VICTORY FOR BOLIVIAN COCA-GROWERS IMMINENT

Reports Say Government Will Allow Coca in the Chapare

While some attendees at the Out from the Shadows conference in Merida
last week expressed disappointment that Bolivian coca leader and
Congressman Evo Morales was not present, it now appears Morales stayed
away because he was in the midst of successful negotiations with the
reeling government of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to reverse
the government's "zero coca" policy in the Chapare region. According
to Knight-Ridder News Service, the Bolivian government will formally
announce within a week that it is backing away from the "zero coca"
option and will allow farmers in the Chapare to grow up to one-fifth
of an acre of coca.

The apparent deal came at mid-week last week, with the Sanchez de
Lozada government staggering from crisis to crisis as long-standing
peasant and worker mobilizations around coca-growing, fiscal policy
and privatization gave way to heavy fighting between the Bolivian army
and police and demonstrators. At least 29 persons were reported killed
in fighting in the capital, and government buildings were burned after
soldiers opened fire on police in front of the government palace.

The government crisis continues this week, as Sanchez de Lozada was
forced to accept the resignations of his entire cabinet in a bid to
retain control of the government. Caught between the repeatedly
expressed demands of his primary financial backer, the United States,
that the eradication campaign continue heedless of the political cost,
and the growing mobilization by peasants over the coca issue, Sanchez
de Lozada chose to heed the demands of his countrymen in a bid to
quiet at least one of the many rebellious sectors of Bolivian society
calling for his removal. Now, Sanchez de Lozada faces the prickly task
of appeasing the drug warriors from Washington.

The US, which publicly considers Bolivia's coca eradication campaign
one of its few "success stories" in Latin America, has long pressured
successive Bolivian governments to ignore popular resentment and move
forward with the "zero coca" option. It has provided nearly $1.3
billion in anti-drug and development assistance -- all tied to
eradication -- to Bolivia in the last decade. Newly arrived US
Ambassador to Bolivia David Greenlee has quickly moved to continue the
US's heavy-handed policies toward the Bolivian government, warning
repeatedly in the national media in recent days that failure to move
toward "zero coca" could result in a cut in US assistance. "A pause in
eradication is a pause in development," Greenlee warned, adroitly
applying the same sort of rhetoric of blackmail the US routinely
decries when used by other countries.

While Bolivian coca farmers say that the plant has many legitimate
uses in the national and international markets other than cocaine, the
US government staunchly holds the position that no expansion of coca
production is justified.

Under the agreement between Morales and government negotiators reached
last week in Cochabamba as violence flared nationwide, about 15,000
farmers in the Chapare will be allowed to grow a catu -- about
one-fifth of an acre -- during a six month period. Bolivian drug czar
Ernesto Justiniano told Knight-Ridder that the government would
undertake a study during that period to determine the extent of the
legal market for coca.

Allowing limited coca crops in the Chapare would only increase the
nation's current crop by about 10%. Bolivia currently allows about
30,000 acres of coca to be grown for the local legal market in the
Yungas region. That is down from about 180,000 acres cultivated prior
to the beginning of the "zero coca" campaign in 1998. While US
officials routinely call the Bolivian campaign a "success story," it
has succeeded primarily in expanding the area of coca production in
neighboring Peru and, most recently, in Colombia, where the crop had
not been traditionally grown. Colombia is now the world's largest coca
producer.

The Bolivian "success story" has also led to the massive mobilizations
that have shaken the US-backed government of Sanchez de Lozada to its
foundations and to the rise of political parties and leaders who are
strongly pro-coca. The leader of the cocaleros, Evo Morales, fell only
43,000 votes short of winning the presidency last fall, and Morales
and his political allies now control a third of the Bolivian congress.

The "zero coca" option in Bolivia is now dead, Morales told
Knight-Ridder, adding that he believed that by the time negotiations
were completed, the amount of new cultivation allowed will be two or
three times the one-fifth acre per farmer currently under
consideration.