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News > Latin America

Evo Morales Calls White House Critique on Coca 'Incoherent'

  • Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca campesino and union leader, criticized White House attacks against Bolivian coca plantations

    Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former coca campesino and union leader, criticized White House attacks against Bolivian coca plantations | Photo: Reuters FILE

Published 6 November 2018
Opinion

"We repudiate and condemn the incoherent White House report that depicts Bolivia as a 'threat' that aggravates its drug addiction crisis," wrote Morales on Twitter.

Bolivian President Evo Morales qualified a release by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as "incoherent." The release titled "ONDCP Releases Data on Coca Cultivation and Cocaine Production in Peru and Bolivia," considers coca cultivation to be a threat to the United States.

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"We repudiate and condemn the incoherent White House report that depicts Bolivia as a “threat” that aggravates its drug addiction crisis," wrote Morales on Twitter.

Morales criticized the fact that Bolivia is treated in such ways, "even though the Department of State revealed that 90% of cocaine seized in the #US is from Colombia," as he emphasized in his tweet.

The coca leaf is consecrated in the constitution of Bolivia for its traditional, medicinal and cultural uses. The use of coca leaf is very common in the Andean region, for diverse reasons, none of them related to narcotics.

On Friday, the White House released a statement quoting the ONDCP Deputy Director Jim Carroll, saying "The ongoing coca cultivation in both Peru and Bolivia pose a threat for us as a nation, and aggravates our domestic drug addiction crisis." Carroll continued, "in Bolivia, we would like to see real efforts against cultivation and production.”

Morales also tweeted that nowadays in Bolivia, "FFAA (the Armed Forces) and Police commanders are designated by their merits and not by US endorsement. In neoliberalism, the empire imposed ministers and commanders with complicity and servility of the right-wing. Now the Armed Forces and the Police walk with their people because Bolivia is dignified and sovereign."

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