Bolivia accepts financial aid offer from US to monitor coca eradication

[Judi Lynn]

Bolivia accepts financial aid offer from US to monitor coca eradication
President Evo Morales rules out return of US agents, but says he will accept $250,000 from Washington for satellite monitoring
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 20 April 2011 19.23 BST

Bolivia has relaxed its hostility to US involvement in Latin America by accepting help to combat the country's growing drug trafficking problem.

President Evo Morales, an outspoken critic of Washington "imperialism", has accepted financial aid to monitor efforts to eradicate coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine. The government accepted the $250,000 offer following setbacks to its counter-narcotics programme which prompted calls for a return of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Morales, an Aymara Indian and former coca grower, expelled around 30 DEA agents in 2008, claiming they were plotting against his socialist revolution. The president allowed coca cultivation to expand, arguing the Andean leaf had multiple legitimate uses. As a coca farmer in the 1980s he had been beaten by Bolivian police who tried to enforce the DEA's campaign against the crop.However, he pledged "zero tolerance" for cocaine, a chemical derivative of coca, and said Bolivia could crack down on traffickers without US help.

The effort to rehabilitate coca, considered sacred by the Incas, gained widespread international support but Bolivia's law-enforcement institutions have struggled against well-funded drug gangs. Authorities said they seized 28 tonnes of cocaine last year, more than neighbouring Peru, but the US and UN said drug trafficking was spiking.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/20/bolivia-financial-aid-us-coca

[naaman fletcher]

1. Wow, this is worrying

The last thing any country every really needs is US "help".

[Peace Patriot]

2. Rory Carroll is a corporate/war profiteer propagandist and a dirty stain on the Guardian's

reputation for reliable journalism.

I wouldn't trust ANYTHING he says--not even checkable facts. As for spin--and this article is dizzy with it--my rule of thumb for Bushwhacks applies. Whatever he is asserting, the opposite is true--a good opening premise for figuring out what is really true.

The spin starts right off the bat, in the very first words of the article.

"Bolivia has relaxed its hostility to US involvement in Latin America...". ??

By accepting $250,000 from the U.S. and no DEA agents? Give me a break. The money is a drop in the bucket, as U.S. war profiteering goes. (They've given $7 BILLION to Colombia!). And Evo Morales is NOT "hostile" to "US involvement in Latin America." He is hostile to US interference, meddling, bullying, plotting coups, funding/organizing coups right out of the U.S. embassy, using the DEA to collude with white separatist rioters and murderers, using the Peace Corps for spying, trying to infiltrate police and military forces, and serving the interests of the rich, the powerful and the violent in Latin America. "Involvement" is one thing. Pushing militarism and fascism, trying to topple elected governments and destroy democracy, are something else.

Spin, spin, spin. Look for it in every phrase that Rory Carroll writes.

Consider this sentence: "The government accepted the $250,000 offer following setbacks to its counter-narcotics programme which prompted calls for a return of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)."

"...which prompted calls for a return of the US DEA" BY WHOM? He doesn't say. His contacts in the violent white separatist cabal? His pals in the DEA? Hillary Clinton? Leon Panetta? His sources in the Pentagon? A private satellite contractor lobbyist in DC? The passive tense is used here--the omission of any actor in the sentence who issued the "calls" for "a return of the DEA" --in order to deceive. His source made a "call" for the "return of the DEA" over drinks in a bar, and that becomes "calls" (plural) and that is made to sound, somehow, official and authoritative.

Notice that Morales specifically excluded a return of the DEA--one of several odd contradictions in the article. It is placed four paragraphs down from the "calls" for the "return of the DEA."

"...following setbacks to its counter-narcotics programme..." ?? Setbacks? Bolivia seized more cocaine than Peru (which has a much worse problem) and Bolivian authorities have caught and are prosecuting some of their own corrupt officials. Carroll describes the latter as an "embarrassment" to the government, rather than a triumph. (Corrupt officials on drug trafficking is an endemic problem in Latin America. Catching and prosecuting them are NOT an "embarrassment"!) And despite better cocaine seizures than Peru, he describes Bolivia as "struggling' in its anti-gang efforts. Well, who isn't? Bolivia is struggling, like everybody else, and SUCCEEDING better than many.

One more example of the spin:

"Brazil has grown alarmed that more cocaine from Peru and Bolivia is crossing its border and being consumed there, fuelling violence and corruption."

"Brazil has grown alarmed...". No quotation, no citation, no substance at all. Brazil is a VERY BIG country. It has NUMEROUS officials. It has war profiteers, just like we do. And it has rightwingers and far rightwingers in its congress and in its police and military, despite having a leftist president. So WHO said "Brazil" is "alarmed"?

This is like those "calls" for the "return of the DEA." It is bullshit journalism. It is spinning like a top. WHO said these things is vital to figuring out if they are true, half true or utter bullshit.

Carroll also slyly tries to portray Bolivia's legalization of the coco leaf as somehow causing a problem with cocaine trafficking and drug gangs. It's sneaky but it's there. And you can see war profiteers peeking and leering from yet another "black hole" in this article where information should be. The article provides no basis for this implication.

What IS Rory Carroll's agenda, or rather, what is the agenda of the corporate/war profiteer rulers behind this latest Rory Carroll piece of shit journalism?

A wild guess: Somebody wants this little triumph of U.S. diplomacy--getting Morales to accept even this "drop in the bucket" anti-drug money--NOTICED. Probably Hillary Clinton, who wants it noticed by the DEA, the Pentagon and/or associated war profiteers. There is nothing more important to them in Latin America than getting their boots back on the ground in countries like Bolivia. The U.S. "war on drugs" is their backup gravy train. The Bushwhacks did great damage to this gravy train. Ecuador kicked them out. Bolivia kicked them out. Even the former presidents of Mexico have called for legalization of marijuana and re-thinking the entire, corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs." It is in disrepute. And maybe Hillary is trying to convince the DEA, the Pentagon and associated war profiteers that diplomacy is better, in the long run, for getting leftists out of office--than crude Bushwhack methods of murder and mayhem. You get a little satellite thing going, then you move onto more inroads, and, before you know it, you're back in the country spying and meddling, and funding and "training" rightwing groups to appear to be democratic.

So, maybe some little State Department birdie in a bar in London or inside the "Beltway" clued Rory in, while providing the "calls" for the "return of the DEA" to Bolivia.

One final spin: This $250,000 is portrayed as a "gift" to Bolivia. But it isn't really. It is an inroad, a ploy, a foot in the door. And I wonder what the smart Mr. Morales got for permitting it. He really doesn't need this pittance. And Bolivia doesn't really have any more serious cocaine or drug gang problem than many other countries in Latin America. By FAR, the worst cocaine/gang problem is in Colombia, where $7 BILLION in U.S. military funding has done nothing to slow the cocaine traffic, and has instead created a culture of official murder and mayhem that is almost beyond belief. Morales is no fool. He "accepted" this pittance for a REASON. He got something for it. I wonder what it was.

That is yet another spin of this article--and it is probably racist. Bolivians are portrayed as inept, corrupt and begging. But what Bolivians and their president have truly shown, over the last couple of years, is courage, savvy and self-sufficiency, as well as forming extremely beneficial alliances with Brazil, Venezuela and other countries. Their opposition to U.S. meddling, domination and militarism is part of a regional, leftist democracy movement. It's the best thing that has ever happened in Latin America. But you wouldn't know any of this from reading Rory Carroll.