BOLIVIA'S EX-'COCAINE KING' DEAD AT 68

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Roberto Suarez, Bolivia's repentant ex-''Cocaine
King'' who once promised to pay the Andean country's entire foreign debt in
return for legal immunity, has died of cardiac arrest, his family said on
Friday.

Suarez, 68, enjoyed extreme popularity for his philanthropy within
impoverished Bolivia before his death on Thursday.

His brother said the former millionaire cattle rancher always rued becoming
a player in the landlocked country's lucrative cocaine trade.

``He will always be remembered with great affection by the people, because
he helped people out. His only big error, which he always said he regretted,
was getting involved in the drug trade,'' Huascar Suarez, his brother, told
local radio.

``He became involved in illicit business and then he tried to make himself
feel better by doing lots of favors for people, giving gifts and paying for
their medical bills,'' he said.

While Suarez made the offer in 1983 to pay Bolivia's $3 billion foreign debt
in exchange for immunity from prosecution, he later admitted he did not have
the cash to back it up.

Bolivia, Colombia and Peru are the world's three largest producers of coca
leaf -- the raw material used to make cocaine.

Suarez's son died in the late 1980s in a shootout with the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, while his cousin Jorge Roca Suarez began serving
a 30-year, drug-related jail term in the United States in 1990.

Dubbed Bolivia's ``Cocaine King,'' Suarez spent several years as a fugitive
after being convicted in absentia for drug charges in 1985. He was captured
in 1988 and served eight years of a 15-year jail term before being granted
parole.

He was part of a generation of large-scale drug bosses in Bolivia that
analysts say has declined over the past decade under pressure from the U.S.
and Bolivian governments.

President Hugo Banzer, a democratically elected former dictator, hopes to
eliminate coca leaf in Bolivia by 2002.