U.S. RETHINKS STANCE ON COCA

WASHINGTON -- In a major concession to new Bolivian President Evo
Morales, the Bush administration has agreed to reconsider its
counter-drug programs there. The United States is even hinting that
it might allow more coca farming. Concerned that more coca could mean
more cocaine, Washington has so far balked at easing Bolivia's
30,000-acre limit on legal production of coca, the raw ingredient for
cocaine. The cap is bitterly opposed by many poor Bolivian farmers
who helped elect Morales to the presidency. Thomas Shannon, assistant
secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said a European Union
study of the potential legal coca market would help determine whether
there was room for more coca plantations. "We think that based on
current legal limits, based on what the European Union study is going
to come up with, it will be possible for us to have a conversation, a
dialogue with Bolivia about what a legal harvest could be," he told
The Miami Herald.

The dialogue is the latest step in the Bush administration's
courtship of Morales, who repeatedly blasted Washington as an
imperialist power when he campaigned for office and flaunted his
friendships with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez.

Shannon met with Morales on Jan. 21, before he was sworn in.
Testifying before a House panel Thursday, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said, "We've tried to leave an opening there to work
with Bolivia," although she cautioned that statements about coca
production were "problematic."