Bolivian Thug Becomes President

Jim Kouri, CPP

As you probably already know from the dramatic coverage of the news media, another left-wing thug became the new president of a South American country. This same thug may be the downfall of Bolivia, as well.

Evo Morales, a radical socialist and a coca farmer is another tough guy leader who's getting some favorable press in the United States thanks to our own left-wing news media. His verbal attacks on President George W. Bush make American news reporters almost giddy with delight. It brings to mind the axiom: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Evo Morales was believed destined to win Bolivia's presidential election and he's displayed confidence in his victory throughout his campaign. As with most communist politicians, Morales spent much of his campaign lashing out at America, capitalism and President Bush. Except for his campaign promise to legalize coca growing, he offers few insights into his plans to help the impoverished voters.

Morales' win at the polls will increase the destabilization of the South American continent, according to national security experts. Being a coca grower makes him an ally of the drug cartels and traffickers in Bolivia and nearby countries. While the cocaine that comes from Bolivian coca is shipped to the United States and Western Europe, some Bolivians are fearful of what will develop when the President of Bolivia, himself a coca farmer, makes their country cocaine central.

Morales fought a tough battle against a conservative former president Jorge Quiroga. Quiroga promised to get tough on coca growing and keep Bolivia on a free-market track, rather than a planned and government controlled economy. But Morales has been successful in creating a fever-pitched hatred for all things capitalist. And he wholeheartedly plays the all-too-familiar race card. Quiroga is of European ancestry. Morales is an Indian.

As with the recent election in Chile -- also a contest between a neo-Marxist and a conservative -- neither candidate was expected to win a majority of the vote because of the other five candidates on the ballot. With no majority, instead of a Chilean style run-off election, the newly elected Bolivian congress would have chosen the president between the top two vote-winners in January 2006. That is now a moot point since Quiroga conceded the election.

Morales, an Aymara Indian street activist, whose boyhood hero is the late Che Guevera, dictator Fidel Castro's right-hand man during the Cuban revolution, has promised to decriminalize coca and renegotiate long-standing natural-gas deals with foreign companies working in Bolivia. He is the first Indian president in Bolivia, a country where Aymara and Quechua Indians make up a majority of the population of eight and a half million. In fact. the US media seemed to focus more on the race of the candidates than on their ideologies.

So confident was Morales, that the night before the even polls opened for voters, he was already talking about his future and the future of Bolivia. At a campaign rally, the candidate told American reporters, "Yes, of course, there can be dialogue between Washington and myself. It will be complicated, because we have different world views, but the door is open."

Asked if he is considering traveling to the US for an official visit when elected president, he admits that he has not been invited.

"If the US wants diplomatic relations, they have to be on an equal basis. The relationship cannot be one of subservience," said Morales.

While the White House may have problems inviting a thug like Morales to meet the President, there are others in the US who are more than willing to have a President Morales visit and share his thoughts on a US President hated more by them than Saddam Hussein. According to Morales, Harvard University extended a heartfelt invitation to the Marxist. Is this a surprise? Harvard wants US military recruiters barred from their campus, but they warmly welcome socialist thugs.

Of his friend Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he makes it clear he admires the man. "You can't compare me to [Cuban revolutionary] Che or Chavez," he says, "... because I am not on their level. I am just beginning the struggle ... but I admire and aspire to learn from them."

Then Morales takes a swipe at President Bush. "That Chavez!" he chuckles, "... giving out cheap fuel in the Massachusetts! Watch, he will be more popular than Bush in the US soon!" he says, and raises the final glass of the evening. "Of that, I am sure." Perhaps he's right, since more and more Americans are willing to sellout for a bargain price on oil, all the while claiming US policy in the Middle East is "all about oil."

Morales has been a problem for Washington since he rose to prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the cocaleros, or coca farmers, in Bolivia's tropical region, leading their often violent resistance to US-backed coca eradication efforts. Then-President Bill Clinton appeared to back off when faced with growing violence. While the US government insists that much of the coca becomes cocaine, farmers say they supply a legal market. Coca leaves are sold in supermarkets and can be chewed, brewed for tea, and used in religious ceremonies. It helps the poor deal with hunger -- coca and cocaine are appetite suppressants -- and it gives them energy for long, arduous labor.

Morales appears to be a passionate man capable of rattling sabers with the best of them. However, should his coca policy show an increase of cocaine on US city streets, his regime will be seen as a national security threat and rightly so. Bolivia, with all of Morales' big talk, has a military that could be considered a joke even by French standards. And unlike his comrade in Venezuela who has plenty of black gold, except for drug addicts and the denizens of Hollywood who enjoy powdering their noses, he has nothing Americans really want or need.

While Venezuela has cheap oil Americans want, Bolivia's big industry is the cultivation of coca. And cocaine is still illegal in the United States. In fact, the US spends millions in combating coca cultivation in South America. Also, unlike the feckless Bill Clinton, President Bush is not likely to back down from confrontation with a government a battalion of marines can overthrow.

Even many Bolivians fear that decriminalizing coca growing -- and Morales is a rich coca farmer -- will open the door to rampant organized crime and outside influences such as the Colombian drug cartels and international criminal enterprises. And when the crime mobs come in, so will corruption of government officials starting with the underpaid cop on the street all the way up to President Morales, who stands to make a fortune.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations.  He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.   He writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a staff writer for New Media Alliance (thenma.org), and he's a columnist for TheConservativeVoice.Com, AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com.   He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and can be ordered at local bookstores. If you wish to sign up for his intelligence reports, write to JimKouriReports@aol.com. Kouri's own website is located at http://jimkouri.us