MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia plays off Washington and Venezuela

Just a month after signing a military agreement with Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez Bolivian President Evo Morales entered into an agreement with Chávez' sworn enemy the U.S. military.

Philip Goldberg, U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, announced Monday that the U.S. military would help fund an anti-drug trafficking military base in Caranavi, Bolivia. This small town, 250km north of Bolivia's capital, La Paz, is a well-known route used by narco-traffickers moving cocaine from Peru and Bolivia into Brazil.

Most cocaine bought in Chile comes from Bolivia's El Chapare region, where border police are greatly under resourced. Bolivia is rated the third largest cocaine producer in world, after Colombia and Peru.

The Bolivian project is part of the U.S.'s "New Horizons" scheme that deploys U.S. troops to build basic infrastructure and provide medical, dental and veterinary services across Latin America. Peru, Nicaragua and El Salvador, amongst others, have all accepted aid under the scheme.

Goldberg stressed that the initiative is not primarily a military exercise, but aims to fight poverty in the region. "It will be a humanitarian army to help the townspeople, to contribute to civil and humanitarian efforts," he said, promising U.S. military doctors for villages surrounding Caranavi.

Mr. Morales has yet to announce his total acceptance of the scheme, but Bolivia's press reported that the plan will go ahead.

Morales came to power in 2005 with strong support from the nation's cocoa growers. He previously clashed with the U.S. administration on policies limiting cocoa production, such as Plan Dignity, which sought to eradicate cocoa production altogether. Morales said the program was an infringement of the rights of Bolivian peasants, who use cocoa plants as a dietary supplement and regard the plant as sacred.

He favors addressing the drug issue by fighting Western consumption of cocaine.

But both the Bolivian and U.S. administrations agree that narco-trafficking must be fought. "There will be zero cocaine, zero drug trafficking, but not zero cocoa," Morales previously stated.

This agreement will be a rare collaboration effort between the U.S. and Bolivian military.

"We collaborated (with the Bolivian government) to construct and monitor a base at Caravani," said Goldberg. "This is an example of our continued collaboration against narco-traffickers."

The U.S. has been a long-standing foreign aid contributor to Bolivia, with 150 million US dollars promised for 2007. One third will go to military and police programs, with the rest funding economic and social welfare.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, currently forging an anti-U.S. alliance in Latin America, and a close ally of Bolivia, has yet to comment on this development.

By Beatrice Karol Burks The Santiago Times