MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Evo to open operational HQs in Buenos Aires

Coca growers are expected to back Morales' initiative

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales plans to set up his operational headquarters in Buenos Aires on Jan. 23 to consolidate his plurinational, indigenist movement in the region, it was reported.

Morales supporters in La Paz said coca growers' from Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia had been summoned to the opening. The former head of state is also at odds with current President Luis Arce Catacora from his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. Arce did not invite Evo over to the Jan. 22 celebrations marking a new anniversary of MAS' accession to power.

On that day, Morales will be in Buenos Aires, with some of his Peronist friends. The following day he will launch his headquarters to fight for the “plurinational peoples of Latin America.” Also on Jan. 23, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva is scheduled to arrive at the Argentine capital.

Bolivian coca growers are going through unprecedented hardships with the borders with Peru closed and the economy in Santa Cruz slowed down by protests over the arrest of Governor Luis Fernando Camacho, thus affecting food supply nationwide.

When Morales was a union leader of the coca growers of Chapare, he used to stop the exit of products by blocking the roads while as President he banned sales out of Santa Cruz.

The Peruvian conflict has been reported to be causing around US$ 5.8 million in daily damages to the Bolivian economy. Morales has been banned from entering Peru for meddling in the country's internal affairs.

Despite all legal hindrances, the smuggling of cocaine jointly produced in the two countries is believed to have remained active, according to Infobae. The Bolivian Defense Ministry of Defense acknowledged last November that the thirteen radars purchased in 2017 were not being used because the Air Force would not be able to stop the drug trafficking planes using over a thousand clandestine landing strips, while in Peru, former President Pedro Castillo Terrones had also instructed the Air Force not to attack these places.

Although Morales claims he has no contact with those who process the coca or those who transport and market it, the six Chapare coca growers' federations that he controls are the ones that produce the raw material for this gigantic business, Infobae pointed out.

Before announcing his trip to Buenos Aires, Morales ordered that all civil servants should make a monthly contribution to the MAS' coffers and that no MAS militant can be sacked from the public administration, for any reason, a move Arce was said to have contemplated to bring down the country's fiscal deficit (8% of its GDP) amid meticulous International Monetary Fund (IMF) scrutiny.

Arce might have to touch the exchange rate, frozen since 2013 because it slows down exports and boosts imports, which would in turn spark inflation. (Source: Infobae)