BOLIVIAN COP KILLED AS COCA FIELDS NEARLY WIPED OUT

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) -- Bolivia blamed "drug terrorists" for the
shooting death of a policeman on Thursday in the coca growing Chapare
region, where eradication efforts are nearly complete.

Police officer Abad Espinoza Quinteros was "shot in the face and head" at
6:30 a.m. (1030 GMT) in the Ismael Montes region about 370 miles (600
kilometers) east of La Paz when his patrol was on its way to root out coca
plants in the troubled lowland area.

"We're on the right path for the defense of all Bolivians, we're fighting
the drug traffickers and this violence will not turn us back," Government
Minister Guillermo Fortun said.

The Andean country of eight million people is fresh from weeks-long protests
by coca producers against a government eradication campaign that resulted in
10 deaths and 165 injuries in late September and early October.

The Chapare should be "coca insignificant" in December now that 1,323 acres
(529 hectares) of coca remained in the region as of Wednesday with 75 to
87.5 acres (30 to 35 hectares) being uprooted every day, Fortun said.

That's down from a 92,500 acres (37,500 hectares) three years ago. Bolivia
has been the world's third-largest producer of coca after Colombia and Peru.
Until recently it was the second-largest producer of the raw material for
cocaine.

The Bolivian government has so far maintained a strict no-negotiation policy
with respect to giving ground to the coca growers of the Chapare but does
allow some legal cultivation of the crop in the Yungas region used by Aymara
and Quechua Indians for traditional medicine.