Bolivia: Narco-state or Rogue State? | ¿Narcoestado o Estado forajido?

By Guido Añez Moscoso, Eju.tv:

Bolivia: Narco-state or Rogue State?

Guido Añez Moscoso – eju.tv

I can’t and won’t lose my capacity for astonishment at the news from my country. Yesterday, I heard cocalero leader Evo Morales accuse the Vice Minister of Social Defense and Fight Against Narcotrafficking, Jaime Mamani, also a cocalero leader, of protecting some drug traffickers and extorting others. The Vice Minister responded by accusing Evo Morales of protecting the drug traffickers of Villa Tunari and maintaining this municipality as a free territory and sanctuary for drug traffickers during Morales’ 14-year mandate.

Just hearing such statements from a former president, who never stopped being a cocalero, and an acting authority, I conclude that our society is characterized by a crisis of values.

Lying, fear, theft, corruption, loneliness, depression, and violence are its most common characteristics.

These characteristics create confusion and disorientation among the people in our society, leading to harmful, even pathological behaviors, and a dangerous and risky indifference in the middle sectors of the population who, faced with so much iniquity, have opted to step aside from the fundamental issues that affect us.

For these reasons and many other daily examples, I ask myself: Are we facing a narco-state or a rogue state?

The term narco-state or narco-economy is an economic and political neologism applied to countries whose political institutions are significantly influenced by the power and wealth of drug trafficking. In these countries, leaders simultaneously hold government positions and are members of illegal drug trafficking networks, protected by their legal powers.

A rogue state is defined as any nation or state that violates international law and poses a threat to the security of other nations. These are regimes that use terrorism as a policy to subdue their population and neighbors.

The infiltration of drug trafficking into Bolivian public spheres is undeniable. The core political base of MAS consists of cocaleros from Chapare. During Morales’ government, Law 1008 was changed to expand the cultivation of excess coca, legalizing Chapare coca, which does not go to any legal market and 95% of which goes to drug trafficking. Two of Morales’ anti-drug chiefs were arrested by international agencies.

We meet all international standards to be classified as a narco-state. The nations currently declared rogue states are Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela.

Our country is dangerously evolving toward this condition. Military agreements with Iran, involving military equipment, will have consequences. Argentina’s Security Minister’s allegations about the presence of Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guard members in Bolivia are very serious. The financing and presence of MAS paramilitaries in Peru during the conflict over President Castillo’s constitutional removal, and Evo Morales’ statements on Peru’s internal politics, are other elements to consider. The militarization of the border with Brazil, first by Bolsonaro’s government and then by Lula’s, to prevent the violent entry of drug trafficking mafias based in Chapare, is another factor. I could extend this list with more examples.

Nations with a relatively solid institutional framework, consolidated business organizations independent of organized crime, real separation and independence of powers, oversight bodies, and a free press are very difficult to classify as narco-states or rogue states. Unfortunately, we are not on that path, and the government is increasingly aligning itself with countries that are not exemplary in any way, such as theocratic dictatorships, failed regimes, and those with a naive vision of a stupid and outdated “anti-imperialism” in a globalized and increasingly interdependent world.

We still have the opportunity to change course with unity and determination.

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