on a
visit to Argentina.

But critics of U.S. policy say attacks on Morales only strengthen his
nationalist cause.

"It's stupid to take this guy on directly," said Dennis Jett, the
former U.S. ambassador to Peru who is now the dean of International
Studies at the University of Florida. "The biggest way Morales has of
attracting votes is for him to be able to say, 'The Yankees don't like
me.' "

Final vote tallies gave Morales 20.94 percent of the vote, less than 2
percent behind the leader, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a progressive,
U.S.-educated millionaire mine owner and former president.

Because no candidate won an outright majority, Bolivia's system
requires that Congress declare a winner on Aug. 3, opening the way for
parties to stitch together alliances. If, as expected, none are able
to come up with a majority, Congress will be obliged to ratify Sanchez
de Lozada as president.

Even so, with indigenous and leftist parties now controlling more than
30 percent of the 157 seats in Congress, it will be almost politically
impossible for the new president to continue U.S. counter-drug policy,
analysts say. Sanchez de Lozada's Nationalist Revolutionary Movement
has only 47 seats.

U.S. officials say it is premature to write off the antidrug
agenda.

Morales heads a volatile coalition that includes leftists, indigenous
and coca growers' groups. Indigenous politics is also fraught with
territorial rivalries that could pull MAS apart. Not all indigenous
groups share Morales' fiery rhetoric.

Sanchez de Lozada is a skilled politician who has worked closely with
indigenous groups in the past. He won the 1993 election with an
indigenous leader as his vice presidential running mate.

Even so, he will have his work cut out. Morales and his supporters
have demanded the scrapping of the main antidrug law. They also have
called for the nationalization of all public utilities, including oil
and natural gas.

Large deposits of natural gas were recently discovered and are waiting
to be exploited by a group of international companies for the
California market. The gas could be worth as much as $1-billion in
export revenue for the government, a sizeable chunk of money for a
country with a paltry $8-billion economy.

But analysts say Sanchez de Lozada may be forced to make compromises
with Morales if the gas deal is to go through. One victim could be the
war on drugs.