The stories from Bolivia this Friday afternoon have one common theme: coca.
Writing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Daisy Pareja, a journalist who grew up in Bolivia, reflects on her home country’s future. She concludes that coca is–and will continue to be–the major issue:
…the (coca) farmers are said to be growing many times the amount of coca they can possibly use for any legitimate purpose. Washington’s concern is that the excess is going to cocaine traffickers. Under U.S. government pressure, Sanchez de Lozada was eradicating coca fields. This loss of the cash crop for extremely poor farmers was what really led to the rioting, though the opposition to exporting natural gas from Bolivia’s abundant reserves to the United States and Mexico helped fuel the protests.
It is now President Mesa’s turn at the wheel. If he delivers, we will all be pleasantly surprised for the first time. If he doesn’t, then we are back to hoping the next president will.
After all, the coca is always greener with another president. And the one after that. And the ones after that.
Miguel Centllas reports from La Paz: “The news is starting to slow down a bit. Mesa’s honeymoon’s now in earnest, though different groups still press their demands.”
JoinTogether, a clearinghouse for drug and gun news, has a nice summary of Larry Rohter‘s article in yesterday’s New York Times. Rohter speculates on what Goni’s ouster means for the US-led war on drugs:
United States officials interviewed here minimized the importance of the drug issue in Mr. Sánchez de Lozada’s downfall, blaming a “pent-up frustration” over issues ranging from natural gas exports to corruption. But to many Bolivians and analysts, the coca problem is intimately tied to the broader issues of impoverishment and disenfranchisement that have stoked explosive resentments here and fueled a month of often violent protests.
And finally, Andres Oppenheimer, who’s quickly becoming one of my favorite pundits, questions the future of the American drug war:
…the death of up to 80 people in street protests last week and the subsequent collapse of former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s elected government raises questions about the wisdom of maintaining a U.S. policy that demands the forced eradication of coca plantations without offering equally attractive solutions to poverty-stricken peasants.