CASUALTY OF THE DRUGS WAR

How did a top English anthropologist and novelist end up in a Bolivian prison?

"Woman. You have dressed in men's clothes and led auch looseness and
immorality that it is an afront to God and man," charged the priest before
sentencing Aleizon Ailix Ayndra, the heroine of Alison Spedding's 'Road And
The Hills' trilogy, to jail "until the day you die". Rarely has an author so
colourfully prophesied her own downfall as Spedding, a leading 36-year-old
British novelist and anthropologist who faces up to 25 years in a Bolivian
prison accused of drug trafficking.

"She's an androgynous character for whom the imprisonment is more tortous
than most," says Denise Arnold, a friend of Spedding's in La Paz, Bolivia's
capital. As creator of the semi-autobiographical Amazonian warrior who
dresses as a man, raises an army and falls in love with Lord Ailixond,
conqueror of half the world, it is a form of hell only she could have dreamt
of. "Most of the women are in for drugs. If they're found with one gram of
hash on them or trafficking 500kg they get the same deal," says Arnold. "But
the real proplem is the prison's 'cure of feminisation' The women are all
made to scrub floors, cook food for the officers and play netball which, of
course, Alison hates. She's not even been allowed a computer, because it's
not considered feminine."

For two weeks Spedding was held in a tiny windowless room, living on one
bowl of soup a day at the antinarcotics headquarters. Having had an ectopic
pregnancy shortly beforehand, her immune system was not as strong as it
might have been and she quickly fell ill with numerous diseases, including
typhoid and samonella. Repeated requests from the British police effected
her eventual removal to the women's prison but under Bolivian law a person
may be detained indefinitely before being officially charged and Spedding's
trial date has been postponed twice. It is unlikely that another will be set
before October.

Now in La Paz women's prison, she shares a cramped cell with six prisoners
and their babies, A telephone is available but it rarely works, washing
facilities are a public cold water tap, food is meagre and inmates must rely
on friends and relations for extra rations. "Students bring her the food she
likes but she really misses cheese, which is expensive," says her mother,
Maureen Raybauld, from Windlesham, Surrey, who is visiting Bolivia this week.

Although doors are unlocked and there is relative freedom within the prison,
the atmosphere is institutional, like a Victorian boarding school without
holidays, according to Arnold. "They tell stories for privileges and aren't
allowed any sexual rights either. In the men's prison, they have football
matches, prostitutes on call and wives may visit once or twice a month to
grant their marital rights."

Spedding, as the academic prefers to be known, is doing her best to continue
working. On a battered second-hand typewriter she writes as often as
possihle - her request for a torch, so she could work after lights-out, was
refused but she is permitted to sit in the kitchen, as long as she provides
a lightbulb. Late at nlight is the only real opportunity for peace amid the
maelstrom of prison life. Students visit daily for tutorials, as do friends
and the British vice-consul, Debbie Aliaga, but there is still no sign of
the 36 notebooks, back-up computer diskettes and two computers which police
confiscated in a raid on her flat in a poor Aymara Indian district of La Paz
on 30 March.

Spedding was due to fly home to Britain the next day to discuss the
publication of her book 'Money Like Water' and had withdrawn UKP1,500 travel
money from the bank. After a tip-off from a police informer, officers
searched her flat and unearthed two kilos of cannabis, which they claimed
she was going to sell to students, and charged her with drug-trafficking.
Two Aymara Indians, Flora and her daughter Miriam, whom Spedding has been
supporting through university, were also arrested. Despite showing five
years' pay-slips from San Andres University, where she was a lecturer, plus
tax receipts, the police claimed the money in her flat and the computers
were bought with illegal earnings.

Spedding has always vehemently denied the allegations and while admitting to
using marijuana herself, says she would never have sold it to her students,
as it would amount to professional misconduct. "For a start, she had tenure
in two posts," says her mother "She was hoping for another, so she would
never have jeopardised that. Not many lecturers can boast that kind of
security Britain, and Bolivia is her life."

Leonardo Arteaga, her third lawyer so far, has said he hopes for a five-year
sentence when her case eventually comes to trial, with possible parole after
two and a half years, instead of the maximum 25.

But her case is an especially hot diplomatic potato for hoth Britain and
Bolivia. Initially, the Foreign Office suggested that after official
negotiation a transfer to a British jail might be possible It would have
been an ideal solution for both sides: senior academics and writers all over
the world are campaigning for the release of the writer and Bolivia would
rather be rid of the eccentric academic who dresses in Aymara Indian costume
and stirs up support for local farmers cultivating coca.

But for Spedding, the prospect of serving her time in Holloway, London,
instead of her adopted home, is not an option.

By all accounts. Spedding is a remarkable woman, admired unanimously for her
dedication to Aymara Indians and their culture. "She is among the top Andean
scholars in the world - innovative and eccentric," says Professor Joanna
Overing of St Andrews University, describing her address to academics in
Kyoto, Japan, in traditional 'pollera' skirt, black bowler hat and blonde
pigtails. "But she's eccentric, and the Bolivians don't understand that her
work is to live with peasants to understand their way of life."

Born in Belper, Derhyshire, the eldest of three girls, Spedding first
studied social anthropology at King's College, Cambridge, before travelling
around Latin Arnerica and China and returning for a doctorate at the London
School of Economics, She is remembered fondly for bucking the system, a
libertarian unwilling even then to kow-tow to social mores. "I believe that
all should be free to live, drink, eat, dress and sleep as it pleases them,
so long as they do not seek to impose their ways on others," declares her
heroine, Ayndra, in the 'Road And The Hills' trilogy, which was writen and
published when she was a student. "It was quite clear That the subversive
and engaging central character was based on herself as as we met," says Jane
Johnson, a HarpeyCollins editor who has been leading the campaign for
Spedding's release.

An inveterate traveller, Spedding settled in Bolivia in 1989. Four years
later, she wrote 'Wachu Wachu', a study of the cultivation of coca and its
role in the Andean identity. Her arrest has prompted numerous conspiracy
theories about the authorities wanting to expose her as a Marxist or put a
stop to the sociology lessons she had been giving to guerilla inmates at the
maximum-security Chonchocoro prison.

But most believe there are two factors behind the Bolivian government's move
to spirit her away: Law 1008 and pressure from the international commnnity
to crack down on coca production. Since the end of the Cold War, the United
States has embarked on a war against narcotics cultivation and trafficking,
under the leadership of the so-called drugs tsar Robert Gelbard. He was in
Bolivia when the US sent troops to wipe out the cocaine industry, he pushed
to cut off aid to Colombia because of its failure to deal with the drugs
barons and was behind ending trade with Burma over its opium business.

Backed overtly by the West, Bolivia's last government introduced Law 1008,
for which the possession of all drugs carries a sentence of 25 years. In
addition, the government argues that unless it destroys all coca crops,
Bolivia will face international condemnation and sanctions, which it can ill
afford. Coca farmers, supported by Spedding and others, believe the
destruction of coca will force them off their land and into ruin.

In the early years of this century, before the growth of Protestant
missionary and temperance societies in the US, drugs were legal. With a
profit margin of 20,000 per cent, many believe the battle against them will
always be impossible. Despite high-profile raids, shoot-outs and seizures on
the high-seas, notables such as the Nobel Prizewinner Milton Friedman and
the former secretary of state, George Schultz, now agree the drug war has
been lost.

No such admission helps Spedding. The US will continue its drugs blitz and
in the meantime Bolivia must seem obedient to the crusade. However the
campaign for her release will continue, as academics fear otherwise the
great loss of an intellectual who has dared to live and breathe her work.
"That eccentricity must be protected," says Joanna Overing. In the 'Road And
The Hills' trilogy, Aleizon Ailix Ayndra escapes prison by mugging a prison
worker and stealing her clothes - fans will be watching to see if life
imitates art again.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett