Latinnews Archive

Latin American Weekly Report - 22 August 1980

BOLIVIA: Drug allegations dent junta's political image

The Bolivian junta suffered a blow to its image last week, with the publication in Washington of a series of detailed ailegations about its intimate links with the Latin American drugs mafia. The international credibility of General Luis Garcia Meza and his fellow officers, the self-styled champions of Bolivia's anti-communist movement, is waning fast.

In a statement to the international press late last week, Senator Dennis DeConcini, a prominent US Democrat, claimed that he had received a series of 'highly reliable' and detailed reports about the ties between the junta and the country's cocaine traffickers. He confirmed earlier rumours (WR-80-32) that narcotics dealers had been a key source of finance for the coup, and claimed that Colonel Luis Arce Gomez, Bolivia's new interior minister, ran 'his own cocaine smuggling operation.'


Money had been handed to the army, DeConcini said, by one Jose Abraham Baptista, a 'known trafficker' who acted as a middle-man for Garcia Meza himself in narcotics transactions. Baptista, he claimed, also worked for General Hugo Echeverria, the head of the Santa Cruz garrison, and two of his relatives had recently been appointed to high-ranking positions in the customs service. Colonel Ariel Coca, the education minister, was also named by DeConcini as a key link in the Bolivian connection.

DeConcini's source is generally acknowledged to be the US State Department; it is clear that his allegations have made their impact. A full Senate investigation into the affair has been called for; in the meantime the US government has moved to tighten the economic blockade by withdrawing its anti-narcotics bureau from La Paz. At the same time Britain and a number of other countries have responded by cancelling a series of important aid projects.

The authorities in La Paz admit that the boycott is a serious threat -- there are already reports of petrol and other basic goods shortages throughout the country -- but they insist that the danger will prove short-lived. Fernando Bedoya, the head of the national bank and a keen ally of Garcia Meza, says that the junta expects Ronald Reagan to win the coming US election and promptly restore all forms of aid. Others see this as a potentially serious miscalculation. Reagan's views on foreign policy closely resemble those of DeConcini, for example.

DeConcini's view of the junta is clearly gaining ground; the tone of recent press reports has become increasingly vitriolic. 'The military,' according to the Washington Post, 'said that the man who was about to take office as the elected President, Hernan Siles Zuazo, was a dangerous communist. The coup-makers' acceptance of assistance from Argentina and their barbaric treatment of democratic leaders suggest an ideological rationale. But the military's greater anxiety appears to be that Mr. Siles would crack down on the drug trade.'

The United States has also begun to step up its pressure on Argentina, which has provided the La Paz government with crucial material support. (It has agreed to provide a US$200m loan, and to double the price it pays for Bolivian natural gas.) If the US government succeeds in persuading the Argentines that they are backing a clique of drug smugglers rather than a group of ideologically committed anti-communist crusaders, then Garcia Meza's days in office may well be numbered.


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