Along with Colombia and Peru, Bolivia is widely recognized as a
leading world producer of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine,
but the government has long maintained production of
consumption-ready cocaine was limited.
In a shift of tone this week, the government said it had
destroyed a large number of laboratories, mostly in the tropical
Chapare region, one of the main coca growing areas and a
stronghold of former leftist President Evo Morales.
"In 2023 alone, our administration has destroyed more than 27
mega laboratories (there) for the crystallization of cocaine
hydrochloride," Minister of Government Eduardo del Castillo told
reporters, referring to the salt or powdered form of the drug.
"They are trying to turn our nation from being a drug transit
country to a drug-producing country," he added and presented a
drug trafficking map of some 1,804 drug factory busts since
2020, the "vast majority" in Chapare, he said.
The acknowledgement underscores the pressure the government
faces abroad and at home to tackle the issue as well as tensions
between socialist MAS President Luis Arce and Morales, his MAS
party rival and a former coca union leader in Chapare.
The government has been prodded to act domestically, including
by allies of Morales - president from 2006 until 2019 - who
suggest the government has been soft on traffickers.
"In these 17 years, the MAS governments have insisted that in
Bolivia there was only the phenomenon of transit of Peruvian
coca to other places," Bolivian economist and former drug
trafficking analyst Carlos Toranzo told Reuters.
"At the same time Bolivia has managed to transition from basic
paste to hydrochloride."
Beneath the shift in rhetoric, he added, were growing tensions
in MAS over who would lead it into elections in two years: Arce
or Morales.
"What's going on here? It's the candidacy for 2025, each one
wants to take the other out of the game," Toranzo said.
"In Bolivia we are experiencing a dispute between two factions
of the MAS, each one pointing the finger at the other suggesting
that they are protecting drug traffickers."
(Reporting by Monica Machicao; Writing by Daniel Ramos; Editing
by Adam Jourdan and Howard Goller)
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