BOLIVIA'S INDIANS WIN CONCESSIONS; COCA FARMERS DON'T

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The government agreed yesterday to a broad range of
demands by Indian peasant leaders, buckling under the pressure of three
weeks of road blockades that paralyzed the economy, caused food shortages
and threatened to force the resignation of President Hugo Banzer.

Despite all the concessions, the government has refused to accept demands
by coca growers in the Chapare region to stop short of the government goal
of eradicating all coca plants by Feb. 1, and allow peasant families to
grow small private plots.

The Chapare coca growers, who continue to block roads between the cities of
Cochabamba and Santa Cruz with stones and logs, agreed to resume separate
talks with the government.

With funding and technical help from the United States and United Nations,
the Bolivian government has reduced coca plantings in the Chapare region,
the principal cultivation area for Bolivian cocaine exports, to 4,050 acres
from 70,400 acres in 1998, according to the U.S. Embassy here.

In previous negotiations with the coca growers, the government agreed last
month to forgo plans to build three new army bases in the Chapare area.

But Banzer has pledged that he will not back down on his vow to destroy the
remaining coca crops in the Chapare region in the next three months, and
then destroy 6,000 acres of illicit coca cultivation in the Yungas region
in the early months of next year.

"We say illegal coca cultivation will be zero in 2002, and we intend to
keep to that goal," said Jose Luis Lupo, the economic development minister.

Congressman Evo Morales, the leader of the coca growers, said yesterday
that his movement would continue to march and block roads until the
government backs down.

But Morales appears to be in an increasingly isolated position now that the
larger peasant confederations have agreed to halt their protests. He is
widely expected to give up the road blockade in the next few days or face
military action.

Yesterday, government ministers agreed to prop up corn prices, reverse a
land titling process that would have raised taxes and revert water rights
back to peasants.

The peasant road blockade was so effective that the air force was
dispatched to deliver food to city dwellers. Lupo said the blockade had
cost the country of 8.1 million $120 million in damages the past three weeks.

An affiliated teachers strike left more than half the country's schools
closed for weeks.