Waging the War on Drugs in Bolivia

Waging the War on Drugs in Bolivia
Jacqueline Williams
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) April 1997

Introduction

As one of the world's three leading producers of the coca plant and an increasingly important producer of cocaine itself, Bolivia is a linchpin in the US "war on drugs." Levels of US antinarcotics assistance and involvement in Bolivia in recent years provide ample illustration. Since former President Bush launched the Andean Initiative in 1989, Bolivia has received more than $800 million in antinarcotics support and remains one of the top recipients of dwindling US foreign assistance to Latin America. Approximately 64 percent of the assistance over the past 7 years has been dedicated to economic development activities and approximately 36 percent to police and military antinarcotics efforts. (See Annex I for additional data on US assistance.) The US government directly supports roughly a dozen law enforcement agencies or task forces, as well as special task forces of all three branches of the Bolivian armed forces - a veritable narco-law enforcement complex.

In addition to development assistance, the US government's economic assistance to
Bolivia targets a range of important reform efforts undertaken by the Sánchez de Lozada government, including areas such as judicial reform and decentralization through the Popular Participation Law. This report, however, focuses on US antinarcotics assistance for drug enforcement efforts - by far the most controversial element of US policy toward Bolivia - which generates significant tension in bilateral relations and anti-American sentiment among the Bolivian population. US antinarcotics efforts in the Bolivian Chapare are dramatically felt on the ground by those with the least say in the policy's implementation.

The purpose of this report is three-fold: to provide a sense of the political dynamics
around the drug issue in Bolivia and in US-Bolivian relations; to provide an overview of the counternarcotics law enforcement complex that spans dozens of US and Bolivian military and police units; and finally to lay out some of the pressing human rights concerns related to the US drug war in Bolivia.

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