Bolivia's half hearted coca restrictions

Washington Times:

Indigenous coca farmers who helped put President Evo Morales in power are violently resisting even the token eradication efforts demanded by the United States to avoid Bolivia's decertification as a country cooperating against drug trafficking.
Dissatisfied with new laws permitting peasant farmers to grow up to half an acre of coca for traditional use, the farmers are backing demands for increased acreage with road blocks and gunfights that so far have killed two growers and wounded two police officers.
The government, which this week was maneuvering in New York to secure a two-year term on the U.N. Security Council, is divided on how to proceed.
It came to power in January with strong backing from Andean Indians who for centuries have used the coca leaf as a mild stimulant, and Mr. Morales, a former coca grower who heads Bolivia's largest coca-growing syndicate in the Chapare Valley, has repeatedly pledged to use "peaceful" means to limit cultivation of the leaf.
But police and elements in his own government are concerned that as much as half the current coca production is being diverted into the production of cocaine for the illicit international market.
The State Department publicly warned Mr. Morales during his visit to the United Nations in New York last month that Bolivia must eliminate 12,000 acres of coca cultivation or face decertification as a country cooperating against drug trafficking, which would mean a cutoff of aid.
...
"We won't accept impositions," the president said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where he called for coca's legalization.
Instead, Mr. Morales has appealed to the coca syndicates to hold down production out of their own self-interest.
"We cannot allow the uncontrolled growth of coca, as it will reduce the price," Mr. Morales recently told a gathering of the Six Federations of Coca Growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba. He also admitted that "there exists an excess production of coca that generates a legal problem."
...

Morales should not be trusted to deal effectively on this issue. Aid is being wasted on this regime that is hostile to the the US anyway and in the camp of Chavez. If Morales was serious about controlling the growth of coca he would be rounding up some RoundUp and doing some eradication.