COCA LEAF FOR OUTGOING ENVOY

LA PAZ: A Bolivian Indian presidential candidate under fire from Washington
for battling a crackdown on drug trafficking said on Thursday he would give
the outgoing US ambassador a present - a coca leaf, the raw material used
to make cocaine.

"I congratulate the US people on their holiday," Evo Morales told La Razon
newspaper in an interview published on the US Independence Day.

"I will send him a little coca leaf as a gift," Morales said, referring to
US Ambassador Manuel Rocha.

Morales, who has led bloody protests against unpopular efforts to halt
cultivation of the leaf also chewed by many people in this country to stave
off altitude sickness and hunger, is running third in still incomplete
official tallies from Sunday's election. - Reuters