U.S. FOE IN BOLIVIA'S ELECTION RUNOFF

MIAMI - Coca growers' leader Evo Morales made a stunning leap to second
place yesterday in the final count of Bolivia's June 30 presidential
elections, ensuring that he will have the political clout to threaten
U.S.-financed anti-drug programs in one of the world's biggest
coca-producing countries.

Morales, a hard-line socialist who has vowed to fight capitalism and close
down U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration offices in Bolivia if elected,
won about 21 percent of the vote, and ended up less than 2 percent behind
former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada. Under Bolivian law, Congress
will have to choose between the top two vote- getters by Aug. 4.

While most political analysts agree that Sanchez de Losada, a wealthy
businessman, will become president, they also agree that Morales' rise from
the fringes of Bolivia's political system to the leadership of the
second-largest bloc in Parliament will alter Bolivia's politics. His
position will also deal a serious setback to the U.S. war on drugs,
analysts say.

"The U.S. anti-drug policy in Bolivia is doomed," said Eduardo Gamarra, the
Bolivian-born director of Florida International University's Latin American
and Caribbean Center. "I don't see how Sanchez de Losada could possibly
continue with the policy of forced eradication of coca plants without
Morales bringing the country to a halt."

Morales, the 42-year-old leader of the Movement to Socialism, has led
often-violent protests by Bolivia's coca growers against U.S.-backed
eradication programs. A descendant of Quechua and Aymara Indians, he was
supported by large numbers of Bolivia's indigenous people, who, despite
making up about 70 percent of Bolivia's population, had little
representation in the country's political class.

During the presidential campaign, he said he would close down the DEA
office in Bolivia, alleged that the U.S. Embassy was trying to kill him and
asserted that capitalism is humanity's worst enemy.

"In Latin America, we must build many Cubas to liberate ourselves from
North American imperialism," Morales was quoted by the Colombian daily El
Tiempo last weekend. "In Cuba there is democracy, the people have voted.
Likewise, these kind of movements will take root here."

After the election, Morales joked that he owed part of his good showing in
the polls to U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha, who three days before the vote
said that U.S. aid to Bolivia could be threatened if the country elected
"those who want Bolivia to once again become a major cocaine exporter." The
comment was criticized by Bolivian politicians as interference in the
country's electoral process.

Anger over the economic impact of coca eradication on indigenous farmers
has spread across the Andean region.

In Peru, the government has partially suspended a U.S.-financed coca-
eradication program that had been hailed as one of the biggest success
stories in the U.S. war on drugs.

A Miami Herald report last week revealed that the Peruvian government
quietly halted U.S.-financed coca eradication and alternative-crop
development programs in the Alto Huallaga and Apurimac valleys after angry
coca farmers threatened to lay siege to major cities.