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DEA quietly resumes anti-drug coordination with Bolivia almost 20 years since its expulsion
Bolivia's new centrist government seeks U.S. intelligence and training to combat cocaine trafficking, with over 90% of Chapare-grown coca diverted to the drug trade, officials said.
- On Thursday, Bolivia's Vice Minister of Social Defense and Controlled Substances said the U.S. has resumed counternarcotics coordination with President Rodrigo Paz's government, with details still being finalized.
- Earlier this year, Paz moved to restore full diplomatic ties after nearly two decades in which Morales's Movement Toward Socialism party shunned the West, and Justiniano claimed over 90% of Chapare coca is diverted to cocaine.
- Ernesto Justiniano said Bolivia is receiving U.S. support in training Bolivian law-enforcement personnel but was equivocal about repeating 1990s tactics, while Aquilardo Caricari warned of resistance to military bases in the Chapare region and Cochabamba tropics.
- Experts say the agency's return marks an important foreign policy achievement for the United States, and Paz seeks to reclaim Bolivia's role as a U.S. partner, echoing his father Jaime Paz Zamora's earlier rapprochement.
- Amid acknowledged sensitivities in coca-growing areas, officials say a couple more meetings remain before Bolivia's foreign ministry finalizes terms for DEA's return, with U.S. diplomatic and law-enforcement teams involved.
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Associated Press News+8 Reposted by 8 other sources
DEA quietly resumes anti-drug coordination with Bolivia almost 20 years since its expulsion
A top Bolivian official says the United States has resumed intelligence coordination on counternarcotics efforts with Bolivia under its new president.
·United States
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Total News Sources9
Leaning Left6Leaning Right1Center2Last UpdatedBias Distribution67% Left
Bias Distribution
- 67% of the sources lean Left
67% Left
L 67%
C 22%
11%
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