Narco News Commentary: Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga stepped off American
Airlines Flight 628 at 7:31 p.m. last night at Washington�s Reagan National
Airport for four days of meetings, including a scheduled session with
President George W. Bush on Thursday, December 6th. Today he meets with the
Organization of American States. Later, with DEA boss Asa Hutchinson, and
high functionaries of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

He leaves behind a country completely destroyed by his own surrender of
national sovereignty to the demands of the US government. As the Milenio
Foundation reported this week, the US-imposed "zero coca" policy has already
caused Bolivia annual losses of $655 million dollars and 59,000 jobs.

Last Thursday, transport workers paralyzed the country with a 24 hour
blockade and strike, and threatened to escalate to a 48 hour strike soon,
and then an indefinite national strike. The clock ticks on the deadline of
early December posed by business leaders who are threatening, too, a
national strike and boycott of federal taxes. Now, according to reports we
translate today, other social sectors from the nation's doctors to even the
rank-and-file police are threatening to join the blockades and strikes.

Tomorrow, the social sector that has been the spark of this chain of events,
the 35,000 coca growing families of the Chapare region, will begin anew
their campaign of highway blockades that have twice paralyzed the country.
The Quiroga regime has sent 4,000 troops to try and keep the major highway
unblocked. The regime's policy is reduced to its last refuge: Brute force.

The U.S. press has been silent throughout the tumult of recent weeks; the
hard news is inconvenient, because it disproves years of propaganda stating
that Bolivia is a "success story" in the US-imposed "war on drugs."

Even Washington Post columnist Marcela Sanchez, in a Friday puff piece about
President Quiroga, chose to withhold the hard news of what is really
happening in Bolivia from her readers. Tomorrow, Narco News will offer a
detailed response to Sanchez's error-laden column, and we will detail an
announcement that we make today:

ANNOUNCEMENT BY NARCO NEWS:

The United States press is not doing its job. US correspondents in Latin
America remain mute before the social upheaval that has profound
consequences for the war on drugs.

Thus, beginning this week, Narco News will launch a new project: "Live from
the Andes." The newsroom is heading to South America, to break the
information blockade and offer direct live reports at www.narconews.com on
the immediate history shaking our Am�rica.

From somewhere in a country called Am�rica,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
narconews@hotmail.com

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Copyright 2002