Bolivia to triple Exports to Venezuela in Effort to Replace Lost U.S. Market

[Robbien]

Source: Latin America Herald

Bolivia's textile exports to Venezuela next year will be double what the country was selling to the U.S. under an agreement that Washington is suspending, the Bolivian Government predicted today.

Bolivian Vice Minister Huáscar Ajta, who overseas exports for the landlocked nation, said at the close of the first round of the Bolivia-Venezuela Business Fair in La Paz that the nearly $47 million in sales agreed in the event represent "double what is being exported in textiles and manufacturing to United States via ATPDEA. "

ATPDEA is the acronym of the 17 year old Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Agreement that the US has with Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, but that the U.S. has decided not to renew with Bolivia because the country is not contributing in the fight against drugs.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has worked on anti-drug efforts in Bolivia for the past 25 years, pulled out of the country, under attack, in June. In September, socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked out the American ambassador, Philip Goldberg. On November 1st , Morales kicked out agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying that they, like the US ambassador, were all conspiring against him and working on his overthrow. The U.S., meanwhile, declared Bolivia uncooperative on drugs and announced plans to suspend tariff preferences for Bolivia’s imports.

Read more: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=320577&CategoryId=14919

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A win-win for Latin America.

[Mudoria]

1. *Shrug*

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

2. You bet. They are sending the message they don't WANT intimidation, coersion from another country,

which is their right.

This government needs to develope a sense of respect for people of other countries, and grow the hell up. All of Latin America has been trying to get that point across for decades.

[w4rma]

11. It would appear that our new incoming government has grown up. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

3. Latin Leftists Tell DEA To Buzz Off

Latin Leftists Tell DEA To Buzz Off
Sat 15 Nov 8:13pm

Bolivia has given agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") three months to leave the country. It seems that President Evo Morales thinks the DEA was trying to undermine his government, giving money to "criminal groups" seeking to assassinate government officials, possibly including himself. The DEA denies any involvement in anti-government activities. Morales claims that his government eradicated 5,000 hectares of coca this year, and the UN says that the Bolivian coca crop increased 5% last year compared to 27% in American-allied Colombia, but the U.S. nonetheless responded by rescinding trade benefits under the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act that may cost as many as 20,000 Bolivian jobs.

Tossing the DEA is old news in Venezuela, which took that action back in 2005 after accusing the agency of spying against the Chavez government. Venezuela also moved against key DEA allies within Venezuela at the same time. More recently, drug trafficking flights from Venezuela to Haiti and the Dominican Republic have increased by 44% in the first three months of 2008. Between 20% and 25% of all cocaine that reaches the U.S. passes through Venezuela at some point.

Ecuador completes the trio of anti-U.S. governments in South America that aren't interested in doing anything to help U.S. anti-drug efforts. A recent vote for a Constitution that requires ending the U.S. lease of the Manta airbase by 2009 dovetailed nicely with President Rafael Correa's promise during his presidential campaign to throw the U.S. out. The base is the only one in South America from which the U.S. can run drug-interception operations. 150 troops and civilians are stationed there and 1,100 counter-narcotics operations have been launched from there, but it seems the U.S. may also have used the base for operations against FARC guerrillas in Colombia without Ecuadoran approval. Correa has joked that if the US wants Manta so badly, it can give Ecuador a base in Miami. Although the U.S. can still operate out of El Salvador, Aruba, and Curacao, losing Manta "will leave a serious gap in our abilities to monitor antinarcotics operations in the eastern Pacific," according to an administration official.

At least they still work with the DEA in Colombia, but that may not mean all that much. Despite $6.1 billion in aid since 2000, not much has changed in Colombia, and the huge increase in cocaine and heroin production is only the tip of the iceberg. Considering how badly things have gone with the drug war in Colombia, a country firmly tied to the U.S. economically, militarily, and in drug-interdiction efforts, maybe openly anti-drug war leftists in Latin America are the least of our problems.

http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=08/11/16/03150337

[Robbien]

4. Drug trade seems to increase proportionately with the amount of $$ US gives to fight it

A country would be better off not receiving a dime to fight the so called "War on Drugs".

[judasdisney]

15. If you think that's an accident, read Gary Webb or Daniel Hopsicker.

"If you want the mother of all scandals, look into the bank accounts of retired DEA agents" -- told to Daniel Hopsicker by a DEA agent.

[ben_meyers]

5. I really don't care what the reason, the fewer textiles we import

from Latin American sweatshops the better. They can export all they want to each other but after years sending our jobs overseas it's about time to bring them home.

[tkmorris]

6. You think we'll replace Bolivian-made with American-made?

This does nothing to support American industry but it DOES tell us an awful lot about these people's priorities.

[ben_meyers]

8. Hey, it's a start

and I expect our new administration to do much more.

[hack89]

7. And when the Venezuelan economy tanks

due to low oil prices and the global slow down, what happens then?

[wuushew]

9. How long do you expect the ENTIRE world to be in recession?

a year? two years?

Every year there are more cars on the road and every year the finite resource that is oil becomes physically rarer and more valuable.


Any country that can still export petroleum has a good future revenue stream.

[WriteDown]

10. By that logic....

We should immediately drill off of all our coasts :shrug:. Oil is still dropping and I have no clue where the bottom is going to be.

[wuushew]

12. Nothing I said is inconsistent

The United States reached peak oil around 1970.

For many decades we have imported more oil then we domestically produced. All the drilling, coal conversion or oil shale mining in this country is not going reverse that. In addition I do not wish to see the environmental destruction such a carbon hunt would bring.


Indonesia is transitioning to an net importer of oil, as will Mexico soon. Venezuela will be large exporter of oil for quite a while, as will the Arab states.

[tama]

19. By any rational logic

everybody should do everything to get rid of suicidal addiction to a finite resource as foundation of their way and foundation of life.

But rational behaviour is something not to be expected from modern men conditioned into consumerhood by 24/7 propaganda.

[tama]

18. More years. n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

13. Bolivia is the poorest nation in S America

I'd LOVE IT if finally someone would make a coca-based painkiller-before idiots jump in all emotional let me give you a brief history of opium. Opium dens were NOT the place to be for 'respectable people', not even doctors; finally, after MANY years a doctor DID go into 1 & THAT is how MORPHINE was made-it is a derivative of opium, also codeine, that cough suppresant, it helped those who were DYING of TB, now we have incurable XTB. Coca would be THE ONLY PAINKILLER THAT DOESN'T FOG THE MIND-do any of you know what that implys? Police who are injured could still function, firefighters too, carpenters, secretaries, etc. It also may be used as an appetite suppressant, since farmers in high altitude Sout American countries chew the green leaves for energy/stamina.

[Nevernose]

17. Cocaine is currently available as a prescription drug in the US

It's just very, very rare. It's used for major dental surgeries. It does "fog the mind," by the way: prolonged usage can lead to some fairly psychotic behavior (but that's pretty much the case with most strong drugs). I wonder if there's not some derivative taht could be produced for use as a topical analgesic, perhaps for burn victims or the like?

[KakistocracyHater]

20. I knew in the 19th Century

it was used to numb the eyes, it is a cns stimulant, I don't have first-hand experience of it, I have read that Reagan-era laws prohibited coca-even for study in a lab-where did you hear of it for dental work? I've only heard celebrities talk about their 1st hand use & they said it kept them awake & made them loose weight. I hope scientists not bound by Reagan's idiot rules will develop it for a variety of uses like I mentioned.

There is also more to be learned from opium, I heard that molecularly it is like a giant braid of many fibers & morphine & codeine are but 2 from that braid.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Colorful writing and flat-out lies in the L/A Herald hit piece on Bolivia...

ATPDEA is the acronym of the 17 year old Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Agreement that the US has with Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, but that the U.S. has decided not to renew with Bolivia because the country is not contributing in the fight against drugs (FLAT-OUT LIE).

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has worked on anti-drug efforts in Bolivia for the past 25 years, pulled out of the country, under attack (COLORFUL WRITING; FLAT-OUT LIE), in June. In September, socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked out the American ambassador, Philip Goldberg. On November 1st , Morales kicked out agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying that they, like the US ambassador, were all conspiring against him (COLORFUL WRITING and working on his overthrow. (BLACK HOLE WHERE INFORMATION SHOULD BE.) The U.S., meanwhile, declared Bolivia uncooperative on drugs (LIE) and announced plans to suspend tariff preferences for Bolivia’s imports (ANOTHER BLACK HOLE).

The real reason the Bushwhacks have their jockey shorts in a twist is that their coup against Evo Morales' government failed. The U.S. ambassador had been funding and organizing the white separatists in the gas/oil rich eastern provinces, who rioted about a month ago, sacked government and NGO buildings, machine-gunned some 30 unarmed peasant farmers, and blew up a gas pipeline, in an effort to split the eastern provinces off in a secession from Bolivia, and take the country's main natural resources with them. Morales acted swiftly to expel the U.S. ambassador and the DEA and USAID operatives who were aiding these fascist rioters, and finally sent troops into one area, to quell the violence. Chile called a meeting of UNASUR--the new South American "Common Market"--and, in facing its first crisis, UNASUR unanimously backed the Morales government, and opposed the split up of Bolivia; and, further, sent a successful peace mission to Bolivia (where everyone else had failed) to help get the saner of the fascists into peace talks, as well as an investigative commission of the slaughter of the peasant farmers.

Now re-read this L/A Herald piece of shit writing, which reads like it was dictated by Dick Cheney. It has an all-Bushwhack spin, at every turn. Sour grapes.

As for the drug 'war,' the Bushwhacks were using it for spying and insurrection. They couldn't give a fuck about the drug 'war' except as to awarding their war profiteer/police-state buddies, and chemical corporations, with fat contracts. Bolivia has a SANE drug policy which does not criminalize traditional indigenous coca leaf chewing and tea drinking. Coca leaves are highly nutritious and are considered a medicine by the indigenous, making it possible to survive in the high cold regions of the Andes. As a result, the government has the cooperation of the small coca leaf growers in dealing with the cocaine traffic and attendant crime. Bolivia has cut cocaine production and traffic by 20%. The Bushwhack approach is to criminalize everybody, and spray toxic pesticides everywhere, including on the organic food farms that may have a few coca leaf plants, while its DEA and USAID personnel live in air-conditioned hotels with pools and pass money to Morales' political opponents, including rioters and murderers. And wherever Bushwhacks go, the cocaine trade and the drug lords and the criminals flourish. Colombia and Peru are the two top cocaine producers in South America--both flooded with billions of U.S. tax dollars for the failed 'war on drugs.' In Colombia, this money is used to murder union leaders, human rights workers, political leftists, small peasant farmers and journalists. Colombia is the most corrupt and brutal government in South America. Peru is also becoming militarized, via the U.S. 'war on drugs,' to enforce the U.S. 'free trade' agreement, which benefits the rich and not the workers and the poor.

The U.S. 'war on drugs' has failed. The Bushwhacks have failed in all their dirty rotten schemes of undermining and toppling democratic governments, and gaining control of the oil and other resources. And Bolivia has been in the forefront of exposing them, and defending their sovereignty as a country. So they hate Bolivia as much as they hate Venezuela, with its pioneering leftist democracy. And all the little corporate toadies of the 'news' media follow the Bushwhack line. It is disgusting to read it, and to think of the oatmeal-for-brains, ambitious little worms who write it. They are a disgrace to journalism.

[judasdisney]

16. Reading US Media on Latin America is like reading a complete reversal-of-facts

[excess_3]

21. enlightened Europeans have what laws, concerning cocaine? nt

[tama]

22. Enlightened laws, obviously

But what that says about "Enlightenment" is another matter, then...

(My guess: primal fear of Darkness... :))