Bolivia - US Relations
United States Senator Bernie Sanders became the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to express concerns aboutthe 10 November 2019 military coup in Bolivia, which forced its democratically elected President Evo Morales to resign. "I am very concerned about what appears to be a coup in Bolivia, where the military, after weeks of political unrest, intervened to remove President Evo Morales," Sanders said, adding that "the U.S. must call for an end to violence and support Bolivia's democratic institutions."
Donald Trump stated his support for the Bolivian military's role in the coup Monday saying that “the United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.”
The Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932-1935, was one of the bloodiest conflicts ever fought in South America. Nearly 100,000 men died during the course of the three-year war, fought during the height of the worldwide depression, between two of the world's poorest nations - Bolivia and Paraguay. Bolivians, especially after the war, generally held that United States and British corporate interests had supported Paraguay indirectly through Argentina. They believed (and most still do) that America's Standard Oil company and Britain's Royal Dutch Shell were behind the Chaco War. Historians have still to uncover definitive proof to support this popular Bolivian conspiracy theory, which is found in national history texts.
Covert financial assistance was a key element of U.S. foreign policy toward Bolivia during the Johnson Presidency. CIA documents have characterized the overall goals of the U.S. Government’s covert action programs in Bolivia during this period as follows: "The basic covert action goals in Bolivia are to foster democratic solutions to critical and social, economic, and political problems; to check Communist and Cuban subversion; to encourage a stable government favorably inclined toward the United States; and to encourage Bolivian participation in the Alliance for Progress. The main direction and emphasis of C[overt] A[ction] operations is to force Communists, leftists, and pro-Castroites out of influential positions in government, and to try to break Communist and ultra-leftist control over certain trade union, student groups, and campesino organizations." When the presidential election was finally held in July 1966, Barrientos won easily, and officials concerned with the covert operation concluded that the objectives of the program - the end of military rule and a civilian, constitutional government whose policies would be compatible with those of the United States - had been accomplished.
There is a widespread belief in Bolivia that the US Embassy in the past has interfered with and even "controlled" the Government of Bolivia, leading to considerable resentment among Bolivians, including but not only the population that elected Morales president in 2005. This impression is reinforced by the sheer size of the US official community -- about 215 Americans and 800 Bolivians and other nationals -- which dwarfs the size and scope of any other diplomatic representation in Bolivia. A case can be made that, over time, with the establishment of numerous programs, sometimes in ad hoc fashion, the US Mission had ballooned out of proportion with US interests in Bolivia.
Banzer Suárez´ became President of Bolivia in 1997, and followed a ´zero coca´ policy that supported the United States and created an atmosphere in which Evo Morales could rise. Recent US interest in Bolivia focused on curtailing the illicit coca trade. The US made its greatest strides during the 1990s, and Bolivia’s estimated coca cultivation fell from an estimated 240 metric tons (MT) annually to under 60 MT at its lowest point in 2001. Eradication and interdiction efforts were reinforced with aid and development programs that focused on alternative crop cultivation,education, and judicial and law enforcement reform.
According to the Bolivian Government "Since the year 2000, the date that began strengthening the emergence and the rise to power of social movements and indigenous peoples native peasants, the Bolivian State has suffered a strong campaign of interference in internal affairs by the United States Embassy, from the attempt to smear their national leadership and public attacks on the legitimately constituted in Bolivia Government. This situation led to an escalation of tensions between the Governments of Bolivia and the United States, which carried the expulsion of its top diplomatic representatives in their more moments. Finally, these tensions have resulted in the negotiation of a new legal framework that will govern bilateral relations between both States."
Manuel Rocha was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia on July 14, 2000. He presented his credentials to the President of Bolivia on August 4, 2000, and served until August 07, 2002. In June 2002, Manuel Rocha, days prior to the holding ofin Bolivia presidential election, warned against voting for then presidential candidate and cocalero leader Evo Morales Ayma, threatening citizens Bolivian that, if you do so, the Bolivian State would lose economic aid and commercial U.S. textually, Rocha noted that "the Bolivian electorate should consider the implications of choosing leaders in some way connected with drug trafficking and terrorism." Rocha's warning before the election backfired, and helped raise support for Morales. On June 27th in Cochabamba, during his final campaign rally, Evo asked the crowd to offer an enormous applause for Rocha who "was our best campaign manager ever." In his inauguration speech for Congress, Morales declared: ´Long live coca and down with the Yanquis´.
After the election but before taking office, President Morales continued the occasional anti-American statements he had used effectively in his campaign. In his December 18 informal victory declaration, he called for an end of the "relationship of submission" with the United States and rallied his audience with his oft-repeated cocalero (coca grower) slogan of "Death to the Yankees, long live coca!"
During the Morales administration bilateral relations deteriorated sharply, as the Bolivian Government escalated public attacks against the U.S. Government and began to dismantle key partnerships. The years 2006 and 2007 were marked by frequent anti-US statements from high-level Bolivian government officials, particularly President Morales. Morales repeatedly accused the USG and specifically Ambassador Philip Goldberg (who arrived in September 2006) of leading "conspiracy" against him. For example, at the November 2007 Ibero-American Summit, Morales displayed a picture of Ambassador Goldberg taken at a trade show with a passerby who was later arrested as an alleged criminal but then released. Morales claimed that the photo with a "Colombian paramilitary" was evidence of "an open conspiracy."
Morales summarized many of the conspiracy theories of his first two years in office in a December 7, 2007 interview with Venezuelan TV network Telesur: "...here the conspiracy against the government is headed by the Embassy of the United States and oligarchies ... last year, here in La Paz a US citizen appeared with bombs, killing people...Second, an American who has ties to the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia in the past months entered with 500 bullets ... she was stopped, and according to the US Ambassador in Bolivia, (the bullets) were for hunting in Bolivia ... I don't know if it was to hunt Evo Morales..." (The bomb-placing American was seemingly mentally-disturbed and not attached to the Mission. The bullets mentioned had been brought by a friend of the family for a country team member for target practice, however Morales publicly described the event as "terrorism.")
In two separate public speeches in December 2007, President Morales told his followers that "the US Embassy is here to organize a conspiracy" against his government and announced that Bolivia no longer needed foreign control in the counternarcotics effort, as this is "an old-fashioned colonial mechanism...at this point, it is no longer important that they continue imposing certification or decertification policies...We no longer want any foreign control; we are responsible for addressing this issue..." Nevertheless, on December 20, 2007, Morales declared publicly "despite these aggressions and conspiracies on the part of the Ambassador of the United States, we are not going to break dialogue, we will maintain diplomatic relations... How nice it would be if the US government would recommend to its Ambassador not to come here to conspire, not to come to Bolivia to make politics but rather to do diplomacy... "
On June 9, 2008 after a weekend of anti-US rhetoric from President Morales (accompanied by the Cuban ambassador) blaming the US for granting asylum to ex-Defense Minister Sanchez Berzain, thousands of Morales' supporters protested at the Embassy. At various times the Embassy was surrounded, and protesters threw rocks, dynamite, and burning items over the walls of the compound, resulting in injuries to a number of police. On June 15, President Evo Morales praised the June 9 violent demonstration: "(the Embassy) protects criminals, defends them and hides those who for so many years caused such damage to the Bolivian people... Congratulations for this great organization, for this great mobilization of leaders." In June 2008, the government endorsed the expulsion of USAID from Bolivia’s largest coca-growing region. In September 2008, President Morales accused Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg of conspiring against the government, declared him "persona non grata," and expelled him from Bolivia. In a reciprocal action, the Department of State expelled Bolivian Ambassador Gustavo Guzman later that month. In November 2008, President Morales expelled the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from the country, ending a 35-year history of engagement against narcotics production and trafficking.
During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York on September 24, 2008, Morales again spoke against the United States: "Why the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador? Because Latin America rejects this attempt at civil coup. In Bolivia groups from the Right burn gas lines and cut valves... but the U.S. government through the embassy does not condemn those acts of terrorism and just stays there. Evo Morales is the Andean Bin Laden and the campesinos (small farmers) are the Taliban, that is to say that you are meeting in this moment with an Andean Bin Laden..."
Starting in May 2009, the U.S. and Bolivian governments engaged in a dialogue to improve relations, which culminated in the November 7, 2011 signing of a bilateral framework agreement normalizing relations. Both the U.S. and Bolivia have agreed to exchange Ambassadors in an important first step, and on February 28, 2012, U.S. and Bolivian delegates held high-level meetings in La Paz to discuss future relations. U.S. assistance programs to promote health and welfare, advance economic development, and fight narcotics production and trafficking remain active and effective in advancing common goals in Bolivia.
Bolivia’s international obligation to control illegal narcotics remains a major issue in the bilateral relationship. For centuries, a limited quantity of Bolivian coca leaf has been chewed and used in traditional rituals, but in the 1970s and 1980s the emergence of the drug trade led to a rapid expansion of coca cultivation used to make cocaine, particularly in the tropical Chapare region in the Department of Cochabamba (not a traditional coca-growing area). In 1988, a new law, Law 1008, recognized only 12,000 hectares in the Yungas as sufficient to meet the licit demand of coca. Law 1008 also explicitly stated that coca grown in the Chapare was not required to meet traditional demand for chewing or for tea, and the law called for the eradication, over time, of all “excess” coca.
Bolivia planned to expand legal coca production to 20,000 hectares and stressed development of legal commercial uses for coca leaf. The United States preferred long-term limits that track more closely with current estimated legal domestic demand of around 4,000 to 6,000 hectares. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates place current cultivation at just over 30,000 hectares.
The United States has supported efforts to interdict the smuggling of coca leaves, cocaine, and precursor chemicals, as well as investigate and prosecute trafficking organizations. However, these efforts have been significantly constrained after the expulsion of DEA. The U.S. Government continues to finance alternative development programs and the counternarcotics police effort.
In September 2011 Bolivia's president asked a South American regional bloc to "decertify" the United States in its anti-drug efforts. Evo Morales said that if Washington sees fit to judge nations for their counternarcotics efforts, the Union of South American Nations should be able to do the same. Morales accused the United States of being the "origin" of the drug trade as a leading drug consumer. Bolivia is the third-largest producer of coca leaf, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
On September 15, 2011, the President of the United States determined for the fourth consecutive year that the Government of Bolivia “failed demonstrably” to make sufficient efforts to meet its obligations under counternarcotics (CN) conventions. This Presidential determination was based, in part, on evidence that Bolivia had yet to reverse the increases in net coca cultivation of the past several years, although in 2010 it appeared that production had stabilized.
By 2012 Bolivia was the world's third largest cocaine producer and a significant transit zone for Peruvian-origin cocaine. Existing reports indicate that most Bolivian-origin cocaine exports flow to other Latin American countries, especially Brazil, for domestic consumption or onward transit to West Africa and Europe. U. S. government surveys estimate that approximately one percent of the cocaine seized in the United States and submitted for testing originates from Bolivia.
Bolivia and the United States restored full diplomatic ties November 07, 2011 for the first time since 2008. The new diplomatic agreement includes the two nations cooperating in the war on drugs, but did not address the issue of American DEA agents returning to Bolivia. There was no specific date for the ambassadors to return to their respective diplomatic posts.
The United States and Bolivia have traditionally had cordial and cooperative relations. Development assistance from the United States to Bolivia dates from the 1940s; the U.S. remains a major partner for economic development, improved health, democracy, and the environment. In 1991, the U.S. Government forgave a $341 million debt owed by Bolivia to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as 80% ($31 million) of the amount owed to the Department of Agriculture for food assistance. The United States has also been a strong supporter of forgiveness of Bolivia’s multilateral debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiatives.
USAID has been providing assistance to Bolivia since the 1960s and works with the Government of Bolivia, the private sector, and the Bolivian people to achieve equitable and sustainable development. In fiscal year 2012 USAID/Bolivia provided about $27 million in development assistance. USAID’s programs support Bolivia’s National Development Plan and are designed to address key issues, such as poverty and the social exclusion of historically disadvantaged populations, focusing efforts on Bolivia’s peri-urban and rural populations.
In addition to working closely with Bolivian Government officials to strengthen bilateral relations, the U.S. Embassy provides a wide range of services to U.S. citizens and businesses. Political and economic officers interact directly with the Bolivian Government in advancing U.S. interests, but are also available to provide information to American citizens on local economic and political conditions in the country. Commercial officers work closely with numerous U.S. companies that operate direct subsidiaries or have investments in Bolivia. The officers also provide information on Bolivian trade and industry regulations and on administering several programs intended to aid U.S. companies starting or maintaining businesses in Bolivia.
The Consular Section of the Embassy, and the two consular agencies in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, provide vital services to the estimated 13,000 American citizens who reside in Bolivia. Among other services, the Consular Section and the consular agencies assist Americans who wish to participate in U.S. elections while abroad and also provide notarial services. Additionally, some 40,000 U.S. citizens visit Bolivia annually. The Consular Section also offers passport and emergency services to tourists as needed during their stay in Bolivia. In 2008, the Bolivian Government began requiring that U.S. citizens obtain visas to visit Bolivia. In addition to the services provided to U.S. citizens, the Consular Section adjudicates thousands of immigrant and non-immigrant visas at the Embassy in La Paz each year.
On Mayday 2013 President Evo Morales followed the example of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, expelling Wednesday the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from the country. Morales accused USAID of “manipulating” local public groups in order to destabilize Bolivia. The expulsion was also a reaction to US Secretary of State John Kerry calling Latin America “the backyard” of the United States, Morales said in a May Day speech. Kerry made his remark in April 2013 at a meeting with US Congressmen, where he argued against cuts to US financial aid to the region. Since 1964, USAID had invested more than $2 billion in various projects in Bolivia.
Only days before Evo Morales stepped down as Bolivia’s president on10 November 2019, audio tapes were published implicating opposition politicians, the US embassy and American senators in a coup plot. Among those US senators mentioned in the leaked tapes by the Bolivian politicians seeking Morales’ ouster were Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, according to a report by Telesur. It is believed that the US embassy in La Paz helped coordinate a deliberate campaign of street violence and media disinformation in order to destabilize the Andean country and force Morales to quit. The whole scenario fits Washington’s standard-operating procedure for instigating coups or regime change against governments it disapproves of. Bolivia’s socialist president Evo Morales was in Washington’s cross-hairs for toppling. Sufficient pressure was exerted on the Bolivian military and police. When those institutions called for Morales to step down on Sunday, he did so in order to spare his nation from further deadly conflict. “
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