Why Bolivia Quit the U.S.

Why Bolivia Quit the U.S. War on Drugs
By Jean Friedman-Rudovsky for Time

Some may see Bolivia's decision last weekend to opt out of Washington's war on drugs as the inevitable consequence of electing a president who was not only a leftist opponent of U.S. influence in the region, but also a coca farmer himself. But President Evo Morales, elected in 2005, cast his decision on Saturday to suspend the activities of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in his country as a matter of national security. "We have the obligation to defend the dignity and the sovereignty of the Bolivian people," said Morales. "There have been DEA agents who, carrying out espionage, financed rogue groups with the intention of taking the lives of [Bolivian government] officials, though not the President's."

Morales' government has accused a DEA agent of delivering money to opposition groups in the Amazon region during the wave of antigovernment violence that peaked on September 11, claiming the lives of more than 25 indigenous peasants and wounding hundreds more. Over the past year, Bolivia's eastern lowlands have been racked with conflict as opposition groups have sought to wrest control from the central government over vast natural gas reserves and laws governing the ownership of land. The Bolivian government has continually blamed the U.S. for fomenting the violence, but Washington routinely denies any malicious meddling...

...Morales' government, in fact, was acknowledged by the U.S. earlier this year to have successfully brought coca cultivation under control, and increased Bolivia's rate of interdiction of coca destined for cocaine production. But Washington has been skeptical of Morales' talk of expanding the production of coca for non-narcotic uses such as teas and other products. Morales, for his part, was elected in part because of his strident opposition to the decades-long U.S. war on coca cultivation in his country. The leaf has traditionally been brewed in tea for centuries to stave off hunger and fatigue, and combat altitude sickness, and the U.S. led campaign to militarily eradicate the crop had claimed over 70 lives and wounded more than 1,000 people in Bolivia since the late '80s...

...But Morales points to his track record over the past three years in containing coca cultivation and improving interdiction numbers. He says Bolivia is capable of fighting drug trafficking without U.S. intervention, and has called on the Union of South American Nations to begin playing the international coordination role that the U.S. DEA has been playing...

..Bolivians are hoping that Tuesday's U.S. election produces a government with which La Paz can make a fresh start. "I don't want this to be taken as me campaigning for anyone, but let's hope the U.S. goes blue too," said Morales on Saturday — his own party's colors are the same as those of Senator Barack Obama. The Bolivian President made clear he envisages repairing the relationship once President Bush has gone. More than once, he referred to his own victory in Bolivia as having brought "the change we need".

I'm posting Evo Morales' interview on the Daily Show from about a year ago...I'll let you decide what type of person he is.