BOLIVIA COCA PROTESTS END AS GOVERNMENT AGREES TO TALKS

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Thousands of Bolivian troops returned to their barracks,
and protesters lifted road blocks Tuesday after the government and farmers
agreed to talks over a U.S-backed crackdown on coca crops.

Nine civilians and two members of security forces were killed in 13 days of
protests in the Chapare jungle region when coca farmers and troops fought
pitched battles to control the South American country's most important highway.

"Blockades are suspended, but farmers should be vigilant," said Evo
Morales, an Indian farmer who leads coca protests and who came in a close
second as a leftist presidential candidate in last year's elections. Talks
started Sunday, but Morales only began to lift the blockades Tuesday.

President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, a key U.S. ally in the war against
drug trafficking, wants to eradicate illegal coca. Coca is the raw material
used to process cocaine, and Bolivia is Latin America's second largest
producer after Colombia.

Poor Indian farmers can cultivate up to 30,000 acres of coca for
traditional uses to ward off hunger and altitude sickness. But Morales says
that is not enough.

The talks with the government will encompass other grievances of farmers
such as free trade policies with the United States and plans to allow
foreign firms to develop a massive natural gas field in the landlocked country.

Since the late 1990s, some 50 people, the majority farmers, have been
killed in protests amid anticoca campaigns by U.S.-trained soldiers.

Indian movements in Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in the Western
hemisphere and where a majority of the 8 million population are Indians,
have grown in popularity recently.