Bolivia Restores Ties with US, But Rejects DEA
The US and Bolivian governments announced Monday that they were restoring diplomatic relations after three years, but Bolivian President Evo Morales Tuesday made it clear that DEA agents would not be welcome back in his country.
[image:1 align:left caption:true]Relations between the two countries went into the deep freeze after Bolivia threw out US Ambassador Phillip Goldberg and the DEA in September 2008, charging they were interfering in domestic Bolivian political affairs. Now, in an accord signed Monday, the two countries agreed to exchange ambassadors and to undertake close cooperation in anti-drug efforts, trade and development.
That anti-drug cooperation will not include DEA agents in Bolivia, Morales told reporters at a regional conference in Bogota. It was a matter of national "dignity and sovereignty," he said, adding that he was "personally a victim" because Bolivian anti-drug police worked closely with the DEA. Those same police had clashed with coca growers and once beat him unconscious, he has said. Morales was a coca grower union leader before he was elected president.
"They repressed us in Bolivia. That has ended," Morales said. "For the first time since Bolivia was founded, the United States will now respect Bolivia's rules" and laws under the new diplomatic agreement, he added.
Coca has been grown for centuries, if not millennia, in Bolivia. The country is currently the world's third largest coca producer, behind Peru and Colombia. While much of the crop is destined for traditional or industrial uses, some is diverted to the illicit cocaine market.
US officials have said they believe cocaine trafficking is on the increase since Bolivia expelled the DEA, but that is not reflected in an expansion of the coca fields. According to the United Nations, the amount of land under coca cultivation increased only 0.3% last year.
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DEA Agents Beat Morales Unconscious!
US DEA agents once beat Morales unconscious!?!?!? No wonder he doesn’t like the US or the DEA!
Latin America needs to build a common, solid and focused front
Even though Colombia, and more recently, Mexico and several Central American countries have borne the worst of the worst of the policies Prohibitionists have concocted in their attempt to control the supply of drugs, these countries have little chance of putting an end to this irrational, barbaric and inhumane “war” on their own. That doesn’t mean Colombia, Mexico and drug producing countries in general cannot become, as they say in Spanish, “una piedra en el zapato” (a thorn in the side) and do whatever is necessary to put pressure on those that hold the real power to end it: the major drug consuming countries, in particular the US.
That is why recent stances taken by current presidents, Morales of Bolivia and Calderón of Mexico; those expressed by former presidents in their own capacity, like Vicente Fox, or jointly via organisations such as the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy and the Global Commission on Drugs Policy are of paramount importance. They represent a first step in the right direction: to build a common, solid and focused front demanding the end to Prohibition and the War on Drugs.
I have written at large about this issue on my blog. Below is what I say about it in my latest post. I would add that where its says the UK, as far as the supply of drugs is concerned, one should also add to the list those countries that have “legalised”, de jure or de facto, the demand for drugs, either by adopting harm reduction policies or by depenalising or decriminalising the consumption of drugs, i.e. countries such as Holland, Portugal, Spain, etc.
This is what I say in my post Wilful Blindnes: The New Reality?
«I have said it before and I say it again: there is very little drug producing countries, such as Mexico, Colombia and the like, can do to alter the dastardly realities imposed on them by Prohibition and the so-called War on Drugs policies. In fact, I find it rather naive to expect that producers could dent in any meaningful way Prohibition and War on Drugs policies when the US, the juggernaut pushing for its implementation and enforcement all over the world, is reluctant to do anything about it.
Let’s take the case of Mexico. No matter how many times its citizens take to the streets to protest demanding an end to the War on Drugs — as the experience of Colombia during the high of the fight against the drug cartels in the 80′s and 90′s so clearly exposed it — the stubborn fact is that nothing will happen until the real power behind the war on drugs decides otherwise. And the real power, literally and metaphorically, is in the hands of drug consuming countries, most conspicuously the US.
But make no mistake, it is not just the US that is at fault here, for we, the UK, have played a major role in the current situation, given that we are one of the major consumers in the world too and have done nothing to put an end to this criminal, obscene war...»
Gart Valenc
http://www.stopthewarondrugs.org
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