Cocaine Production Plummets After DEA Kicked Out Of Bolivia

John Vibes
antimedia.org

After the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was kicked out of Bolivia, the country was able to drastically reduce the amount of coca (cocaine) produced within its borders. According to data released by the United Nations, cocaine production in the country declined by 11% in the past year, marking the fourth year in a row of steady decrease.

It was just seven years ago that the DEA left Bolivia — and only three years after that, progress was finally made. The strategy employed by the Bolivian government may be a surprise to many prohibitionists because it did not involve any strong-arm police state tactics. Instead, they worked to find alternative crops for farmers to grow that would actually make them more money.

“Bolivia has adopted a policy based on dialogue, where coca cultivation is allowed in traditional areas alongside alternative development [in others],” Antonino de Leo, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s representative in Bolivia, told VICE News.

“It’s not only about making money off a crop. In the old fashioned alternative development approach, we substitute one illicit crop for a licit crop. It’s about a more comprehensive approach that includes access to essential services like schools, hospitals, and roads in areas that traditionally have been hard to reach,” Leo added.

There are unfortunately still harsh laws against drug trafficking in Bolivia, but these have been active since the height of the drug war and have had no effect on the recent decline in production. Bolivian president, Evo Morales — a former coca farmer himself — has been less heavy handed since the DEA left the country, a move that allowed the government to develop alternatives for the struggling farmers instead.

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The Face of Empire in Latin America (Part 1)

New Eastern Outlook

In his landmark post-colonial work Culture and Imperialism, the world renowned public intellectual and critical theorist Edward Said wrote, “Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.”

Here, Said is highlighting a fundamental aspect of the hegemony of the Western imperial system in the late 20^th and early 21^st Centuries: the need for dominance over the physical, political, and discursive space. Specifically, Said argued correctly that contemporary imperialism seeks far more than simply control over land and resources – it seeks a monopoly on information, ideology, and language.

Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in what used to be considered the United States’ imperial backyard: Latin America. The untimely death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the great unifier of Latin America in the 21^st Century, did little to stem the tide of independence from US political and economic institutions. In fact, it seems that the independent-minded leaders of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and other countries in the region, have followed Chavez’s lead in retaking control over their nations’ futures. From the expulsion of US military and intelligence forces, to Latin American governments’ taking on powerful multinational corporations, indications that the region is more independent than ever before are now unmistakable.

And so, it is against this backdrop that Washington attempts to reassert its control either directly through its military, or indirectly through destabilizations using a vast array of weapons of “soft power.” It is precisely this “soft power” – the ability to influence events using non-military, non-coercive means – that is at the forefront of the US strategy to maintain hegemony in Latin America. Taken in tandem, Washington’s cocktail of hard and soft power is at the root of the US’s Latin American policy today.

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The Cochabamba Water War of 2000 in 2014

Narco News

Today’s Betrayers Will Not Erase Our Memory 

By Oscar Olivera 

Spokesman for the Water War Coordinating Committee in 2000

Today’s betrayers will not erase our memory: Fourteen years ago we won, today it seems like we lost, but we have to rise again to win, and we already know how to do it.

From April 4 to 14 in the year 2000 the so-called “Final Battle” was waged in Cochabamba, Bolivia to prevent the privatization of our water. It was part of a strategy designed by the people of Cochabamba in the “Water War” that started on November 12, 1999.

Today, after fourteen years of this historic struggle, the people’s demands are still the same: democracy, transparency, participation and an economic model that allows us all to enjoy the riches that our Mother Earth generously provides for the benefit of all.

Contradictorily, some people who are in government today – and who fought against the big transnational companies, against authoritarianism, against the ruling class’ contempt towards our communal ownership models, against corruption and inefficiency in public institutions – have reinstated with these great evils, with “greater efficiency,” against which the people of Cochabamba fought with their only weapons in 2000: their bodies, their blood and their dignity.

The “Mining Law” project in Bolivia is a clear sign of corruption, of public disregard, of imposition, of pride, of this government’s ignorance. But the most terrible thing is returning to the idea of privatizing our water and the complete disregard of our indigenous, farming and urban communities; of how they are being robbed of their unrestricted access to water and how their demands for a better quality of life are being criminalized. Even worse than that is the fact that the interest of these sacred rights and needs are being sacrificed to the needs and interests of a few businessmen, called “cooperatives”, that act as huge middle-men that allow big transnational companies to keep raiding our land. Today, in our April, our memory must remain intact, our victories have to be repeated and the betrayers condemned by our people.

May we have many more Aprils!

To victory, always!

 

Nicolás Maduro: Protests by rich are U.S. attempt to steal Venezuela's oil and subvert our democracy

The Guardian

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Venezuela's president claims the Obama administration is fomenting unrest with the aim of provoking a Ukraine-style 'slow-motion' coup

Venezuela's president has accused the US of using continuing street protests to attempt a "slow-motion" Ukraine-style coup against his government and "get their hands on Venezuelan oil".

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Nicolás Maduro, elected last year after the death of Hugo Chávez, said what he described as a "revolt of the rich" would fail because the country's "Bolivarian revolution" was more deeply rooted than when it had seen off an abortive US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002.

Venezuela, estimated to have the world's largest oil reserves, has faced continuous violent street protests - focused on inflation, shortages and crime - since the beginning of February, after opposition leaders launched a campaign to oust Maduro and his socialist government under the slogan of "the exit".

"They are trying to sell to the world the idea that the protests are some of sort of Arab spring," he said. "But in Venezuela, we have already had our spring: our revolution that opened the door to the 21st century".

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