As you said, Evo Morales has become THE successful President against trafficking, and this improved after he sent the D.E.A. packing, invoking the seething hatred of the US gummint forever, and they had hated him already for being a progressive, doing without their "guidance."
updated 9:55 p.m. EDT, Sat November 1, 2008
Morales: Government will take over for DEA in Bolivia
(CNN) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales said Saturday that he was suspending the work of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia and that the government will take control of its activities in the war on drugs.
The announcement comes more than a month after Morales kicked DEA agents out of the country's coca-producing Chapare region, saying the government could no longer protect them amid a growing revolt. At least 30 people died in the violence, and Morales accused Washington of fomenting the unrest.
Bolivia and the United States each expelled the other's ambassadors in September as well, and Morales launched a verbal assault against the U.S. government at the United Nations General Assembly.
For its part, the United States accused Bolivia of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs out of the country. Last month, President Bush said he had proposed cutting off special trade deals with Bolivia "until it fulfills its obligations."
As he left Bolivia after his expulsion, U.S. ambassador Philip Goldberg warned the Bolivian government that reducing ties with Washington was "a grave mistake."
More:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/01/bolivia.dea/
Ha, ha, ha.
09/15/2015 07:46 am ET Updated Sep 15, 2015
Operation Naked King: U.S. Secretly Targeted Bolivia’s Evo Morales In Drug Sting
A confidential informant says the DEA had its sights set on Bolivia’s populist leader.
By Ryan Grim and Nick Wing
The United States has secretly indicted top officials connected to the government of Bolivian President Evo Morales for their alleged involvement in a cocaine trafficking scheme. The indictments, secured in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting called “Operation Naked King,” have not been previously reported.
Morales, a former leader of Bolivia’s coca growers union, has long been at loggerheads with the DEA. In 2008, Morales expelled the agency from the country and embarked on his own strategy of combatting drug trafficking, acknowledging the traditional uses of coca in Bolivian culture and working cooperatively with coca growers to regulate some legal activity and to promote alternative development elsewhere. Morales’ plan has been effective at reducing cultivation, according to the United Nations.
But that doesn’t mean the DEA accepted its eviction quietly. In fact, the agency went after members of Morales’ administration in an apparent effort to undermine his leadership.
The sealed indictments, revealed last week in a lawsuit filed by long-time DEA informant Carlos Toro, target Walter Álvarez, a top Bolivian air force official; the late Raul García, father of Vice President Álvaro García Linera; Faustino Giménez, an Argentine citizen and Bolivian resident who is said to be close to the vice president; and Katy Alcoreza, described as an intelligence agent for Morales. Toro said in the court document that he played an integral role in securing the indictments as part of the DEA’s undercover investigation into the alleged Bolivian cocaine trafficking ring, which the agency ran out of its office in Asuncion, Paraguay.
. . .
Morales went on to tout Bolivia’s recent successes in reducing coca production, and cited Colombia — which has, according to the United Nations, seen a significant increase in coca cultivation over the past year, despite U.S. support — as an example of U.S.-backed failure.
“I could mention many countries in the world where there is this problem and how it has grown with U.S. presence,” the president said. “They’re using the fight against drug trafficking for clear political purposes.”
More:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/operation-naked-king-evo-morales_us_55f70da2e4b077ca094fdbe1
Evo has had the courage to be a person of his word, and to do so much in raising the quality of life vastly for the massive indigenous culture, and the sector treated like trash every day since Bolivia was invaded and stolen from its own peoople. Native Bolivians were forced to walk in the streets, and stay off the sidewalks by the European-descended "whites" until after a revolution in 1952. So damned sad.
The U.S. has consistantly supported coups and dictatorships in Bolivia, and total suppression of the vast majority, and also, upon discovering Evo would become the clear winner of the Presidential election, during George W. Bush's Presidency, arranged with Bolivian Air Force officers, behind the back of that current President, just prior to Morales' inauration, to remove all Bolivia's hand-held missiles, and transport them to a US air base in Texas!
From the Washington Post:
Bolivia's Defense Chiefs Ousted in Missile Scandal
Reuters
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Jan. 18 -- A scandal in Bolivia over surface-to-air missiles prompted the defense minister's resignation and the army chief's dismissal Tuesday, plunging the military into a political crisis days before socialist president-elect Evo Morales is to be sworn into office.
The outgoing interim president, Eduardo Rodriguez, said he had accepted the resignation of Defense Minister Gonzalo Mendez, and fired Gen. Marcelo Antezana over apparent irregularities in the destruction in the United States of a batch of Chinese-made missiles in October.
"I have relieved the commander of the army of his duties and accepted the defense minister's resignation," Rodriguez told reporters after a cabinet meeting Tuesday.
At the height of campaigning for last month's presidential elections, Morales denounced the destruction of the 28 to 30 Chinese HN-5 shoulder-fired missiles, the only arms of their kind in the military's arsenal.
Antezana, the army chief, told reporters that Washington initiated the drive to destroy the missiles because it feared Morales would win the presidency of the South American country.
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011800124.html
The Bush Administration started its war against Morales
BEFORE he was elected! Can't get dirtier than that, right?
Also, from Wikipedia:
Bolivia’s Morales announces treason trial for army general
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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
President-elect Evo Morales, who will assume office on Sunday January 22, announced on Wednesday that General Marcelo Antezana will face trial for treason after sending 28 aging Chinese-made missiles to the U.S. for destruction at the request from the U.S.
General Antezana, who was dismissed from his position this Wednesday 18, told Bolivian media that Washington had requested the missiles amid fears that Evo Morales would win the presidency. Days later, he retracted his comments. The Defence Minister, Gonzalo Mendez, resigned over the scandal.
Morales' political party, Movement for Socialism, has petitioned the Public Ministry to bring the transitional president Eduardo Rodriguez to trial on charges stemming from their investigation.
Rodriguez, interim president appointed after Carlos Mesa resigned in June, said that he had authorized the destruction, but not the transfer of the weapons, which were the only ones of its kind in Bolivia. The missile handover was an unapproved arrangement between local soldiers and the U.S. military, according to Rodriquez. He made a formal protest to the U.S. embassy on Tuesday, he said.
Rodriguez said his decision to get rid of the weapons was based on recommendations from United Nations and the Organization of American States. The army also reported they were a safety hazard. The obsolete surface-to-air missiles were destroyed in the U.S last October.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said that a campaign to eliminate portable arms in Latin America has been on-going in an effort to keep them from falling into the hands of terrorists.
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bolivia%E2%80%99s_Morales_announces_treason_trial_for_army_general
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